My Communications System

My Communications System

A while back, I promised to post some pics of my/our communications system. It's really kinda' neat. :)

My best friend of 35 years owns some radio and cell phone towers and a commercial/public safety communications sales and broadcasting company. So our group/families/and friends jumped on board about 20 years ago and put together our own little private system, so to speak.

Our system has several components. We have 6 UHF and VHF repeaters set up at our main site where our 275' tower is located. Some pics will follow below. Other repeaters are set up at several locations.

The company itself maintains it's own equipment/parts/spare equipment facility, repair shop, and broadcast facility - all underground and protected from EMP, with back-up generators. Let's just say that we have quadruple redundancy on EVERYTHING.

We can all communicate with each other within an approximate range of 60 miles from the primary tower by mobile radio and within an approximate range of 25 miles from the primary tower by portable (walkie-talkie). Anyone within that range of the tower can talk to each other.

We have a pretty good inventory of these things. About 30 mobile units are installed in about 20 vehicles, and we have about 25 spare mobile units. We also have 72 portables with 2 spare batteries each, and several AC/DC gang chargers.

One really neat component of our system are our portable repeaters. We have a few different types that are all immediately field deployable. They all can operate on both 110 volt and 12 volt power supplies. These units give us the option of setting up a repeater system literally anywhere in the world. Communications range will depend upon the line of sight height of the unit deployed.

So, here are a few posts with some pics...........

Here are a few pics of our Mobile and Portable Units:

This first pic is from one of my 2 Explorers. Note that these mobile unit pics only show the control heads. The radios themselves are in the rear of the vehicles:

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281824700

The next 2 pics are from other cars. Yeah, that's a mobile cell phone in the third pic.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281824793

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281824793

And here are a couple of banks of our portables in gang chargers.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825012

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825012

Great set-up.

Would you have quadruple copies of the pictures? The first batch failed, I think

Here are a couple of different types of our portable repeaters. We have 10 of these units.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825398

Here's a second type of portable repeater. This one essentially transforms a hand-held portable radio (walkie-talkie) into a 100 watt repeater with tremendous range depending on the elevation where it's set up.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281828331

Here are a few pics from the shop.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825682

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825747

Real Nice,, !!! do you use this stuff now very often or is it more of an emergency cached system ?

And here are some from our Tower Site:

This is our primary tower. I've climbed that thing a few times. :innocent:

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825823

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825875

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825916
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281825964



http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281826058

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281826088

The structure that contains the equipment is refered to as a "shelter." The entire complex is ours. Some of the shelters are leased to other companies and cell phone carriers.

The shelter on the left, with the 2 HVAC units, is where we keep most of our own equipment.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281826319

This pic shows some of our grid power coming in.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281826400

Of course, we have our own generator on site.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281826460

Our definition of an "ice bridge" is a bit different that the one they have up north. Our ice bridges protect the antenna cables from ice falling off the tower.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281826522

Okay, here are some inside pics:

In this first pic, the units on the right and left are repeaters. The unit in the center is called a combiner. It allows us to use one antenna for multiple repeaters without the need for duplexors.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281826838

A few more of our repeaters:

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281826968

And a few more, with one of several back-up spares kept on site. The smallest piece of equipment in the foreground is test/repair equipment. We also have many other types of repair equipment units, and all of our programming is done using one of several computers with Motorola software.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827008

Here are a couple of close-ups of the combiner:

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827220

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827280

A shelter ? they are called "Vaults" on this side ;)

A few more pics from inside the shelter.

We have two HVAC units (redundancy) specifically integrated with our equipment and environmental controls.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827376

And surge protection, of course.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827466

Some more spare back-up equipment we keep on site for fast change-over if necessary.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827515

Here's one of those strobe lights you see on towers at night. They're actually called "obstruction beacons" because, at 275' tall, the tower is an obstruction to aircraft. This beacon is almost 3' in height.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827584

Here are a couple of pics from the central broadcast facility. We can also do commercial radio broadcasts.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827776

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1281827867

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Justin Case

A shelter ? they are called "Vaults" on this side ;)

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Actually, we do have a vault, but this isn't it. Most of the spare equipment is stored in an underground vault adjacent to the shop and broadcast facility. That complex is all underground, lined in concrete on the top and all sides, has double steel entrance doors, and is totally EMP protected. It's actually more of a bunker than a vault, but we call it a vault.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Justin Case

Real Nice,, !!! do you use this stuff now very often or is it more of an emergency cached system ?

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We use this stuff everyday. Given the nature of the licenses the company holds and the business it's in, there isn't really anyone we can't communicate with, including pretty much any government agency (excluding military) that you can think of.

Nice set up, however if I may make an observation, the beer cooler is noticably absent :).

Many municipalities would love to have that setup

Ah, Wow is all I can say. Very impressive. Sort of makes my can and string system a bit silly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gryffynklm

Ah, Wow is all I can say. Very impressive. Sort of makes my can and string system a bit silly.

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S T R I N G !!!!!!! That's what I'm missing.

OMG!
The end is here, and no one told me. All I did was go out for lunch at Tandoor Oven.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crashdive123

S T R I N G !!!!!!! That's what I'm missing.

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The cans must be empty also, Just sayin :innocent: