Plans

SUMM­ER 2020 Plans

With the grass turn­ing green (at least on the front range), we are gear­ing up for this sum­mer’s pro­jects for the Col­orado Con­nec­tion. We have a pre­tty long list of th­ings we would like to do this summ­er that you can see below. As noted re­liab­ly on the Thursday night net, re­pairs and upgrades happ­en at the speed of dona­tions, so while we li­ke­ly won’t be able to get to every­th­ing on that list, we will get as much done as we can af­ford.

We were able to ac­complish our full list last year de­spite our main­tenan­ce season being cut short by weath­er. That was very much pos­sible due to your sup­port! Hopeful­ly we will have a long­er season this year.

We are focused on three major areas of sys­tem im­prove­ments. As with last year, much of this work is being done in co­or­dina­tion with RMHAM. We are also in­teres­ted to partn­er with clubs or in­dividu­als throug­hout the state to pro­vide op­era­tion and main­tenan­ce of the re­peat­ers.

Im­prove­ments to ex­ist­ing re­peat­ers hav­ing is­sues

  • Kremml­ing
  • Craig
  • Wald­en
  • Steam­boat Spr­ings

Sum­ma­ry: We are cur­rent­ly build­ing new equip­ment for these sites. We are also look­ing for volun­te­ers to help main­tain these re­peat­ers.

Har­den­ing of the sys­tem / work on the work­ing re­peat­ers

  • Im­prove­ment of bat­te­ry bac­kup power at De­nv­er Mount Thorodin site
  • Re­dun­dant sys­tem con­troll­er at the De­nv­er Hub / Mount Thorodin
  • Im­prove­ments to the De­nv­er 145.310 MHz vot­ing re­ceiv­ers
  • An­ten­na im­prove­ments at the Fort Col­lins 146.730 MHz site
  • Add vot­ing re­ceiv­ers to the Col­orado Spr­ings 145.130 MHz re­peat­er

Sum­ma­ry: We are work­ing to hard­en our “core net­work” to pro­vide great­er availabil­ity and fewer sys­tem re­sets, while im­prov­ing radio per­for­mance and co­verage.

Sys­tem Ex­pans­ion

  • New re­peat­er for NE Col­orado in Sterl­ing. (A joint pro­ject bet­ween Col­Con, RMHAM, and Northern Col­orado ARC)
  • In­ves­tigat­ing micro­wave ex­pans­ion to Duran­go. (This is a multi-year pro­ject)
  • In­ves­tigat­ing micro­wave ex­pans­ion to Steam­boat Spr­ings (and points in-between)

Sum­ma­ry: We have aggres­sive plans, but will settle for rea­son­able pro­gress. We are al­ways look­ing for partn­ers for these pro­jects: In­dividu­al or clubs pro­vid­ing eith­er phys­ical or fin­an­ci­al as­sis­tance. We do acknow­ledge that with all of the soci­al dis­tanc­ing re­stric­tions, work part­ies will need to be small­er groups this summ­er. Will you help us?

Fin­al­ly, just a re­mind­er since we seem to have a bit of a jamm­er epi­demic too. IF THERE IS A JAMM­ER ON THE COL­ORADO CON­NEC­TION, PLEASE DO NOT EN­GAGE THE PER­SON AT ALL! EN­GAG­ING ONLY GIVES THEM THE (NEGATIVE) AT­TEN­TION THEY WANT! When pos­sible, we will just dis­able that re­peat­er from the rest of the sys­tem until they go away. While it may seem contra­ry to our own ad­vice, you may hear one of the trus­tees en­gage them. If you do, just sit back and enjoy. If a trus­tee is doing so, it is be­cause there is an ac­tive hunt going on.