Dulles Repeater Down for Repair

[Frank Gentges]

We have had recurring problems with the Dulles repeater, W4DLS, for some 
time but it has not gone into a hard failure so we could diagnose the 
problem.

We went up today and checked the antenna SWR and found it excellent so 
we conclude the antenna is not all that bad and is most likely not the 
problem.  On occasion, the transmitter sounded like something very wrong 
with the phase lock loop exciter so we will check that out also.

The repeater seems OK except that the receiver sensitivity is down.  We 
turned off the repeater and have brought the radio chassis down to the 
lab to check out further.

Fortunately, we have a spare power supply we got at the VWS Winterfest 
so we did not need to bring that down.

We will let everyone know when we have it back on the air.

Frank K0BRA