[FSG-public] St Pete Site update

[Bryan Fields]

We had a bit of an impromptu meeting today talking about Downtown St Pete
repeaters and hamwan.  We have a bit more of challenging site here as we must
use fiberglass antennas and can't really elevate over the roof.  We're of
course open to other ideas and donations as to what we're planning on doing.

Short list of plans:

Extend Hamwan to St Pete:
The first part of this will be done this week (hopefully) which will be the
installation of a 3 GHz link from Tampa.  A router's been programmed and ready
to be installed once we have a rack in place.

Three Sectors will be installed on the lower roof providing 5.9 GHz access to
St Pete a bit later.  Mounting brackets will need to be installed first.

For repeaters we're planing on the following:

220 MHz analog FM
440 MHz DMR
440 MHz analog FM and P25
440 MHz Dstar
900 MHz analog FM and P25

The 440 repeaters will be TX combined and multi-coupled onto separate
antennas.   Mounting the antennas will be a bit challenging as we'll be having
to install a bit of unistrut on a concrete wall about 25' up.

This should give us great coverage in the south Pinellas county area from
Tiera Verde up to Largo/Clearwater.   Expect HT coverage out 10-15 miles, and
mobile out to 35-40.

Most of the equipment is on hand, but some will need to be purchased.  Quite a
few parts are left over from the Tampa install.

I'd estimate the following costs:

1200	Data Radios/accessories
1150	220 Antenna
600	Unistrut, FL code rated anchors and pipe
700	Grounding parts/wire, lightning arrestors
1200	Coax cable and connectors/kits
550	Controller server
---
5400 	Total

The good news is most of the repeater hardware, antennas, filters and other
parts are going to be donated, or this would be 20k+ to build out. We'll be
doing some targeted donations to build out this site as well.

73's
-- 
Bryan Fields, W9CR
Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.