New D-Star repeater sabotaged

One of Portugal's brand-new D-Star amateur radio repeaters has been sabotaged.

The directors of the ARLA - Associação de Radioamadores do Litoral Alentejano - have sent Southgate News the following report.

The new A.R.L.A. D-STAR repeater CQ0DSA-B, located at Serra da Arrábida, have suffer an atrocious incapacitate act.

Illicit authors, who perpetuated this shameful indignity, destroyed the transmission cable, Heliax LDF4-50, on the tower foot.

This shocking stroke had taken place in late hours of last June 11 or during first hours of June 12.

An unexpected silence of two simultaneous repeater stations (that share the same cable and antennae), immediately have let everyone in alert, especially the board of directors.

Carlos Mourato CT4RK, João Costa CT1FBF and Jorge Santos CT1JIB, the only A.R.L.A.'s Direction body members available; have made, straight away, all efforts to a prompt climb up, in order to repair any malfunction.

A harm of such perversity was perceptibly made by fellow colleagues. Such precision and achievement is no doubt an exertion completed by someone who knows very well how these Ham installations works, so the selected damaged cable was precisely the transmission one. In face of such evidence and as no other vandalism injures have been noticeable, the members of the repair staff first reaction was "to give up Ham Radio once for good", in the own words of Carlos Mourato (CT4RK).

After this traumatized first impact the repairers team have refused to give up!
They all agree that a proper reaction should be facing the occurrence and act in response on a conscientious way.
The damages were repaired and the cable put back into working order. In a little while both repeaters could be heard again in perfect good shape.

As a reminder as well as a good retort against the rude outlaws who have perform such depraved action, a new 2,4 GHz link was installed on a winning streak and the gateway for the D-STAR repeater activated... around 15 days prior to initial intention.

After 8 hours of continuous effort, without even a lunch break and running under a 37ºC heat, thanks to these brave colleagues' hard work CQ0DSA B is now operational and accessible via Internet.

This was no doubt a good message for those who face rivalry with sabotage and don't handle it with cooperation and harmony.

Please be our gests and try CQ0DSA B via World Wide Web.

Best regards

The board of directors of ARLA
Associação de Radioamadores do Litoral Alentejano