FLATLAND96: GOES / RF Messages: 5 Entries..

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Entry Date Title Site Author #Graphics
62 Wed 19-Jun-1996FreeWave Radio Interference with ProfilernoneMilitzer, John
146 Sun 30-Jun-1996Freewave at 2 worked ok thru the night2Semmer, Steve
151 Sun 30-Jun-1996Visit to station 22Semmer, Steve
289 Thu 18-Jul-1996PAM2 now using patch antenna2Oncley, Steve
361 Fri 26-Jul-1996antenna swap1Oncley, Steve


62: GOES / RF, Site none, Wed 19-Jun-1996 15:43:55 GMT, FreeWave Radio Interference with Profiler
Wayne Angevine noticed interference on the 915 UHF profiler
from the Freewave radios.  This amounted to raising his noise
floor from about 12db to as much as 24.

A series of tests were performed to try to reduce or eliminate
the problem.
	- Reduced signal power to about 5 then 3: no luck,
	still had interference, but that was where i lost comms.
	- Lowered the antenna.  It had probably been 'seeing'
	the profiler.  This helped, but not enough.
	- Rotated the lowered antenna and put power level at 4.
	This produced the best results, reducing the noise floor
	to 13-15, except for one axis: west, which remained up 
	at about 18 (possibly from atmospheric reflects, the
	antenna was shooting to the west of the profiler, or else
	reflection from a nearby Rohn tower).

Results:
	- The interference is configuration dependent.  Some attempts 
	improved one of the beams, but degraded others.   There's no
	doubt interaction with the distance, pointing angle and surrounding
	structures.

	- No configuration is acceptable to Wayne with the old
	Freewave radios.
	this is because he already has marginal signal levels, esp.
	at the middle height range gates.  

	- Wayne may be willing to allow us to have comms, except
	Between the hours:	9am - 5pm local.
	Those are his peak periods of interest.


New Radios Test:
	The new models of Freewave radios scan from 921-928.
	These are the ones we plan to use for aster.

	No Problem with these!
	We tried running the new radios in the 'worst' configuration
	from before (full power, raised yaggi pointing over the profiler)
	and Wayne didn't see any interference.

146: GOES / RF, Site 2, Sun 30-Jun-1996 14:11:37 GMT, Freewave at 2 worked ok thru the night
  The Freewave worked fine at station 2. I hope to
replace the fuse there and get GOES back up today.

151: GOES / RF, Site 2, Sun 30-Jun-1996 19:17:26 GMT, Visit to station 2
  I went to station 2 to replace the main power fuse. With the
5amp fuse GOES was turned back on. It appears to be operating
ok.

289: GOES / RF, Site 2, Thu 18-Jul-1996 16:05:27 GMT, PAM2 now using patch antenna
John M. called to tell us that PAM2 is transmitting too much power to GOES,
so we switched back to a patch antenna (from a yagi).  Since John had problems
with the patch antenna on PAM2 earlier (which is why the yagi was installed),
I first swapped patch antennas on PAM1.  So, the sequence was:
Station 1:
0951: measured original patch power: 8.7 forward/0.1 reflected
Swapped patch antennas (lost a nut in the process)
0956: measured new (PAM2 original) patch power: No change.

Station 2:
1027: measured yagi power: 7.6 forward/0.3 reflected
1032: possibly a bad transmission, since I was still struggling with
tightening the patch mount
1037: measured patch (PAM1 original) power: 10.7 forward/0.1 reflected

Hopefully, John will keep us advised.

361: GOES / RF, Site 1, Fri 26-Jul-1996 21:59:44 GMT, antenna swap
I swapped EVE's yagi and cosmos's omni RF antennas about an hour ago to 
attempt to fix cosmos's problems.  In the process, I killed EVE rf, which
we will restart in a few minutes.  We'll also check the freewave settings.