Choate
Choate is a tiny village in Karnes County between San Antonio and Odem. We occupy an old microwave relay tower.
November 4, 2017
Senor Sarvis WB5CIT cajoled Robbie KG5DLA and Red W4WMH to replace the SATN link Sinclair 307's at the CHO location due to fade loss. We arrived on site on a sultry morning, and began recon on the objective. We shot a back azimuth to the tower from the FM road below, and marked a suitable fence post for the 327 true north azimuth. We then climbed the tower, carried new Sinclair's with us, and ascended to the correct mount. Apparently our avian occupants do not approve of our choosing of location, and decided that we do not know the proper azimuth to SATN, as they had moved the antennas to a Azimuth of approx. 321 True north. This probably explains the fade issues on the North Link. We replaced the antenna, and then climbed down 1 level and removed the old dual band antenna previously mounted on the VIC mount for APRS. Both antennas were left in the shack onsite for storage until later retrieval. I would like to thank Rob and Corky for their help onsite, as well as Larry and Dink for prepping the new antennas.
September 28, 2017
The attached pictures by W5RMC pretty well tell our story from our site visit:
After our primary and backup unit failed, we hauled the MSF-5000 repeater to the WA5LNL depot.
Africanized bees shower down from holes drilled into weather awning, over front door; wait for cooler weather to finish up.
Some new fluorescent bulbs worked w/o a new ballast.
Toxic floor dust pressure- washed away. severe bronchitis in your conductor after a February visit floor sweeping, prompted this action. We left a Sinclair 307-2 Yagi antenna pair in the closet, with 2 kinds of tape and can of Scotchkote for replacement of the north Yagi North link may be 1-way north.
In prior years we found trees growing inside the tower base, chest high vegetation and a thoroughly burglarized building. The roof had a hole where the stolen A/C unit used to reside allowing rain inside. A large crew of volunteers chain sawed the weed trees, hauled off trailer loads of bashed microwave residue, power washed the interior and patched the big roof hole.
We reinstalled our own meter loop and ran our own cable to the radios. After all the site preparation, installation of feed lines, antennas and radios went smoothly. (2008)
