GB3NF  1981 - 1995

GB3NF - Background

GB3NF was the 'New Forest' UHF repeater on channel RB11.  it was administered by the Waterside UHF Repeater Group and was located in the  radio room belonging to  Lyndhurst Printing Ltd on the Hardley Industrial Estate .

Having our own local Waterside repeater encouraged many local amateurs to venture onto the 70cms band for the first time.  Quite an undertaking  back in 1981.  At that time there was no GB3IW and the only 70cms repeater locally was GB3PH located on Portsdown Hill.  Unfortunately, due to a forced site move to the eastern end of the Hill, it's coverage of the Waterside area diminished, especially as we were mostly running Pye PF1's or, if you were really lucky, PF2's with only a few hundred milliwatts at best.   I'm sure most of the rf output of the PF1 transmitter  was spread across the complete 70cms band anyway.  However, I spent many a dark evening sat in my car in Calshot beach car park attempting to align ex-commercial  UHF  kit using GB3PH, and any unlucky operator whom I nabbed, as my signal source and test equipment.

GB3NF - The Beginning

The idea of a local Waterside repeater had been the subject of discussion for quite a while.  The main stumbling block was - where could it be located?  A local company, Lyndhurst Printing,  used several delivery vans as part of their operations with which they needed to communicate.  Their  radio system consisted of landlines from their premises on the Industrial Estate to remotely located equipment and antennas.   Due to the unreliability of the system, the land lines were always being damaged by road digging activities, they decided to install their own system located at their premises on the Hardley Industrial Estate.   A radio room was constructed to house the radio equipment and a 100 foot mast was installed on the roof of the premises.   The base of the mast was 30 foot above ground so the top of the mast was approximately 130 feet agl whilst the site is 120 feet asl.

The Waterside UHF Repeater Group was formed in the Flying Boat at Calshot, later to become the venue for the frequent  GB3NF engineering meetings,  on 29th May 1980 to administer the proposed repeater.  After carrying out negotiations with the owner of Lyndhurst Printing the group were allocated space in the radio room for the equipment and allowed to install two antennas on the mast.  The main antenna, a Jaybeam Co-linear C8/70,  was located approximately 100 feet above ground level and the standby antenna, a Jaybeam dipole, was installed approximately 20 feet below the co-linear at about 80 feet agl.  The co-linear was fed using FHJ450 coax and the dipole FHJ250.  

GB3NF - Operational     

The repeater was switched into operational use at 19:00 hrs  on the 4th November 1981 by Clive, G4KCM and Mike, G4HXT and was witnessed by Peter, G4SBF and his XYL Jill who also joined in the onsite celebrations sharing the bottle of bubbly we had bought along for the occassion.

The first station to work through the repeater was Constance, G8LY.  Constance was so quick off the mark that the repeater didn't even have time to send its first CW ident to mark the start of it's official operation.

During its operational period GB3NF never suffered any down time with the MK I or MK II repeaters.  We did suffer from a poor connection on the co-linear which was corrected with a new length of coax. 

The reliability of the repeater can be attributed to the persistent testing and ongoing improvements carried out by the engineering team and sincere thanks go to my fellow repeater builders Clive, G4KCM and John, G8UAY  for the vast amount of time and effort they both contributed to this project.

Special thanks also to Arthur, G8PGF, who, as always, provided a never ending source of help, advice and motivation and to Roy, G8CKN, for his amazing cavity arrangement.

Thanks also due to the following who helped to make GB3NF possible :-

Wood and Douglas Ltd

Mr Dave Lee of Lyndhurst Printing

Quartslab Marketing Ltd

Tony Whitaker G3RKL

Pace Communications (UK) Ltd

Norman Maddock G2AJS

And most of all, the stations that used the repeater.

 

I have no idea who was the last station to work through the repeater.  The dismantling of the mast was due to start at about 10:00 on Saturday 11th April 1995.  I tried to access it on the way to the site but there was no response.  When I arrived on site it was obvious why - the mast was already on the ground along with the antennas and feeder cables from both radio installations.   Maybe someone reading this will know who the last station to work through GB3NF was.

After switching the repeater off  and dismantling the station I was able to examine the two antennas that had spent the last 14 years 80 ft up the mast.  The co-linear was in good condition as was the coax "N" type connection to it.  The dipole however had suffered some damage.  The plastic mouldings that covered the coax connection to the dipole element and the similar moulding opposite the feed point had both been eaten away.  There was one hole in each moulding that penetrated through to the element.  No idea what caused it. 

With the mast dismantled the group were unable to find a suitable alternative location so GB3NF was closed down and the licence returned to RSGB.

 If anyone has photographs relating to GB3NF I would very much like to include them on this site.  Please email me:-   Mike@g4hxt.net