At the end of IOP #01, I went to investigate poor repeater performance at the rim, and found the main battery pack voltage at 8.5V (!) I removed all repeater gear and box, relocating them near the base of the rim tower battery bank and solar panels. I replaced the now assumed bad battery with another good battery from the MGAUS truck, (checking before and after voltages) and placed this in parallel with the the western most (closest to tower) battery box. This battery and its load are placed in a blue rubbermaid box. The immediate results were improved repeater performance, which will hopefully be more useful in the coming weeks.

Gordon and I have discussed increased monitoring of battery voltages, and comparing them to previous days to insure that this does no harm to the power bank at the tower. This is a minor load increase, but also a 33% increase in storage capacity, hopefully able to store excess PV energy collected during the day. Please pay increased attention to the morning battery voltages to insure this is the case. If anyone needs to remove the repeater, simply open the cooler and remove the clamps to the battery leads.

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