VK6RAV 147.275+ Northam
This repeater has just been placed on air on the 17th of August 1997. 

It replaces a repeater on the same frequency and in the same general area, and that being VK6RHW at Hoddywell.

This site is about 10 kilometres North East of Northam, which is about 80 kilometres East of Perth.

The site is located on a wheat farming property on a small hill about 90 metres (300') above the average terrain.    The hill has a name, Crows Nest, and is covered with Gum trees.

Also located on the site is a disused large concrete water tank.    It was planned to place the repeater equipment in the tank, but this proved to be impractical.

 
Solar power is the only source of power for the site. 

This 2.5 Amp panel will need to be added to as the power requirements will not be met by this panel alone. 
Battery capacity is 200 AH.

The solar power cable runs underground to the repeater housing.

Although it does not show in this photo, Northam is where the gap in the trees can be seen, about 10 kilometres away.
The inside of the cabinet.

Weighing all of 500KG, this will not blow away in a hurry.

The repeater is a converted FM880 (FM828) and is the blue object towards the top of the rack mounting area. 

Power output is 25 Watts and the transmission is encoded with 123 Hz CTCSS. Time out is 3 minutes.

The next panel contains the solar panel regulator, Amp meter, low voltage cutout protection and power distribution.

Immediately below this panel is the 6 cavity duplexer. This filter provides almost 100dB of isolation between the receiver and transmitter. The loss through the duplexer is 2dB.

The aerial coax (LDF450) can be seen in front of the duplexer.
Rob VK6HRC(nowTRC) holding the guy wires while Jim VK6CA hammers in one of the star pickets. 

Rob traveled up from Perth for the day. 

Jim is the site manager and lives nearby in Northam.

Each guy point has two star pickets hammered into the rocky hill. 

These pickets are then tied together in line with one another. 

Makes for a very solid guy point.
Late in the afternoon the finished product.   The tower was already on the site but cranked down. 

It was purchased from a CB'er who would drive to the site, crank the tower up, and then work 27MHz.

The CB'ers interest moved in other directions and we bought the tower. 

The guy wires needed replacing, and the guy points improved.

The project is a joint effort of WARG and local amateurs.   Several amateurs contributed to the cost of purchasing the tower.

Longer term it is intended to link this repeater to Perth.

Just one more photo....Leaving the site at sunset