The UARC 146.62 Repeater Scott's Hill

1998 Workparty news

Note:

This is a historical page detailing some of the work, effort and people involved in the rehabilitation and restoration of the Scott's Hill building.  Unfortunately, it is not possible to give credit to everyone that was involved in this project, but we believe that we have covered the high (and low) points!




This is a 360 degree panoramic view from the Scott's hill site.
This is the view from atop the UARC building. The center of the picture is toward the south.
Click on it to see a larger version of this same picture. (Warning: It is 350k long!)

Note: Click on any picture to get a bigger version.

Before and After pictures of the building. The picture on the right
shows the old generator annex having been removed and the access
hole having been blocked up. (The mortar is still wet!)

On the morning of August 1, 1998, a group of amateur radio operators (I won't put the list here because I'm sure that I'll forget someone...) went to the Scott's Hill site and did some preliminary site cleanup. Removed was the wooden annex (see the before and after pictures, above...) and the old antenna masts that had been bolted to the building.

Holes in the cinder block have been patched, and the hole between the generator annex and the inside of the building has been blocked over. The pictures on the left and right show some of the demolition work being done. After demolition, the hole in the wall was blocked-over, and the holes left in the walls from the mounting of the antenna masts and years of weathering were patched. The interior of the building was sprayed down with bleach and cleaned, and the a lot of rubble and trash on the site was removed.

Saturday morning , August 29, a group gathered at the Big Cottonwood Park & Ride. Of course John Clark, N7SFN , called us on '62, stating that he had arrived but was unable to see any of us. After a brief exchange he figured out that he was at the Little Cottonwood Canyon Park & Ride and we were gathered at the Big.

Don Rawlins, N7YUQ, was successful in getting the new electrical meter base/disconnect installed on the outside and the breaker panel installed inside. He plans on completing the interior electrical on Sept 12. The interior panel is now hot - though we have not yet started service.

Allen Wright, N7QFI, was able to paint the entire outside and inside of the building including the floor. He used up the 15 gals of the surplus 2 part epoxy paint from KSL. When he started doing the inside he was only able to work in there for a few minutes at a time because of the xylene (used as a reducer for the paint) fumes. We all saw him stagger out of there a few times.

I patched the notch in the west eave in the concrete roof with some super fast curing Patchcrete, John Clark, N7SFN then went on the roof and laid out the roll roofing with cold asphalt cement and attached sheet-metal flashing with cement nails which he also sealed with the asphalt cement. He came up a couple of feet short because he had assumed exactly 10' x 10' on the roof (a roll is 1 square or 100 square feet). The roof is, in fact a few inches larger, which resulted in about a 2' shortage. I just happen to have a broken roll here at home of the same product and color of which John now has a piece large enough to finish the roof this next week. By the way the storms this last week did cause leaking into the building - no surprise - the floor directly below where the roof notch has been located was still wet.

Ron Jones K7RJ, Dennis Millard, KC7KCW, Bill Ralston, N1BR, Lewis Downey (a friend of Ron's, a former ham and the KRCL engineer etc.), and myself all worked on digging the tower holes. As expected, we did encounter near sold rock at about 2 ft. According to Lewis, also a geologist, it is a variety of Limestone, which is a fairly soft rock. That did not make it any easier though. We were able to get both holes down to about 2 feet with 3' diameters. Again, about what we expected to accomplish today.

It is important though that we all understand that for the towers we will need at least 4 ft depth and preferable 5 ft. Every one who worked on the rock feels that with a pneumatic hammer aka a jack hammer (90 lb has been suggested) that we can make the necessary additional depth with little problem. There had been a remote possibility today of having one available, which did not materialize. Please ask around within and outside the club, on the repeater, etc., about the potential availability of one - free we hope. We know they can be rented, but the free variety is what we are looking for. We would like to use one this next weekend - Saturday, Sept 5 (Monday Sept 7 Labor Day is also a possibility).

Additional bulletins will follow regarding work needing completion this next Saturday. As opposed to the Club Station, we really only have a few more weekends on which we can expect the road to the hill to be open. I do not mean in any way to detract from what needs to be done at the Red Cross Building, but I would like to point out that we have relatively few seasonal limitations on completing that project. In short I would like to get the building ready to receive it's first radios as soon as we can get into the site next year. This does not include the experimental beacons for this winter discussed by Clint, Gordon, and myself. We have discussed placing a weather and building environment gathering beacon in the building this fall.

