June 5, 2022
Trip up APEX , home of H2
Listening lately to a few QSO’s about our repeater sites, I figured it was time for a tour of the H2 site for all the new members and those members who would like to take the tour without all the physical workout.
The last trip up Apex for a Tek Net was July 29, 2020.
This view of the repeater site was taken from the freeway showing that the HARC H2 repeater antenna is the highest amateur antenna on the site. The RED star is where the antenna is mounted on the tower.
Once the crew turns off of Las Vegas Blvd and starts it’s trek, the path will take 3 miles to the top of the peak.
As you can see there isn’t a lot of room for vehicles to park in front of the Frontier Communications building. This starts the climb to the amateur site.
Here Shane KG7QWH, Glenn N8HC & Erik N6YKE start the climb at the bottom by the Frontier building, after the metal steps its a narrow path in the rocks around to the other side of the mountain.
The narrow path is up against the vertical wall of rock and is about 24″ wide most of the time. This is the only way to get equipment (yes…even repeaters and 100 amp batteries) to the site by backpack.
The above metal steps are actually made out of cable trays and were installed into the rock a little more than 22 years ago, according to sources. This gets you started on the climb, the rest of the way is over bare rock and a 3/8″ steel anchored into the rocks as a hand hold that can be see below.
The steel cable is clearly seen here and is like this until you reach the top. The terrain is very rough and dangerous, requiring good boots, heavy gloves, thick jacket to protect you from the rock surfaces and the stamina of a young man. (this old guy’s opinion!)
The vertical climb is only a little more than 150 ft. long but seems longer when carrying a 100 amp battery or a full size repeater. Thank goodness for the HARC TAG team members that must be part mountain goat and make this look so easy.
The Apex site building new steel door by Tommy KB7HTA and KB7UTV Dennis and others ( I dont have all their names on that trip).
Above Glenn N8HC did the original installation of the 8-bay open dipole Sinclair antenna, the antenna was mounted with a slight angle from bottom to top so as to create a physical down-tilt so that the radiated signal is closer to saturating the Las Vegas Valley instead of squirting RF out towards stateline.
The Ubiquity 5.8 Ghz Litebeam microwave antenna providing the internet connectivity so that the H2 Allstar Node is connected to the club hub #44045 and into the rest of the network.
Here is where H2 starts its internet connection at the QTH of WB6AMT Earl in North Las Vegas. The total path distance is 10.2 miles. Since this was installed over three years ago, H2 has never lost its connectivity by a failaure of the Litebeam system, can’t say that for Cox service though.
As you can see above, the path to Apex from my QTH is pretty much unobstructed.
Below is the equipment rack housing all the HARC repeater equipment.
The Mesh group has access to our internet connection and has their equipment off grid and on their own solar/ battery setup.
From Top to Bottom:
Allstar Node/Repeater Controller.
Motorola SLR5700 50Watt repeater.
Duplexer.
16-port switch
Accessory shelf with back up battery for the station IP accessories, power supplies, routers etc.
Repeater BU battery – 100amp Gelcel (out of picture at the bottom of the rack)
This is the Poly-Phaser lightening protection device connecting the antenna’s heliax feedline to the white hardline to the repeater’s duplexer input.
That gound rod was an existing rod and can be seen that it is not as far in the ground as I would like to see it, however…pounding on it with a sledge hammer yielded no additional depth in the rocky ground.
In the past questions have been asked, why we insist on certain pieces of equipment or doing things a particular way.
A good reason why is seen below….
A few misc. pictures and videos of H2.
The above picture taken on February 21, 2019 of the site is one reason why Lithium batteries will not be replacing the Gelcel batteries in the immediate future….they stop working and gets shut down by the BMS circuit at low temperatures.
Some of the visitors to the H2 site as seen by the infra-red camera inside the shack and the color camera outside… these are all short videos.
Last, but not least the view from H2 to the Las Vegas valley.
