Do libraries have flyers for local activities any more?
If they do, and could consider having a flyer or pamphlet for PARK then we coudl also enlist public libraries in the Plano area to host some flyers that promote ham radio and specifically promote PARK - we can assess the effectiveness of different campaigns by putting a QR code and web page specifically for each campaign -
library flyers - Interested in radio communications? Check out PARK
local ham mailers - Congrats on your license, check out PARK & Field Day!
store flyer - Hey HAM, join us for out next club meeting and Field Day
PR bulletins to local news - Interested in Radio, PARK's next meeting features this program...
e-mails to high schools and colleges
etc.
Your imagination is the limit when it comes to ways we can start to actively promote PARK to the surrounding community. Right now, none of this happens on a regular basis so adding anything is a massive improvement. With distinct landing pages for each outreach campaign, we can count, specifically, how many people hit that page, and when. Tracking this over time we can concretely measure what gets a response, what doesn't and then focus our energies on what works, cot off what doesn't, take notes, and try new things in rotation.
--
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub –
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
|
NEWSLETTER REMINDER: Officers I need your input this week
Please email me anything in your realm that deserves to be shared with the klub.
I would prefer to receive your submissions by March 10, if possible.
|
Tim, Anthony and BJ, we are good for meeting at Prosperity Bank on Thursday morning at 9:00.
?
BJ, I've attached the contact information for Danny Hernandez.? He will be our contact for Thursday.? Since you are the new assignee for the account Danny has asked that you fill out the attached ID form and send it before we meet.? That will speed things up on Thursday.
?
Tim and Anthony, we just need to bring our drivers' licenses.?
|
Replying inline:
On 3/6/25 7:18 PM, AE5IB (Kip) via groups.io wrote:
I would probably recommend 5 30A power supplies to replace
the 5 that died and leave it at that, with a surge protector.
KISS.
5 power supplies, and the UPS to carry us over waiting for the
Generator to kick in?
IMHO, the UPS, the urge protector (which the UPS should do too), and
5 30 amp power supplies is not as simple as
One power supply and one battery.? At least not as simple by my
count.
But if the board decides to go with Kip's recommendation, I think
the more industrial power supplies he linked to are good idea for
our admittedly industrial use case.
--
On 3/6/25 9:23 PM, Miranda Schwarck
KE5YZP via groups.io wrote:
There must be design in this system so
that the charger doesn't overcharge the battery but can also
supply the primary load,
you never want the battery to take the load as that causes
cycling and the battery wears out faster,
the charger (or supply) should always be able to take 100% of
the load
This is where I think they key difference is.
The way Jerry is doing it in Alaska is the battery handles the
intermittent big demand. Like starting a car. The charger is there
to slowly charge the battery back up to full. One big marine
battery can supply all the simultaneous demand, easily. Especially
since it is always intermittent, and, aside from Skywarn events,
very sparsely used, there's plenty of time to charge it back up to
full.
We do not have a consistent nor regularly repeated load on the
battery, which is what causes "memory" effect damage. Batteries in
cars, forklifts, golf carts, machinery, solar powered lights,
off-grid homes, and many other locations are constantly taking big
loads, yet they last for 5, 7 years or more. Lead acid batteries
are designed for hundreds of deep cycles. Unless the generator
doesn't start, and the repeater is in heavy use till the battery
dies, we're NEVER talking about deep cycling the battery.
A
power supply doesn't push power, it supplies power at the demand
of the load, in this case the battery and connected equipment.??
Good point. The power supply can be selected to have the lower
output rating for the float charge. I believe this is why the photo
Jerry sent me shows a big battery, but a small power supply. The
supply would never be able to carry his repeater transmitter load.
But the battery does, for 5 or 10 minutes of use, and then it sits
idle for the next 6 hours, or 6 days. Charged back up.
Why does he use a power supply instead of a charger that could
handle multiple rates of charging and include the blocking diodes to
avoid parasitic battery discharge, I don't know.? Simpler?? Cheaper?
I'm providing this as information as another way of supplying
AC-fault tolerant power for a rack of gear. Based on what's
installed in remote repeaters in and around Fairbanks, Alaska.
