History Log for GB3WS        GB3WS Coverage map 

GB3WS has now been moved to Itchingfield and is operational again.

April 8th 2023- GB3WS closed on the site at Handcross and will shortly be moved to a site near Horsham. It will be co-sited with GB3HO. Ofcom approval has been received for the site change.

November 2021. - Since the mast height has been halved by the site owners ( Rail track ) the coverage has been drastically reduced. The last couple of years of covid-19 restrictions means little work on the repeater has been carried out. The aerial array, which was originally at 70 feet agl, is around 30 feet. Currently looking for new sites to give improved coverage into West Sussex.

18th June 2009 - GB3WS off air between 09:30 and 12:00 for essential aerial maintenance. The site owners have replaced our aerials and co-axial feeders. I hope the coverage will be as before, but the new aerial positions on the mast, are dictated by the site owner. My thanks to the Network Rail aerial team for all the  

10th May 2009 - GB3WS Attempts have been made to rectify the intermittent de-sense with an additional notch filter. This has not been successful and other avenues are being explored.

21st February 2009 - following a visit to the site for some "spring cleaning" reports were received that "WS" was not as strong as normal. On a subsequent visit it was discovered that the outer sheathing of the heliax feeder had fractured close to the aerial connector.  A new FHJ4 connector was fitted and normal service was resumed.

19th August 2008... fault located as blown fuse, repeater checked to find out why...no obvious solution.... probably just cheap fuse !.... Aerials also checked for matching in case of high VSWR all OK. Logic tweaked, and changed but only on the engineering side, no change to operation characteristics....Situation to be monitored. Back on air at 15.20 today.

17th August 2008.. TX appears to have died, have removed repeater to find out what the problem is.

6th May 2008... new units appear to have settled in well and providing excellent service. Through audio is very good, and the CTCSS decoder appears to be holding signals well. Long may it continue !

31st March.... WS back in service at 13.13 hours on the 31st of the 3rd. Reception reports welcome

31st March 2008.... Interface completed, units now on soak-test - cooling fans being fitted, hope to have WS back in service in a couple of days.

13th March 2008 .... Have decided to order two brand new Icom transcievers so that long periods of outage can be avoided. These will be put into service back to back, as soon as available, ( 7 - 14 days ). The present Icom base station will also be repaired and kept in service, the two new units serving as a standby repeater.

12th March 2008 ...... Problem appears to be in the PA filter unit and the Output of the repeater is being shut down prematurely.

19 February 2008 .....GB3WS output power appears to have failed. Repeater taken of air to investigate problem

13th September...After listening to several stations using the repeater, some have 'chopped out' audio wise. Today the repeater was taken of air and the through audio was carefully/meticulously aligned to manufactures spec and deviation levels checked. There still appears to be an occasional glitch and I will monitor the situation, but I would ask all users to ensure their transmissions comply with the 12.5 kcs deviation requirement. I will be checking aerial feeders shortly ( next four weeks ) and this will be weather dependant. If you know of any problems please email me and I will investigate, its no good moaning about problems you encounter and not informing the keeper.

17th August 2007.....Well after a long absence WS returned to full service at 19.25 hours on 17th August 2007. The CTCSS decoder has been replaced and a CTCSS encoder fitted. I now understand the meaning of life being 42. The CTCSS chip that was replaced had 42 legs and was surface mounted. The logic parameters have been changed slightly. The only voice ID is on the hour, the rest of the time it is mcw. Time out remains at three minutes. There is no 1750 tone access as some users requested it has thrown up too many problems.

24th July 2007.... Well the aerial work has still not taken place yet, so sorry for that. As regards the logic modifications, well all was OK until I tried to interface the new system to the repeater and the logic assembly and realised that the interface chip needed changing. I have ordered one, but its a back order and may take another 14 days. My sincere apologies for the delay in restoring service, it will be completed as soon as possible.

May 2007......Aerial work has not yet taken place this is still on going. Following a power surge on the night of 12 May 2007 the repeater was off-air, until around mid-day on 13th May. Having visited the site I decided to do some minor updates to the logic and ctcss configuration, and so the repeater will be off air for three to four days. I hope service will be restored by Friday 18th May 2007.

February 2007....Aerial work is scheduled this month by the site owners and therefore there may be interruptions to the service

2nd January 2007...new logic parameters loaded.

31st Dec 2006...Update...and as promised GB3WS went back on air today at 2.27pm.

29th Dec 2006...update... well all repairs seem to have been completed, transmitter is now working, logic appears OK. Now on soak test into dummy load at my QTH and if all OK and weather holds,GB3WS should be back this week-end. My thanks once again to Mike G4ZPE for his help and input and to all the other offers of help.

17th Dec 2006...update...my thanks to G4ZPE who has located a spare PA block and will dispatched it to me on the 18th. Work can now resume.

23 Nov 2006.....update... power supply repaired and working. PA section has serious problems will investigate further.

17 Nov 2006.. update...Have replaced the voltage regulator and discovered that there are several other damaged transistors in the power supply. I have obtained spares from R.S. Components and will continue with repairs this week-end. ( on second thoughts maybe a glass or two of Merlot may be more rewarding ! )

12 Nov 2006 ..update...Have also discovered that the voltage regulator circuit in the power supply has been seriously damaged. Spares have arrived from Kempton today via Paul G4TMC so hopefully we can start on the rebuild.

2nd Nov 2006 ... GB3WS off-air  due to PA transistor failure and power supply failure.