This has been on both Batlabs and the Hamsexy Forums. However, someone sent it to the Hamsexy Mail Sack, so we though it was worth repeating for those who might not be on either forum.
This is a commercial installation…. the local county government actually pays someone to “lease a repeater”. The vendor hog tied a msf repeater to the county courthouse roof, ran an extension cord, used a mag mount antenna AND charges them for the dam thing.
Click to see the full picture in all it’s glory!
The transmitter tech at my old work told me a story about when he visited the roof of Toronto’s largest office tower in order to install a new TV transmitter. He found a HUGE jumble of antennae, wires, cables, etc. covering the roof of the thing. He saw paging companies sticking Radio Shack magmounts on the side of air condition units and on I-beams. Makes me feel bad about busting my ass to do a good job on ham radio installs.
Although this repeater install is rather sad (to say the least), I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it still gets the job done. Can’t beat old Motos – even improperly installed ones, in some cases.
But if it isn’t getting the job done, might I suggest wringing the installer’s neck? I mean, a magmount? Seriously…
That looks like a very professional installation, it could not have been done by amateurs, it is far too good!
And, the mag mount to top it off, excellent way to go considering the costs for a bracket mount!
Very Prosexy!!!
And to think… they probably could have gotten some hams to do it for free and with better quality.
That is not a repeater. It’s a very large HT.
n0xmz:
The sad part is that it’s true.
good lord
Even a drunk ham would do better than that.
Hmm…strap the whole mess onto a rusted out ’68 Impala and you would have one Hamsexy mo-beeel.
Course, putting on a scooter would ROCK!!
Hell, looks like them new fangled 11 meter repeaters. Having worked for a 2 way radio company, I have seen my fair share of “awesome” installations. Yes, I have seen some real shitty ham radio installations in a mountain top building.
One site we would visit was in the ski patrol building at the local ski resort. The mountain manager was real pissed off that one ham had a repeater rack in their lookout building. I never told him I was a ham. I wish I took pictures of it.
One club here has a repeater about a 4 hour trek through BFE to get to it. They kept having problems with it. Well turns out they had pieced together many pieces of coax to reach the antenna which was up 100 feet.
Sorry, I could go on…..
Oh! I hope they used bowline knots to hold it. Maybe a hangmans noose would work better..
The person who installed that repeater and left it like that should be executed, and his family should pay for the bullet.
WTF. Calm down there, X.