I do appreciate the discussion. :)?
Would have been fun to do this on the main PARK list for the club at
large to see what kind of research and discussion goes into this.
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub –
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
|
You are correct that this isn't a double conversion UPS (or
plant), the mention I was referencing was double conversion UPS types.
That being a 120v charger to battery to 120v (or 240, or 480)
inverter which is the style of system you are describing (always
on double conversion but missing the inverter at the end) due to
their stability as there are no blips or phase errors making it
through.?? Everything can be run via this system with buck
converters (if lower than 14v) easily and I've configured systems
like these in the past.
With dual conversion systems (or single in this case) you never
want the battery to take the load as that causes cycling and the
battery wears out faster, the charger (or supply) should always be
able to take 100% of the load plus charge the battery with the
battery only taking effect once the power goes out, which leads me
to...
Yes, the site has a generator, it appears to be propane and
SHOULD ATS at about 45 seconds due to being a small engine, I also
have install experience with these systems.?? The only reason to
have a larger than 10 minute battery life would be if the gen
fails due to any number of reasons at or upstream from it, it's up
to the club to decide how resilient to be beyond gen transfer
time.
I do have a curiosity with this though.
"As Jerry described it to me, the power supply pushing power into
the battery doesn't need to keep up with demand, because demand is
on the battery. The power supply is probably at the bottom end of
1/C so that when the battery is full it's not overcharged. I can
e-mail him to clarify if you'd like."
A power supply doesn't push power, it supplies power at the
demand of the load, in this case the battery and connected
equipment.?? The battery float voltage is where the battery stops
drawing energy to charge and will be minimal due to the parasitic
draw in the battery construction.?? There must be design in this
system so that the charger doesn't overcharge the battery but can
also supply the primary load, I use a RecPro supply in my car to
do just this. My charger runs 75A at most but also sits in various
stages to keep the batteries topped off in the event I stop using
it for awhile so it's ready to go when I come back.
If this is a bit rambly my apologies, it's a bit of an open
subject that I know a good bit about, I'm happy to explain things
in more detail if you need.
Miranda
On 3/6/2025 7:29 AM, Anthony KB3DVS
wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
For the repeater, the light weight and energy density, potential
fire risk, and higher cost of Lithium anything and specialized
charger is not needed in my opinion
I don't think it's double conversion...
wall 110v > 12v power supply > lead acid battery > gear.
Another advantage is that one big battery can power everything DC.
Just as we have one UPS powering everything. Just less complex.
With an APC UPS we have
wall 110v > 12v charger / battery / AC inverter > 110v >
12v power supply > gear
which has a a double conversion to 12v? to charge the battery and
back from 12v battery to 110v outlet, which then gets converted
back down to 12v with our power supplies for the radios. That's a
whole lot of extra back and forth IMHO.
As Jerry described it to me, the power supply pushing power into
the battery doesn't need to keep up with demand, because demand is
on the battery. The power supply is probably at the bottom end of
1/C so that when the battery is full it's not overcharged. I can
e-mail him to clarify if you'd like.
It's like a small watering can slowly, but consistently filling up
a big bucket.
As for the relay, it can be a sense circuit into the raspberry pi
that already does the announcements so that when it ID's and
there's no power coming from the wall-powered power supply, the ID
changes in a way that we'd know it's on battery, versus if there's
AC available. But this may not even be needed.
But if the power to the tower goes out, doesn't the tower have a
big generator that's supposed to kick in and supply power after a
few minutes. So our system, at a minimum, just needs to carry our
gear for a few minutes so nothing resets?
Yes, more run time can be good if there's a generator issue, but I
believe that was one of the benefits of locating at the tower was
the city-supplied backup power.
