1489 Holy Cross Blvd, Cornwall Ontario K6H 2W9
Year 2007, 2008
Most
of the activity in the club
has been wrapped around installaton of a number of communications
systems in Cornwall and area in support of the City's Emergency
Management Commitee.
We
are required to assist
officialdom in the case of declared emergencies. This means that we are
required to provide our equipment resources and our own skills and
abilities if the municipality requests them.
In support of this, we decided to
apply for a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to be used to
purchase
and install a communications system in the two Emergency operations
centers in the city, and in some other critical locations. We didn't
expect it to be accepted, and we were very surprised to get a phone
call stating that we were approved, and shortly after that, a cheque in
the mail for $26,400.
We
went shopping. We purchased
several Yaesu 8800 VHF/UHF radios (with power supplies and antennas,
etc), two Icom 706MK2G radios with tuners, HF antennas, three Alinco
DR135T radios with TNCs, three Kantronix KPC3 boxes, and myriads of
connectors, adaptors, mounts, tripods, etc.
We
set up the primary EOC system in a
room dedicated to communications at the main EOC. It contains a Yaesu
8800
VHF/UHF radio, an Icom 706MK2G HF/VHF/UHF radio, an Alinco DR135T VHF
radio for packet, a Computer-Monitor-Printer combination to run the
packet radio, a homemade control panel, etc. The computer is running
Outpost which uses the packet system to send emails over the radio to
another similarily equipped system. We got this all set up, and because
the municipality had to shuffle employees around, we lost the room.
This equipment is now installed in the corner of a board room.
A
five foot 19 inch rack was
donated, and by adding a number of rack shelves, we produced a
semi-portable system that got installed in the second EOC. It has to be
relocatable, so it is in a rack on wheels. Mind you, it weighs 300
pounds. It contains a Yaesu 8800
VHF/UHF radio, an Icom 706MK2G HF/VHF/UHF radio, an Alinco DR135T VHF
radio for packet, a Computer- Monitor-Printer combination to run the
packet radio, a homemade control panel, etc.
Three
other single-radio systems
were assembled to be used in the Red Cross office, the Cornwall Civic
Complex which is the primary shelter, and a mobile unit which can be
moved around as necessary.
We
ran into an accessability
problem with the city administration because they require a high level
of liability insurance before we can have access to rooftops owned by
the city. This was before RAC offered the accident insurance with their
membership. I got a 30 page letter from the 'Risk Analysist and
Insurance' clerk at the city listing all the different insurance
coverages we had to have, and why we couldn't do anything without it. I
got rather upset and shelved the project for several months.
We
realized that we could get
around all the legal stuff by hiring a licenced electrical contractor
to do the physical rooftop installations for us. We did this, and used
Barry Latreille Electric in Cornwall, who is the contractor of
preference for the city. Their crews know the city buildings very well,
and the administration was satisfied to have them do the rooftop work.
So,
in September of 2008, I got
my butt in gear, arranged with the electricians to do the work, and
with help from Doug, VE3HTR, Jim VE3AFV and John VA3EDG we got
everything ready to go up.
I
had expressed at a city EMC
meeting that my biggest hurdle was getting the antennas and their
rather heavy bases to the roof of the main EOC building. The Fire
Chief, Vic, offered to have the equipment placed on the roof of the
building using their shiny new ladder truck. We took them up on this,
and was it an impressive sight!
The
picture to the right is the
ladder truck on the street lifting some of our items to the roof.
The
picture below is the bucket of the truck loaded with our antennas on
their tripods. 
At
the main EOC, the three
VHF/UHF antennas are Jetstream JTB2 antennas, 100 inches tall, mounted
on pipes which in turn are mounted in three foot tripods. These are
mounted on a pedestal which is made up of two layers of 7/8 inch
pressure treated plywood cut into 4 foot squares, on top of a 4 foot
square piece of one inch pink code board. These have a couple of deck
blocks (the cement feet under a deck) to hold them down. This is the
recommended way for installing them on a tar and gravel roof. The code
board is so the weight will cause the stones to push into the code
board instead of being pushed down through the tar and risking
puncturing the rubber waterproofing membrane below the tar. This is the
way the roofing contractor said to do it. There is also a wire dipole
antenna for HF mounted on the roof of the main EOC.
The
buiding where the second
EOC is located has a
metal roof and was designed by an architect on a high. There isn't a
straight surface on it anywhere. In this installation, we had to
have 5 antennas, one HF vertical (no room for a dipole), three
Jetstreams for our VHF/UHF equipment, and a VHF antenna for the city
radio. This is the radio that communicates with their mobile command
station. They put the radio and an antenna at the main EOC, but didn't
install anything at the second EOC.
We
had a surplus antenna that is identical to the antenna used at the main
EOC for the city radio, so we included it in the second EOC
installation. Because of the lack of vertical walls that we could use,
we mounted a pair of 12 foot long 2x6 pieces of pressure treated
lumber, painted blue to match the building. We then mounted the
five antennas on these pieces of lumber and cabled them into the
location where the radio rack is installed. The photo to the right is
the second EOC antenna installation. The leftmost antenna is for the
city radio. The three white antennas are jetstream dualband antennas
for the three VHF/UHF radios, and the tall one in the center is a
Hygain DX88 for the Icom 706mk2g radio's HF side.
The
third installation we had to
do on city property was on the Cornwall civic complex, which is used as
the main
shelter. The single Jetstream dualband antenna was installed on a
Jiffee pole holding up
some of the air handling ducts on the roof. You can just see the
antenna sticking up in the photo below.
In
August we had a club get-together at the summer home of Patricia,
VA3PUR on Hamilton Island, about 15 miles east of Cornwall. A number of
members gathered, and Patricia's brother Marc manned the barbeque. The
picture below was taken at the barbeque. Patricia's cottage is on the
St Lawrence river and we were treated to a number of boats, a few
ships and there were lots of geese and ducks in the vicinity. The
weather was
perfect and we had a very enjoyable and sociable time.
We also have installed two antennas on the
roof of the new Red Cross building. One of these is a jetstream VHF/UHF
antenna, and the other is a HyGain DX88 HF antenna. We haven't got an
HF radio for this site, but we will have an antenna so we can take one
in with us if we need it.
In
January of 2009, we moved VA3SDG from the repeater owner's home
to the Hospital site with our other repeaters. This repeater, on
444.450+ has an IRLP node (2804) and it works very well. The actual
repeater is made up of a Motorola R1225 transceiver, which is a
repeater in a box, a power supply and a duplexer along with an Alinco
DR235 220 Mhz transceiver which is part of a link to the location where
the IRLP computer is. We wired the Motorola to the Alinco and
everything worked perfectly right away. We are very pleased with the
performance of the Motorola R1225 transceiver with the Alinco link.
With 5 watts out of the Motorola, we are getting about a 25 mile radius
of operation.
We
are now preparing an IRLP node for our VHF repeater, VE3SVC. When it is
up and running, it will be on node 2811.