Apologies to those ops who were trying to connect to an IRLP node or reflector on 14th Febrauary 2014. The OA node hard drive had become full with other data that shares the drive, preventing node connections and the self cleansing script had failed. The unnecessary data has now been deleted and now all is well.
After very strong winds, rain and 100mph gusts battered Southport last night, 12th Feb14, surprisingly this morning GB3OA’s mast and antenna were still stood up strong. Phil G8XVV and David G4TUP had a QSO via OA at the height of the storm, and although lights were dipping OA continued at full strength.
However, son Michael of Repeater Keeper Mark G4EID was one to get caught in the storm when he and other personnel and customers were evacuated from a leisure centre that stands right by the coastline after part of the roof became damaged.
The immense storm last night certainly tested the repeater’s mast and antenna to the full….
Sunday February 9th 2014 saw the first occasion when the Southport RAYNET Emergency Service used GB3OA exclusively. This was for an important safety and emergency exercise during the Mad Dog 10km run to test the use of the repeater when used in a real emergency when operators would be stationed in various areas of Southport.
The trial worked 100% and Southport RAYNET Group Controller Stuart G3OCR, at the end of the exercise commented over OA how well the repeater had handled the traffic and thanked normal users from refraining to use the repeater during the exercise.
According to the Shoutcast stream logs there were a number of listeners worldwide, including Dutch SWL Paul PE7B who sent in an admirable report on all RAYNET stations using the repeater, and commented “from the comfort of my warm and quiet living room over here in Holland”.
The Stream page has been pretty much rewritten now. This is after extensive testing to find a stream player that can handle flaky wifi, 3G or internet feeds. To find out which player it is and how to connect it The Stream page tells all.
Update for recommended player for Shoutcast stream Read More »
It’s now quite easy to have CTCSS on older rigs with the introduction of the PBCT1LP board, the size of a postage stamp.
For full details and a demo of its use on an FT290 see the Operating ‘OA page.