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub – http://k5prk.net
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 9:55 PM, Miranda Schwarck
KE5YZP via groups.io wrote:
Essentially what you're describing is a double conversion
UPS, the most expensive and quality UPS available.?? You don't
even need to use a battery cycle system, just use a charger
that can keep up with demand of charge but won't overcharge
the battery (DC-DC charger on one side with diodes on the
other), the system will keep itself topped off until an outage
then it will start discharging.?? For triggering it's normally
a 120v to 3.3v relay powered by wall voltage that can trip
pins on a pi which will then start either beeping during
transmissions or doing voice announcements at interval.?? The
ideal charging system would be single charger so there's no
need to attempt to load balance the chargers when it gets to
float voltage.
I can definitely rebuild this to do so but we would have to be
sure that we have overtemp sensing on the batteries (I've seen
some over 145*F) and that the city is OK with that kind of
battery in the facility.?? As it's not likely to off-gas or
burn it should be fine but if we wanted to use LiPo or LiFePo4
then there's a risk of that even if it's very small on the
LiFePo4 batteries. ? I essentially have this exact same system
with LiFePo4 batteries in my car so that when the car is
shutoff it has 200AH of? reserve which is charged as soon as
the car is plugged in or started and becomes feed through in
that condition.
Miranda
On 3/5/2025 1:01 PM, Anthony KB3DVS
wrote:
A suggestion I had made a bit ago was to use a lead acid or
AGM battery in between the AC supply and the radios.
I worked with a ham in Alaska, who manages several repeaters
and remote tower sites and this is how he does it, for
simplicity and reliability.
The AC is on a timer, to be able to charge the battery within
a few hours.
All the radio and compute runs off fused DC taps, (and voltage
converters) so that if AC dies, the DC is still there and he's
got 100+ AH batteries to carry it for days. He's got a bit of
compute to make an announcement / send a message if AC is
lost. There's diodes on the leads to the batteries to prevent
any backflow form the battery to the AC power supply.
The DC can directly power multiple radios / compute at the
same time as opposed to needing multiple AC adapters.
It's also cheaper than a similarly sized UPS solution that
converts the DC battery back to AC that is then converted back
to DC for the radios and compute.
Just an idea to consider if we're re-jiggering the power
solution for a rack of radios and compute.
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub – http://k5prk.net
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 11:40 AM, Miranda
Schwarck KE5YZP via groups.io wrote:
Tim,?
?
If we have someone willing to donate parts then I'll
take that over a paid replacement.? ?With both
transmitters enabled transmitting the time we were at 30
amps, if all radios were transmitting we might get to 45
amps since APRS doesn't transmit, or not often anyway.?
?This means we should be able to take those two supplies
plus the one still there and move the site back to
permanent hardware changing up the power distribution just
a bit.?
?
We also should determine if the D-Star rack would
benefit better from those supplies than the FM rack due to
form factor or loading issues, as I didn't have a key I
was unable to do any diagnostics on it.?
?
Miranda
|
My recommendation would to NOT replace them with the exact same thing.
I would recommend a power supply with a universal power input. The Mean Well ERPF-400-12 is available from Mouser for $51.90 It is 30A at 12V, we will not use anything near that but it will run cooler. It will operate from 90 to 264V AC, so it would probably have survived the power spike with no issues, It will withstand a 300 VAC voltage surge for 5 seconds. Again could have worked with a higher spike than the current ones. It has protection for, Short Circuit, Overload, Over Voltage, and over Temperature. It is 91% efficient. The data sheet is attached.
In addition I think we need a heavy duty surge protector for our cabinet. Something like this rated for 20A Now there was talk about power supply with a battery. You cannot do that directly. The problem is normally it will work fine unless you have a long term power outage. Then when the power comes on again the fixed voltage power supply charges the battery too fast because the battery voltage is low. You need something like this to do what you want.
So that is rated for 40A.
If we want to do that and put all of our eggs in one basket? we can get a 40A Power supply.
UHP-500-12 at $94.20
The interesting thing about these is that they can be put in parallel to still deliver 40A but from 2 different power sources.?
We are on the backup power for the Water Tower. I do not think the other radio equipment was on the same circuit as us. They did not appear to get the same spike we did. So If we had been plugged into the regular circuit with a second power supply we may have still been running. (Maybe.)?
These can be done for under the $300 limit unless you want the battery, and you could spend a lot on a battery.
