TBARC

Thermal Belt Amateur Radio Club

Our Repeater ~ KF4JVI 145.330 with negative offset ~ and Site

Our Repeater is located at Tryon, NC on the NC / SC State Line. Tryon, NC may be found on the map between Spartanburg SC and Asheville NC just west of Interstate I-26.

This is a local area coverage repeater covering Polk County, NC and the Upper Area of Spartanburg and Greenville, SC.

All power for our repeater is now supplied by a 4-panel solar array mounted on a 30-foot telephone pole.  This solar array produces +12 amps at 12 volts DC in full sun .  

The solar array is four Semiens M55 Solar Panels connected in Parallel. Each Panel Produces 55 watts of 12 volt electricity at 3.5 amperage. Connected in Parallel, the four panels produce a maximum electrical charging output of 12 volts at 14 amps.

If on an average of only four hours of direct sunlight per day, this will give us approximately 56 amp hours of battery charge daily.

The repeater is equipped with a solar controller automatically regulates the charge to the battery bank. This provides an automatic float charging or disconnect of the Solar panels when the battery bank reaches full charging capacity. The Controller Box also provides the circuit breakers to isolate the Radio, Batteries, solar panels and AC backup power supply.

The Battery Bank: The Battery Bank consist of four Deka Gel Packs 12 volt at 220 amp hour per battery. Connected in parallel, this provides 880 amp hours of electrical storage at 12 volts. This storage capacity will power the KF4JVI radio repeater for approximately 10 days with out any additional charging form the solar panels.

The Antenna: Our Antenna is mounted atop a 35 foot telephone pole. Our antenna is made by Cellways Inc.

The KF4JVI Repeater equipment consist of the following equipment:

• Yaseu Repeater - Vertex 2 meter DC only power

• S-Com V7 Repeater Controller

• 2 pair duplexer - 2 tx and 2 rx

• 4 batteries at 220 amp hours sealed gel packs.

• Solar Controller assembly

• Overkill on lightning protection

• Green Box is Backup / standby power if necessary - so far not required.

Our Club's History