Fort Stockton
Our Ft. Stockton site is located about nine miles from an historic West Texas village on Interstate 10. Believe it or not, in the early 20th century natural wells made swimming pools popular. Even canals were dug, but the aquifer cannot be replenished.
This station is co-located with part of the West Texas Connection, Inc., and tornado-warning system. Owner Mark, N5SOR is anxious to generate his own power. He is currently developing a combined wind/solar panel and battery system for that purpose.
Our Intertie equipment occupies a single six foot cabinet. There are four UHF links, which form part of the Trans-Texas backbone, as well as sending spurs to Alpine and Penwell-Midland-Odessa. The UHF repeater allows talkie coverage from local motels, as well as a generous swath of Interstate 10 to joint coverage with Mt. McElroy to the west and Ft. Lancaster to the east. In addition, a frequency and CTCSS agile programmable two meter transceiver allows cross band repeater interface.
The photos show installation of a Paraflector needed to reach through the Glass Mountains to Alpine,
Mark's wind power machine after a snow storm and
our rack of equipment with radios and a Palomar controller.
2016 UPDATES
Since the above photos were taken progress is evident and the shack is a bit more rusty.
The Fort Stockton Shack and storage.
The Fort Stockton towers from left: Wind generator, commercial tower, Intertie tower and power line.
Fort Stockton shack and tower. Note Paraflector at 100’
Fort Stockton shack interior N5SOR
On left, 2 meter Yaesu remote base
In cabinet from top: duplexer, link receivers
W5EX tweaking
W5EX, KG5TJL, W5KTX
Link receivers, Note band reject filter on #2 from top
FST
Link4,5 Receivers. Note band pass filter at bottom of cabinet.
Links 2-5. Rcvrs (Link 1 is QRT). Note old GE Pre-prog bandpass filters at top.