I would probably recommend 5 30A power supplies to replace the 5 that died and leave it at that, with a surge protector.
KISS.
Kip On Wed, Mar 5, 2025 at 11:24?AM Miranda Schwarck KE5YZP via <miranda= [email protected]> wrote:
Hi Everyone,?
?
I'm back in town and was ready to fix the system as of last night however Allen had no techs available so it waited until this morning.? ?
Here's the repair summary.? (minus D-Star)
?
It appears that any power supply turned on was affected, a short diagnosis showed arcing behavior in the back of one supply, meaning our surge came in via electrical path, this is further shown by the one PSU that was off surviving.?
I have replaced all the power supplies with a single power supply, this supply has a 6 way fused breakout using as much existing cabling as possible to prevent having to modify it again when proper power supplies are reinstalled.?
While I have not managed to test the APRS or packet systems yet those radios are on and checking SWR on the VHF antenna showed no issues with expected wattage on the path.?
?
Does anyone have questions for me?? ?I'll look to be replacing these supplies with identical versions if they still exist otherwise we can look at a different solution for the permanent fix.?
Fred has also been notified the site is operational as Plano will want to know, he was also unaware that I didn't have a key for the D-Star cabinet, when I get access we can resolve power on that system as well.?
?
Miranda
|
For the repeater, the light weight and energy density, potential
fire risk, and higher cost of Lithium anything and specialized
charger is not needed in my opinion
I don't think it's double conversion...
wall 110v > 12v power supply > lead acid battery > gear.
Another advantage is that one big battery can power everything DC.
Just as we have one UPS powering everything. Just less complex.
With an APC UPS we have
wall 110v > 12v charger / battery / AC inverter > 110v >
12v power supply > gear
which has a a double conversion to 12v? to charge the battery and
back from 12v battery to 110v outlet, which then gets converted back
down to 12v with our power supplies for the radios. That's a whole
lot of extra back and forth IMHO.
As Jerry described it to me, the power supply pushing power into the
battery doesn't need to keep up with demand, because demand is on
the battery. The power supply is probably at the bottom end of 1/C
so that when the battery is full it's not overcharged. I can e-mail
him to clarify if you'd like.
It's like a small watering can slowly, but consistently filling up a
big bucket.
As for the relay, it can be a sense circuit into the raspberry pi
that already does the announcements so that when it ID's and there's
no power coming from the wall-powered power supply, the ID changes
in a way that we'd know it's on battery, versus if there's AC
available. But this may not even be needed.
But if the power to the tower goes out, doesn't the tower have a big
generator that's supposed to kick in and supply power after a few
minutes. So our system, at a minimum, just needs to carry our gear
for a few minutes so nothing resets?
Yes, more run time can be good if there's a generator issue, but I
believe that was one of the benefits of locating at the tower was
the city-supplied backup power.
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub –
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 9:55 PM, Miranda Schwarck
KE5YZP via groups.io wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Essentially what you're describing is a double conversion UPS,
the most expensive and quality UPS available.?? You don't even
need to use a battery cycle system, just use a charger that can
keep up with demand of charge but won't overcharge the battery
(DC-DC charger on one side with diodes on the other), the system
will keep itself topped off until an outage then it will start
discharging.?? For triggering it's normally a 120v to 3.3v relay
powered by wall voltage that can trip pins on a pi which will
then start either beeping during transmissions or doing voice
announcements at interval.?? The ideal charging system would be
single charger so there's no need to attempt to load balance the
chargers when it gets to float voltage.
I can definitely rebuild this to do so but we would have to be
sure that we have overtemp sensing on the batteries (I've seen
some over 145*F) and that the city is OK with that kind of
battery in the facility.?? As it's not likely to off-gas or burn
it should be fine but if we wanted to use LiPo or LiFePo4 then
there's a risk of that even if it's very small on the LiFePo4
batteries. ? I essentially have this exact same system with
LiFePo4 batteries in my car so that when the car is shutoff it
has 200AH of? reserve which is charged as soon as the car is
plugged in or started and becomes feed through in that
condition.
