The repeater has been having issues in the cold where it does not transmit full power.  The 146.7 may seem to be offline a lot lately when in fact it has been online but without much power output.  The repeater has developed a problem where it fails to transmit from the power amplifier (PA) when the temperature gets down to a certain level.  If you are close to the repeater, then you can still hear it because it is the exciter only that is transmitting.  Since the repeater is located in a non temperature controlled environment, this has been an ongoing issue. Once the outside temperature rises to a level, then the repeater transmits with full power.  Clearly there is a cold solder joint but the lack of time has prevented us from troubleshooting it.

We are hopeful to get some time to work on it soon.  Yes, we do have alternate repeaters to use and we may do that in the near future to at least get it back online.  One of the reasons that we’ve not swapped out repeaters already is that each repeater has it’s own characteristics and the audio levels of the IRLP/Echolink nodes has to be reset with any change of repeater.  This is not a big job to do but just enough hassle that we’ve not been enthusiastic to make time in our busy schedules.  We will likely change it soon until we can get the current repeater temperature sensitive issue fixed.

Thanks for checking this site.