RETURN TO THE KENDALL MOUNTAIN SITE

On August 15,1998 several of the area ham operators got together and began to re-work  the Kendall repeater. The project included adding two more gel batteries for a total of 6 batteries.  An additional cabinet was hand carried to the top of Kendall Mountain.  Power cables had to be run from the top cabinet, (the batteries) to the bottom cabinet, where the repeater is located. The original repeater was replaced with this permanent repeater. This new repeater has a link controller with multi-channel 440 mhz capabilities.  The future plan is to have the Kendall repeater link with the Eagle Pass repeater and another repeater in Durango for expanded coverage. The expanded area of coverage would be from Grand Junction Colorado in the north, to Cuba New Mexico to the south, some 300 miles north to south.

This work group completed the task in the afternoon, between the daily afternoon rain and hail showers. The gallery of photos of the work crews were taken by several people. Harley's new Casio QV-700 Digital camera was used to save the photos. The Durango repeater had also been changed out earlier with a new one with a state-of-the-art controller. The Kendall and Eagle Pass repeater were left linked together to test of the system, as of the end of August it still works great.

An additional tower section had to be carried up the hill for the future addition of the Colorado Connection, (next year hopefully).

The work area as seen from the east side of the mountain top.  The altitude, (13,080') works against us requiring several breaks.

In this photo the installation can be seen a little bit better .  The cabinets have been mounted against the tower sections. Some of the group plan the next step.

The view inside the top cabinet before the batteries were mounted. The crew is mounting the top cabinet , on top of the radio cabinet.  note all the supervisors!!!

This is  an additional  view of the work area with the view of the mountains to the west. The view will also give you and idea of the height of this repeater. The snow in the winter will pile up over the first cabinet to the bottom of the solar panels which is over six feet.