Miranda
On 3/5/2025 1:01 PM, Anthony KB3DVS
wrote:
A suggestion I had made a bit ago was to use a lead acid or AGM
battery in between the AC supply and the radios.
I worked with a ham in Alaska, who manages several repeaters and
remote tower sites and this is how he does it, for simplicity
and reliability.
The AC is on a timer, to be able to charge the battery within a
few hours.
All the radio and compute runs off fused DC taps, (and voltage
converters) so that if AC dies, the DC is still there and he's
got 100+ AH batteries to carry it for days. He's got a bit of
compute to make an announcement / send a message if AC is lost.
There's diodes on the leads to the batteries to prevent any
backflow form the battery to the AC power supply.
The DC can directly power multiple radios / compute at the same
time as opposed to needing multiple AC adapters.
It's also cheaper than a similarly sized UPS solution that
converts the DC battery back to AC that is then converted back
to DC for the radios and compute.
Just an idea to consider if we're re-jiggering the power
solution for a rack of radios and compute.
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub –
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 11:40 AM, Miranda
Schwarck KE5YZP via groups.io wrote:
Tim,?
?
If we have someone willing to donate parts then I'll take
that over a paid replacement.? ?With both transmitters
enabled transmitting the time we were at 30 amps, if all
radios were transmitting we might get to 45 amps since APRS
doesn't transmit, or not often anyway.? ?This means we
should be able to take those two supplies plus the one still
there and move the site back to permanent hardware changing
up the power distribution just a bit.?
?
We also should determine if the D-Star rack would benefit
better from those supplies than the FM rack due to form
factor or loading issues, as I didn't have a key I was
unable to do any diagnostics on it.?
?
Miranda
|
Essentially what you're describing is a double conversion UPS,
the most expensive and quality UPS available.?? You don't even
need to use a battery cycle system, just use a charger that can
keep up with demand of charge but won't overcharge the battery
(DC-DC charger on one side with diodes on the other), the system
will keep itself topped off until an outage then it will start
discharging.?? For triggering it's normally a 120v to 3.3v relay
powered by wall voltage that can trip pins on a pi which will then
start either beeping during transmissions or doing voice
announcements at interval.?? The ideal charging system would be
single charger so there's no need to attempt to load balance the
chargers when it gets to float voltage.
I can definitely rebuild this to do so but we would have to be
sure that we have overtemp sensing on the batteries (I've seen
some over 145*F) and that the city is OK with that kind of battery
in the facility.?? As it's not likely to off-gas or burn it should
be fine but if we wanted to use LiPo or LiFePo4 then there's a
risk of that even if it's very small on the LiFePo4 batteries. ? I
essentially have this exact same system with LiFePo4 batteries in
my car so that when the car is shutoff it has 200AH of? reserve
which is charged as soon as the car is plugged in or started and
becomes feed through in that condition.
Miranda
On 3/5/2025 1:01 PM, Anthony KB3DVS
wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
A suggestion I had made a bit ago was to use a lead acid or AGM
battery in between the AC supply and the radios.
I worked with a ham in Alaska, who manages several repeaters and
remote tower sites and this is how he does it, for simplicity and
reliability.
The AC is on a timer, to be able to charge the battery within a
few hours.
All the radio and compute runs off fused DC taps, (and voltage
converters) so that if AC dies, the DC is still there and he's got
100+ AH batteries to carry it for days. He's got a bit of compute
to make an announcement / send a message if AC is lost. There's
diodes on the leads to the batteries to prevent any backflow form
the battery to the AC power supply.
The DC can directly power multiple radios / compute at the same
time as opposed to needing multiple AC adapters.
It's also cheaper than a similarly sized UPS solution that
converts the DC battery back to AC that is then converted back to
DC for the radios and compute.
Just an idea to consider if we're re-jiggering the power solution
for a rack of radios and compute.
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub – http://k5prk.net
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 11:40 AM, Miranda Schwarck
KE5YZP via groups.io wrote:
Tim,?
?
