Phantom link glitch expunged

Greetings!

Today Dave, W8TVC and I installed a small circuit into the link for the 145.27 repeater to eliminate the phantom second squelch tail on stations entering the system from 144.67. This extra tail was caused by the aggregate summation of the PL decoder 'hang-in' along the link path and manifested itself as a quarter second of the 444.725 repeaters audio inserted on the 145.27 transmitter at the end of every 144.67mhz transmission. This also caused the 'ping-pong' bouncing occuring on many echolink connections. Hopefully it will clear up the 'bull horn' beep that somehow appears now and then on echolink connections. The cause for this occasional manifestation hasn't been fully determined, so this fix may have no effect on that situation.

We also updated the Echolink software to the most current version on the W8TVC node. Sadly, this version may not be stable on the computer we use as it has crashed the machine twice since it was installed. Work is underway to provide an adequate and reliable method for remote echolink users to control the remote bases in the system. Sadly, the DTMF pad in the newer Echolink software does not seem to be the best approach for making this functionality useful in this particular system (DTMF twist and kerchunker filters get in the way). My prospective workaround should be not only adequate, but easier to use.

The audio level irregularities continue, and will likely so until the spring. Thankfully the audio levels have been adjusted so that they are 'reasonably close' to optimum for most of the time. Occasionally the system will overmodulate a little for transmission, but this is tolerable considering all issues.

Film at eleven...

73
KF8KK

Audio Levels Update

Greetings!

Thanks to the continued good access to the repeater site I spent some time today troubleshooting the audio level fluctuation problems in the repeater controller.

Sadly, the problem is not limited to the 'audio crosspoint' switching IC, but appears to be an intermittant trace or a poor solder connection on the circuit board.

After swapping in a new crosspoint chip the problem persisted. I removed the board and reflowed the solder on the connections near that crosspoint chip. I'm not certain, but there may be some improvement, or not-- as my testing setup was lacking. I did, however, boost some of the levels to the 444.725 and 52.92 transmitters in hopes that it would make the problem more tolerable while we 'lived with it' for now.

Further troubleshooting will be lengthy and involved and require a period of time for the controller to reside on the workbench. This will not be attempted until the spring.

While at the site I programmed an Echolink speedial for the AL7RV node in Florida.

73
KF8KK