The PTZ camera at ETiger has been unreliable for some time.
Rich (KF7BJI) and I were at the site yesterday (2020-08-07),and now I can fill in some of the details.
The camera is located about three-quarters of the way up thetower used by the SeaTac Repeater Association. This tower is about 50m awayfrom the ETiger HamWAN site. STRA uses the callsign W7WWI on most of itsrepeaters.
The POE power supply and the Cat5 cable up the tower have beendamaged by a lightning strike.
The power supply needs to be replaced.
The Cat5 cable has water inside the jacket, something that wentunnoticed until the damaged Ethernet connector was cut off. Water dripped out,lots of it. Most of the cable runs tight against the tower, and I speculatethat the outer jacket was punctured by the lightning.
I am hoping that the camera itself may still be functional. Despitethe above problems, there were occasions when images could be recovered. If thepower to the camera was disconnected for an hour or so, the camera worked for afew minutes after restart.
The repair will involve a tower climb to replace the cable.Unfortunately we will have to open the camera’s sealed enclosure to access thecable end.
We hope to have this work done soon. No promises!
Rob K7QJ