If we have someone willing to donate parts then I'll take
that over a paid replacement.? ?With both transmitters enabled
transmitting the time we were at 30 amps, if all radios were
transmitting we might get to 45 amps since APRS doesn't
transmit, or not often anyway.? ?This means we should be able
to take those two supplies plus the one still there and move
the site back to permanent hardware changing up the power
distribution just a bit.?
?
We also should determine if the D-Star rack would benefit
better from those supplies than the FM rack due to form factor
or loading issues, as I didn't have a key I was unable to do
any diagnostics on it.?
?
Miranda
|
Re: More battery power info
I am not the expert in it, that's Jerry in Fairbanks.?? :)
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub –
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 2:58 PM, KG5WHQ - Lonnie via
groups.io wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Jerry,
This
information would make (or lead to) a really awesome newsletter
article... just sayin'.
er,
begging..
--Lonnie Webb,?(KG5WHQ)
? RadioEngine, OnComics on
Rumble, YouTube and Twitter
On Wednesday, March 5th, 2025 at
1:15 PM, Anthony KB3DVS <KB3DVS@...> wrote:
Images
attached of Jerry's setup.
Sound like you'r charging setup is working just fine. I usuallly let the charge taper down to 1-2 amps. I actually have mine on
a timer. On at 8am and off at 9p. Once the battery is charged up to the set voltage on your charger it won't take anymore
so if you adjust the charger (PS) to a good value you can't overcharge. Putting on the timer takes it all off line
when you go to bed so you don't have to worry about it during the night.
Yes...10 amp charger needs at least a 20 amp diode. Even at 10 amps a 20 amp diode will get warm. I use 40 and 50amp
for I have plenty of wiggle room. Check ebay for solar blocking diodes. diode you show is fine. Most are rated for at least 50volts so that's not an issue.
Have fun.
Jerry
-------- Forwarded Message --------
This battery powers my 500w SGC amp.
|
Re: More battery power info
Jerry,
This information would make (or lead to) a really awesome newsletter article... just sayin'.
er, begging..
--Lonnie Webb,?(KG5WHQ)
? RadioEngine, OnComics on Rumble, YouTube and Twitter
On Wednesday, March 5th, 2025 at 1:15 PM, Anthony KB3DVS <KB3DVS@...> wrote:
Images attached of Jerry's setup.
Sound like you'r charging setup is working just fine. I usuallly let the charge taper down to 1-2 amps. I actually have mine on
a timer. On at 8am and off at 9p. Once the battery is charged up to the set voltage on your charger it won't take anymore
so if you adjust the charger (PS) to a good value you can't overcharge. Putting on the timer takes it all off line
when you go to bed so you don't have to worry about it during the night.
Yes...10 amp charger needs at least a 20 amp diode. Even at 10 amps a 20 amp diode will get warm. I use 40 and 50amp
for I have plenty of wiggle room. Check ebay for solar blocking diodes. diode you show is fine. Most are rated for at least 50volts so that's not an issue.
Have fun.
Jerry
-------- Forwarded Message --------
This battery powers my 500w SGC amp.
|
Images attached of Jerry's setup.
Sound like you'r charging setup is working just fine. I usuallly let the charge taper down to 1-2 amps. I actually have mine on
a timer. On at 8am and off at 9p. Once the battery is charged up to the set voltage on your charger it won't take anymore
so if you adjust the charger (PS) to a good value you can't overcharge. Putting on the timer takes it all off line
when you go to bed so you don't have to worry about it during the night.
Yes...10 amp charger needs at least a 20 amp diode. Even at 10 amps a 20 amp diode will get warm. I use 40 and 50amp
for I have plenty of wiggle room. Check ebay for solar blocking diodes. diode you show is fine. Most are rated for at least 50volts so that's not an issue.
Have fun.
Jerry
-------- Forwarded Message --------
This battery powers my 500w SGC amp.
|
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub –
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 1:01 PM, Anthony KB3DVS
wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
A suggestion I had made a bit ago was to use a lead acid or AGM
battery in between the AC supply and the radios.
I worked with a ham in Alaska, who manages several repeaters and
remote tower sites and this is how he does it, for simplicity and
reliability.
