On February 6, 2010 the K5GLH tower came down.  This is the tower that hosted the 443.3 MHz repeater (WIN System).  This was a move that had nothing to do with the Del City Amateur Radio club but rather to help facilitate the sale of my home.  As I have posted before, we are planning to buy a new home but we need to remove the tower because many potential buyers may see it as an eye sore.

This was a sad moment for me but it was a necessary move to be able to sell our home for the most we can.  I took 87 pictures of this removal and have them on Flickr.

In this picture you can see the top section coming down.

As you can see in the photo above the last section is being removed.

In this photo you can see the spot where the tower once was.  This is a very sad image to me although I know it was a necessary move.  I know many of you are wondering where this leaves the 443.3 MHz repeater.  Well the antenna that was on the top of this tower can be seen in the photo below.

This antenna has been installed on a side mount on the same tower that the 145.25 MHz repeater is installed.  As soon as weather permits, this will be connected to the 443.3 repeater in the new location.  This being a side mount installation on the Southwest leg of the tower will likely result a null to the Northeast.

In this photo you can see the UHF antenna being installed in its new configuration on the W5QO tower.  This will be the new home of the 443.3 MHz repeater.  At some point this antenna may be raised to the top on a candelabra type installation.  Keep an ear open for this repeater when the weather clears up.  This was a very busy weekend getting the tower taken down and the antenna being reinstalled at the new location.  I am hopeful that everything goes smooth on the new tower.  The IRLP will be a new challenge and may have to be moved as well to enable both nodes to work.  Each node requires its own unique external IP address to be able to operate.  This is because both nodes use the same ports and a router could not forward the same ports in two directions.  This is a small problem that will be resolved in the coming days.  The club officers were in agreement that we needed communication with the members as to the status of this move.  This post is being posted both on the club blog as well as my personal blog so that this information will be the most widely disseminated.

Thanks,

Paul, K5GLH