Plans are to work there on Sept 5 and 12. There may be latter work parties to raise the towers, seal the door, etc. but none are yet calendared.

We met at the Big Cottonwood Canyon Park & Ride at 8:00 AM, the appointed hour. I was very pleased at the turnout of 13 , especially considering that we have the Wasatch 100 happening concurrently. We had two additional individuals who came to deliver either equipment or tools but were not well enough to make the trip. Initially I thought that we may have been over staffed, since we were planning on using Ready-Mix concrete instead of dry mix. As things developed the larger crew in fact helped make the day successful.

The weather was expected to be a factor and we had tried to do everything to anticipate it. The site was relatively dry when we started, but we had a cold south wind which at times during the day came in gusts of up to an estimated 20 miles per hour and on occasion brought light rain and later, snow.

Don, N7YUQ and his brother-in-law went to work on the electrical and made some very significant progress - he estimates that he has only an hour or two of work left to finish up another run on the south wall and the lighting fixtures. With part of the crew under his direction the two, ten foot, electrical safety ground rods were driven as far as possible into the ground and then bent over and buried under the few inches of top soil and loose rock. Last week we had tried to drive the rod closest to the building further in with the electric jackhammer and had only about 1'' to show for 15 minutes of hammering. After the second rod reaches a similar standoff today it was interesting to note that when the diggers trenched around it to do the burying job we found it going off at about a 45 degree angle about 1 foot below the surface. Everyone should take the time to thank Don for the fine work he is doing - it indeed is up to full commercial standards.

Another crew was dispatched to further excavate in front of the door to allow us to lay down a concrete door pad as part of the overall concrete work. Forms were set in place which allowed us to adjust the size of the pad depending on how closely the yardage had been calculated.

Chuck, WA7JOS brought his finished lock box and using his buzz box (arc welder) attached it to the door over the door lock and latch arm. The box was fabricated out of 1/4" plate steel and is intended to make cutting or breaking the lock off to gain entry, very difficult. Again a very professional piece of work. Chuck said that he doesn't paint - so we have another little job, the lock box, for someone to take care of on a future visit.

The big job for the day was setting the two Rohn 55G 20' towers in concrete bases. The first task was to bolt the house brackets to the north side of the building. We ran into problems when it was discovered that none of the masonry drill bits we brought were over 6" long for the 7-1/2" thick walls. To make matters worse Ed, KB7VIH had provided us with 5/8" threaded shafts and the largest bit available on site were smaller. This meant we had do a lot of normally unnecessary measuring to make it so we could drill from both sides. It also seems that we managed to run into some rebar at just the points we wanted to make our holes.

The four tower sections, assembled into two 20' sections, were lifted into place, set into the holes, secured to the house brackets, adjusted for plumb, square, equal height, and set back from the building. This all took about two hours more than expected. Fortunately the ready-mix truck which was to be at the gate at noon did not make it till 2:00 PM.

I rode down to the gate with Darryl, AF7O and Ron, KC7MYS who needed to leave, I met the cement mixer and took an exciting ride up the hill in the cement truck. He took less than 15 minutes from the gate to the site. Rodney, the driver, was really taken in by the view and gave me quite a ride - I think we had all expected it to take him about twice as long. The pour was over in about 15 minutes including the 3' x6' pad in front of the door. After the initial rough troweling we had to let the concrete set for about 45 minutes before doing the finish float troweling and edging. It was at this time that the weather turned particularly nasty with windblown snow.

The temperature dropped to about 35 degrees, so while the cement set up a bit we gathered inside the building and found it to be quite cozy. With the finish troweling of the pad and the tower bases completed everyone present etched their call signs into the tower base tops along with those of the others who have helped this summer.

Thank, you everyone.
Bruce, KI7OM

73, Bruce - KI7OM

For a follow-on page that details some of the work parties that took place in 1999, go to this page.

Go back to the Scott's Hill page, go to the UARC Home page, or to the Repeaters of the Utah Amateur Radio Club page.