TROJAN ARC HARMONIC

WAØVJR.#CLBY.KS.USA.NA

SWAPFEST RESULTS Thanks to KØPV and some others, we had by far the best selection of gear at our swapfest, but a catastrophic attendance of about 75! No one has decided if the later date, or just what, is to blame for the poor showing. The weather was good -- maybe too good? The good news is, the YL efforts at the food table saved us and we actually netted some profit. We had sales of nearly 30 tables. Winner of the $100 HRO gift certificate was Kirwin Snodgrass NØXLR of Garden City. The scanner raffle was won by Bob Schwindt of Colby, an employee of KØBJ's farm. He hopes to be able to monitor farm-related calls on the K-N communications community trunking system the farm is part of. KXØL's XYL from Scott City won the "non-ham ham" as well as another door prize. In spite of the small crowd alot of folks seemed to enjoy looking over the good selection of gear, and some good deals were made once again. Naturally some good eyeball QSOs were had as well. ARRL book sales amounted to just under $100, so the club gets $9+ commission on that.

NEW CLUB 440 REPEATER The club has purchased KØPV's 440 Mhz repeater system. For now we have it on the "reverse" Colorado split it had in Genoa -- 442.65 input/447.65 output. It's located at KBØMBT/NØXNJ QTH, runiing a 16 bay vertical dipole array with 20+dB gain, but only 30' above ground. We've applied for a normal positive split channel pair with the Kansas Amateur Repeater Council, and hope to have the machine moved to the WBØYCZ site 4 miles south of Colby, at 180' soon. There is an auxiliary 145.655 input/output, so you 2m only folks can enjoy this repeater also. It's currently running with a 5/8 wave vertical at Lindberg's. There is no output, of course, from the machine on 145.655 when that same input is active. Thanks to KBØMBT for setting up and tinkering with levels on the 70cm repeater.

SUNRAYCE PLANS As the June 26/27 routing of the Sunrayce through our area on US36 approaches, plans continue to be made. Good news for KSU alums and state supporters -- the KSU entry successfully qualified in the Arizona trials so they'll be playing with 'the big ones' in the Sunrayce. W3DKH is organizing a comms test on May 10 for the Colorado Sunrayce support team. They'll be in Last Chance, Anton and Limon. They plan to use the 147.225 mountain machine, as well as 146.58 simplex, and 3928 or 7235 on HF. The test will be established by 11:30AM CDT. If some of us can meet that HF sked that would be good. We'll be interfacing with these folks on June 27.

NEW AREA HAMS We had five successful testers at the swapfest, including Anthony Johnson, harmonic of NØSEG. Anthony is now KCØARB. He's failed the Tech a couple times in the past but really nailed it this time. Ward Taylor south of Sharon Springs made short work of the Novice-General writtens and is now KCØARA. Ward is getting into our machine at times, using a HT on low power to a Radio Shack scanner antenna! The SWR measures about 2.4/1 -- not too bad for a make-do antenna!

SOCIAL REGISTER Mike Archer KBØZBE has started his 4 month internship at the Denver branch of

EXPLORER SCOUT POST At the April meeting it was voted to sponsor an "emergency radio" Explorer Scout Post. Jim KGØPI will head up the effort, with Dick NØQGB second in command. Both boys and girls of high school age and beyond will be eligible to join. Jim will keep us updated on how many people show interest in this. It could be a good source of both "slave labor" and new hams for the club.

BANDSCAN BT KBØMBS recently unleashed and bought a 586/200 computer with 16x CD-ROM drive. Jon reports enhanced performance on alot of his game software. BT Bruce KØBJ was surprised to meet a 2nd cousin, David Smidt KBØZUO at theNorfolk NE hamfest. It's the first Bruce knew of David's getting licensed, and the first time they'd seen each other in about 20 years. BT Doc WØLOW recently got a report that one of his homebrew photo QSL cards was found in the collection of an ex-KSU chemistry prof, Bill WØPAH. Bill was QSL manager for KØBJ when Bruce was on his 1979 Yankee Trader DXpedition. Doc's photo QSLs were appreciated by the recipients, and this one dates to 1954. The club will probably get the card for their scrapbook. BT NØZTM was making bargain deals on computer stuff again at the swapfest this year. Laptops seemed to be the firesale item this time. The club bought 3 of them, with plans for using them as logging computers at Field Day. BT KBØMBS and KBØVUS were on a 3-man team that went to Emporia for a computer programming Olympiad. Contestants were given 6 problems, one at a time, and given 30 minutes to write code in BASIC, Pascal or C++ to solve each. The guys were the only team to use C++ in the competition, and teh "library" nature of C was a bit of a handicap, but they still placed well in the contest and had alot of fun. BT Gerry KBØLGX has taken down the club's TH3 at his house and plans to install some VHF/UHF antennas. The swapfest setup crew helped on the gruntwork. BT Thanks to John WAØCAL who joined the "standard" swapfest crew in setup, running and tearing down teh swapfest. BT There's a rumor floating around that KØBJ is responsible for some of the poor attendance at teh swapfest. Bruce appeared on KLBY's 8:25 am news show with Rich Epp, plugging the event. Some Trojans wondered whether he might have scared away the crowd. BT Dave NØTES ran into some trouble with his new (to him) motorcycle when he kissed the pavement unexpectedly. He got a concussion and some scrapes and spent the night in the hospital but is back in good shape. The cycle, however, could use a little attention.....

NEXT MEETING MAY 8 CCC GOVE ROOM The upcoming Sunrayce and Field Day need some planning work. We also will discuss plans for moving and using the new 440 repeater.