Rizki, It wasn't hard. I used two Siemens 75-watt solar panels, two Challenger 105 AH solar SLA batteries, and a SunWize-Steca Sigma charge controller. The batteries, charge controller, and the R1225 radio are inside a stainless steel Hoffman box that is bolted to a very heavy triangular frame that is ten feet on a side. A sturdy leg at each corner of the frame holds the frame about a foot off the ground. A three inch diameter, ten foot tall pipe in the center of the frame supports a Decibel Products DB404L dipole antenna configured for an elliptical pattern. It just happens that the two areas where radio coverage is needed are 180 degrees apart from the mountain ridge, so an elliptical pattern is ideal. The bottom of the antenna support pipe is bonded to several driven ground rods with 4/0 copper wire. All of this is bolted together with stainless steel hardware. The position within the support frame of the solar panels and the antenna ensures that deer and other animals cannot damage them by scratching themselves against the equipment. The weight of the entire assembly and its very low center of gravity keep it in position. It has been struck by lightning many times, but since everything is bonded together in close proximity to the support pipe, radio operation was unaffected.
This system has operated flawlessly since its installation. I visit the site every few months to check on the battery charge level and to clean bird droppings off the solar panels. The reliability comes from overdesign in both mechanical and electrical aspects. Schottky diodes isolate the two solar panels from each other, and the two batteries from each other. The charge controller has the "intelligence" to compensate for this arrangement, and the excess of both solar panel capacity and storage battery capacity ensures that the repeater can operate at full power even after several days of foggy weather. This installation was intended to be temporary, while a permanent structure was built for two MTR2000 repeater systems. Unfortunately, budget and schedule issues militated against a speedy construction, leaving my "interim" repeater in place far longer than intended. It's still there, chugging faithfully along! The Kenwood TKR-750 (VHF) and TKR-850 (UHF) repeaters are roughly equivalent to the Motorola R1225, both being full-duplex transceivers packaged in a rackmount or desktop cabinet. I prefer Motorola over Kenwood, simply because the reverse burst format is different between the two brands, and silent muting is required. All of the portable and mobile radios in my commercial fleet are Motorola. Had they been Kenwood, I would have installed a Kenwood repeater. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY Rizki Pratama wrote: > > Interesting. How did you setup the solar powered repeater to be reliable? > Any more suggestion on Repeater other than Motorola? Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Repeater-Builder/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
