Details released!
Unauthorized Tampering Suspects Caught
The Superstition Amateur Radio Club took measures this week to bust a couple of criminals, sending them and all who follow them to their doom. This after the repeater they modified went on the air in continuous transmit mode about 11 PM Saturday, September 22, 2001.
After about a minute of dead carrier, club member Ron, KD7FGY contacted Larry, WB7CRK, trustee of the repeater. Larry attempted control, but after getting no response, got hold of Neil, K9ZSR, chief of the club Technical Committee. After a few more minutes of consultation and experiment, it was decided a trip to the Stone Castle was in order.
Since Neil has the keys to the site and his car had just been detailed for a possible sale, it was decided that Larry would come and ferry Neil over to the site. When they got there, the repeater had been on the air for about an hour, without fans or audio of any kind. The case was nearly hot enough to fry an egg. The heat could be felt in the face with the cool night air at one's back when the building door was opened. Neil switched the repeater off and it was decided to look in on it at a more civil hour.
Neil and others, including Ron, FGY and Steve, KJ7WK returned to the scene of the crime and found the suspects. There was some consideration that these criminals might be associated with this bin Laden terror network. We decided not to bring in the FBI on this case, however, for the crew had these two dead to rights.
Here is the mug shot of one of them; they all pretty much look alike, however.
This power lunch was believed to have been fatal to the suspects:
... but it was the CONTROL power lunch that gave them away:
Pictures courtesy Steve, KJ7WK (Nowadays better known as KY7W).
Neil wrote in an e-mail what steps were taken to rid the United States of these rats:
Steve [KJ7WK] has documented the damage from Mr. Rat in these pixs, which are suitable for inclusion in the web page.
The Astron 50 amp 13.8Vdc supply (chewed line cord) was replaced with a 20 amp. unit. Chewed jacketed control cable was taped to save repairs until another day. The severed control rack 13.8Vdc power (red and black leads shown) was re-lugged and connected to terminal strip.
Steve installed screening with a staple gun, used expandable foam to fill cracks, sticky tray trap installed, moth balls in place and rat cookies made available for munching for yum-yum snack.
KnineZSR sends....73
OK so I did give away the details on the steps taken to secure the site against further terrorist attack from bin Laden's rats!
The 147.12 was returned to service on Saturday, September 29. It was a record hot 107 degrees that day, but the crew started work at 7:30 AM and was finished by 1:30 PM.
The above is a reprint from the page posted on our site back in September 2001, and reformatted to fit today's page styles.
A little explanation is in order as to how the repeater was then configured. We had a 50-amp power supply, which powered the repeater and cooling fans, and there was a backup battery that kept the repeater running as I recall, in the event of a power outage. While the repeater was on battery power, there were no fans, and if I recall, we had an audio signal on the system that indicated battery operation.
The damage described here put the repeater on battery backup power when the line cord was chewed, but loss of operating power to the controller when the red and black leads were chewed left the repeater in a transmit condition with no audio. We soon rectified that design flaw after this incident! --WB7CRK Friday, September 8, 2006