The AC is on a timer, to be able to charge the battery within a
few hours.
All the radio and compute runs off fused DC taps, (and voltage
converters) so that if AC dies, the DC is still there and he's got
100+ AH batteries to carry it for days. He's got a bit of compute
to make an announcement / send a message if AC is lost. There's
diodes on the leads to the batteries to prevent any backflow form
the battery to the AC power supply.
The DC can directly power multiple radios / compute at the same
time as opposed to needing multiple AC adapters.
It's also cheaper than a similarly sized UPS solution that
converts the DC battery back to AC that is then converted back to
DC for the radios and compute.
Just an idea to consider if we're re-jiggering the power solution
for a rack of radios and compute.
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub –
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 11:40 AM, Miranda Schwarck
KE5YZP via groups.io wrote:
Tim,?
?
If we have someone willing to donate parts then I'll take
that over a paid replacement.? ?With both transmitters enabled
transmitting the time we were at 30 amps, if all radios were
transmitting we might get to 45 amps since APRS doesn't
transmit, or not often anyway.? ?This means we should be able
to take those two supplies plus the one still there and move
the site back to permanent hardware changing up the power
distribution just a bit.?
?
We also should determine if the D-Star rack would benefit
better from those supplies than the FM rack due to form factor
or loading issues, as I didn't have a key I was unable to do
any diagnostics on it.?
?
Miranda
|
A suggestion I had made a bit ago was to use a lead acid or AGM
battery in between the AC supply and the radios.
I worked with a ham in Alaska, who manages several repeaters and
remote tower sites and this is how he does it, for simplicity and
reliability.
The AC is on a timer, to be able to charge the battery within a few
hours.
All the radio and compute runs off fused DC taps, (and voltage
converters) so that if AC dies, the DC is still there and he's got
100+ AH batteries to carry it for days. He's got a bit of compute to
make an announcement / send a message if AC is lost. There's diodes
on the leads to the batteries to prevent any backflow form the
battery to the AC power supply.
The DC can directly power multiple radios / compute at the same time
as opposed to needing multiple AC adapters.
It's also cheaper than a similarly sized UPS solution that converts
the DC battery back to AC that is then converted back to DC for the
radios and compute.
Just an idea to consider if we're re-jiggering the power solution
for a rack of radios and compute.
Anthony Burokas
General Class Ham (KB3DVS)
VP: Plano Amateur Radio Klub –
25-year video producer — IEBA.com
On 3/5/25 11:40 AM, Miranda Schwarck
KE5YZP via groups.io wrote:
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Tim,?
?
If we have someone willing to donate parts then I'll take
that over a paid replacement.? ?With both transmitters enabled
transmitting the time we were at 30 amps, if all radios were
transmitting we might get to 45 amps since APRS doesn't
transmit, or not often anyway.? ?This means we should be able to
take those two supplies plus the one still there and move the
site back to permanent hardware changing up the power
distribution just a bit.?
?
We also should determine if the D-Star rack would benefit
better from those supplies than the FM rack due to form factor
or loading issues, as I didn't have a key I was unable to do any
diagnostics on it.?
?
Miranda
|
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From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
On Behalf Of Miranda Schwarck KE5YZP via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2025 11:41
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [K5PRK-Board] Repeater Summary
?
If we have someone willing to donate parts then I'll take that over a paid replacement.? ?With both transmitters enabled transmitting the time we were at 30 amps, if all radios were transmitting we might get to 45 amps since APRS doesn't
transmit, or not often anyway.? ?This means we should be able to take those two supplies plus the one still there and move the site back to permanent hardware changing up the power distribution just a bit.?
We also should determine if the D-Star rack would benefit better from those supplies than the FM rack due to form factor or loading issues, as I didn't have a key I was unable to do any diagnostics on it.?
|
Tim,?
?
If we have someone willing to donate parts then I'll take that over a paid replacement.? ?With both transmitters enabled transmitting the time we were at 30 amps, if all radios were transmitting we might get to 45 amps since APRS doesn't transmit, or not often anyway.? ?This means we should be able to take those two supplies plus the one still there and move the site back to permanent hardware changing up the power distribution just a bit.?
