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Pawnee Amateur Radio Club - Columbus, Nebraska
8/21/2025 Special News Announcement for Pawnee Amateur Radio Club members and guests,
The thunderstorm that rolled through Columbus on Sunday night August 17th contained a lightning strike that hit the Columbus 146.640 repeater tower on top of the Columbus Courthouse damaging the two meter antenna and feedline. The upper two thirds of the antenna was blown apart and is now lying in pieces on the roof.
Background:
On Monday afternoon, I had noticed extreme static on the repeater when talking locally with Larry KA0TWD. Tuesday Dave AC0TF also noticed something wrong and saw that the antenna was fractured antenna on top of the tower when he drove by the Courthouse.
Wednesday morning, Tim N0RHM was able to power off the repeater to prevent any further damage. The repeater will remain powered off until we can determine what to do for a replacement antenna. At this time it appears that the repeater hardware may be OK.
As we get more information I will send out email updates. In the meantime we will be using the 146.775 N0RHM repeater to support our normal radio nets on Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings.
Related news:
Dillon KF0GCK reported that the Meshtastic radio node that is also located on top of the Courthouse was not impacted by the lightning strike. The Meshtastic node is mounted on a separate pole and was not part of the tower structure that was hit by lightening.
9/30/2025 Update:
Tim NORHM reported that a new antenna and feedline are on order. Expected ship date is the second week of October.
KD0OBA - Pawnee Amateur Radio Club Secretary
Gene
73
Club Web site – Minutes posted here: http://www.WA0COL.com
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