Work Party at VE7IRN Iron Mountain September 2023

At Iron Mountain in September, Myles VE7FSR, Dave VE7LTD, Ian VE7HHS, and Simon VE7RIZ worked together to assess and resolve the intermod issue that was causing issues with the VE7IRN repeater.  While there Dave and Ian discovered that the APRS antenna feedline had been nicked and was full of water.  After shortening the coax feedline and replacing the connector the APRS antenna tested OK and the APRS iGate was put back into operation.  Dave determined that the intermod issue seems to have been the result of loose bolts on the tower -- when the repeater was in transmit and the tower moved the loose bolts became diodes and rectified the RF causing noise on the input of the repeater.  The bolts on the bottom third of the tower (all we could access without climbing gear) were tightened and the noise seems to have been eliminated.