?
We also should determine if the D-Star rack would benefit better from those supplies than the FM rack due to form factor or loading issues, as I didn't have a key I was unable to do any diagnostics on it.?
?
Miranda
|
Miranda,
?
Thank you for getting us back on the air.
?
Bob K5MVZ has
a rack mount with 2-30 amp Astron switching supplies available for donation.
I think he and Kip are getting together on Friday to try them out.? Your call though, to use them or replace them as you mentioned below.
?
Tim
?
?
?
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From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
On Behalf Of Miranda Schwarck KE5YZP via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2025 11:24
To: [email protected]
Subject: [K5PRK-Board] Repeater Summary
?
I'm back in town and was ready to fix the system as of last night however Allen had no techs available so it waited until this morning.? ?
Here's the repair summary.? (minus D-Star)
It appears that any power supply turned on was affected, a short diagnosis showed arcing behavior in the back of one supply, meaning our surge came in via electrical path, this is further shown by the one PSU that was off surviving.?
I have replaced all the power supplies with a single power supply, this supply has a 6 way fused breakout using as much existing cabling as possible to prevent having to modify it again when proper power supplies are reinstalled.?
While I have not managed to test the APRS or packet systems yet those radios are on and checking SWR on the VHF antenna showed no issues with expected wattage on the path.?
Does anyone have questions for me?? ?I'll look to be replacing these supplies with identical versions if they still exist otherwise we can look at a different solution for the permanent fix.?
Fred has also been notified the site is operational as Plano will want to know, he was also unaware that I didn't have a key for the D-Star cabinet, when I get access we can resolve power on that system as well.?
|
Hi Everyone,?
?
I'm back in town and was ready to fix the system as of last night however Allen had no techs available so it waited until this morning.? ?
Here's the repair summary.? (minus D-Star)
?
It appears that any power supply turned on was affected, a short diagnosis showed arcing behavior in the back of one supply, meaning our surge came in via electrical path, this is further shown by the one PSU that was off surviving.?
I have replaced all the power supplies with a single power supply, this supply has a 6 way fused breakout using as much existing cabling as possible to prevent having to modify it again when proper power supplies are reinstalled.?
While I have not managed to test the APRS or packet systems yet those radios are on and checking SWR on the VHF antenna showed no issues with expected wattage on the path.?
?
Does anyone have questions for me?? ?I'll look to be replacing these supplies with identical versions if they still exist otherwise we can look at a different solution for the permanent fix.?
Fred has also been notified the site is operational as Plano will want to know, he was also unaware that I didn't have a key for the D-Star cabinet, when I get access we can resolve power on that system as well.?
?
Miranda
|
I’m not sure what’s there - just thought I remember hearing it was a remote access APC UPS. I did look today and it appears APC only gives a 10 day window from the day of the event to file a claim.
Rob
K5WFR
|
Rob,??
?
I'll have to check if that applies for these units, they use to have a $25,000 warranty if it came through the device.? The issue with this is they will see the air component, all the radios and antennas and probably not cover it since your average servers don't have a roof presence.?
?
Do we know when this UPS was registered?? That would be part of the information APC would need when starting a claim, we can at least query them and see what they say.?
?
Miranda?
|
Looks like my previous email got lost.?
?
Kip said that we should have insurance for this kind of thing, can we verify if that's still active and what the limits and deductibles are?? ?This may prove to be very costly if we have to start replacing repeater modules and anything in the D-Star system. That number just goes up in there's antenna damage on the tower (for example a direct strike happened).
?
I'll be getting back in to Dallas tonight at around 8 and will gather some parts to see if I can bring the system up enough to test it further.? ?We know at least the power supplies are damaged, hopefully this will get us a good indicator on the rest of the equipment and we can at least be partially up.?
?
I do know that Plano has requested an update for readiness and that Fred is fielding that one, I'll be updating Fred on the repair progress as I have it as well.?
?
Miranda?
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Anthony KB3DVS
KG5WHQ - Lonnie
Tim Johnson K5TCJ