TARAPONUI ‘ 405 AERIAL REPLACEMENT
On 6th February, 2012, Laurie ZL2TC, Warren ZL2AJ and David ZL2DW travelled to Taraponui HB (4300 ft asl) to replace a previously discovered faulty ‘405 repeater aerial. The job went well but the weather could have been kinder to us. We started the day off in rain/drizzle but had cause to be optimistic as there were patches of “no rain”.
The almost finished arrangement at Taraponui. Top aerial is a UHF collinear (for ‘405) fed with LDF 550 coax. cable. The two phased dipoles are for the ‘725 repeater transmitter, again fed with LDF 550 coax. cable. (The UHF corner reflector aerial is for commercial use).
However on site we worked mostly in cloud and drizzle and a light southerly, the temperature was 8 deg’s brrrrrr. We also took the opportunity to replace a rusty clamp on one of the dipoles used for ‘ 725 repeater. We had a fortunate work place, being a large platform and hand rails on the top of the 12m microwave tower. The job went well and the results very satisfying.
Dave Walker ZL2DW
“725” REPEATER 147.725 Mhz
Based on a Waikato VHF Group repeater and modified by ZL2TIS (now ZL2TC), (duplexer constructed by ZL2IK), this repeater was installed at Taraponui (4300ft ASL) in December 1982 by ZL2TIS and ZL2TSX (later ZL3DK and now ZL2DW). Originally working on a phased pair of dipoles and later a four dipole array, these gave way to a much heavier phased dipole pair which has been able to survive the ice and snow that settles on the site during winter. The repeater now has a commercial duplexer in service.
In 1993 the original equipment was replaced with Tait T300 series equipment that had been in service for ‘670 repeater previously. This T300 repeater was replaced with Tait T835 Receiver and T836 Transmitter units in late 1997.
Technical Details.
The repeater receiver gates at-115dbm (0.4 microvolts) and the Transmitter has 12 watts output into the duplexer. The antenna port on the duplexer is fed with heliax cable from the dipole pair.
Other Local VHF/UHF Repeaters
TX Freq RX Freq TX Tone Site Note Link
146.700 146.100 Kahuranaki
146.900 146.300 Whakapunake
147.250 147.850 Taraponui IRLP Node 6793 146.750 Taupo
434.850 439.850 Mt Erin National System
434.050 439.050 Taraponui
439.2375 434.2375 Mt Threave DMR