TROJAN ARC HARMONIC
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Editor Bruce Frahm KØBJ Send articles to k0bj@arrl.org |
Publisher Mike Albers KØFJ Subscription requests to k0fj@arrl.net |
MEETINGS 2nd THURSDAYS 7PM K-N COMMUNICATIONS
HAM LUNCH NOON FRIDAYS MONITOR .82
WORK NIGHTS AS SCHEDULED
WØWOB REPEATERS
146.22/.82
444/449.65 156.7 PL
KØFJ-1Ø APRS I-Gate
WØWOB APRS Weather Node
NØOXP APRS Weather Node
GOOD TURNOUT FOR MARCH MEETING / NWS SPOTTING We had a good number of hams on hand to discuss APRS and Field Day in the Little Theatre while enjoying pizza. Then Dave N5DBZ gave his spotter training class to a crowd of about 100. This included a lot of new MP3 and Powerpoint graphic info. Hams attending included K0BLU K3RRY K0MXU N0XJ AC0J K0FJ K0BJ N0QE KC0HBR KB5ZFE N0OXP KB0ZIA N0XNO KC0OQM K0QP
The following 3 stories are NOT “April Fools” articles…… (after that, who knows????)
NWS CEO’s SHACK ATTACKED BY HUNGRY RODENT – Scott N0QE reports being off the air after having his coax disabled. No, this wasn’t a case of angry neighbors pinning his coax, but an unidentified rodent (possibly a gopherish-type animal) snacking on the ham’s feedlines. Scott heard an odd rattling sound while down in the shack and caught the critter foraging on one of his three coax runs. As it was late at night, he stuffed a rag down the animal’s hole when it retreated, in hopes that would keep him at bay. When checking the following morning, the hungry rodent had feasted on a second coax run. Scott denies reports of a mousy signal, but plans to repair the damage.
TIRE SPIKING A LITTLE TOO SUCCESSFUL Tom NØXNO was recently called out to I-70 to spike the tires on a van being driven by a runaway. XNO deployed the spiking cable just right to accomplish disabling the suspect van. But then….. the cable got jostled down the roadway and instead of being retracted, was lost in the dark where 2 more cars and a semi fell victim to the spikes. The runaway was in custody, and after unanticipated delays in their travel plans, 3 vehicle drivers had brand new rubber all around and an interesting story to relate to friends.
J QUADRUPLET MADNESS In a move acknowledged as “inevitable” in a small club with 4 calls ending in “J”, K0FJ exhibited a bit of cranial flatulence while posting his FT-100D for sale on eBay. Mike inadvertently typed in K0BJ’s email, not K0FJs, for queries. Only one errant inquiry came across Bruce’s inbox, as a correction was filed. The real question is – What’s Mike going to procure with the proceeds from this sale??
TOWERS FINALLY VERTICALLY POLARIZED Here’s a development most Trojans felt would happen about the same time KU won Big 12 football and KSU won Big 12 basketball -- KØQP and KØBJ have finished long-delayed tower projects…...
Jim was inspired to complete his HF antenna system at his new pastoral QTH when ACØJ offered to sell one of his many unused ““1500W”” Italian oil-cooled linear amplifiers. (Having been stung by paying list price at HRO for almost all of his purchases, Jeff was desperate to recoup some cash.) The thought of irradiating the ionosphere with full-power sideband CQs and running Japan for hours on end appealed so much to Jim that he sprang into action to complete his antenna. Without any Trojans on hand to raise the tower, QP enlisted the help of his pet coyote to pull on one set of guys, while he man-hauled the other side up by himself, inspired by watching his rural neighbor Wendy sunning on the porch. Although Jim’s set of guys got over-pulled, the damage was corrected and the tower is now ALMOST vertical.
Bruce’s #2 tower project stalled last year when Midwest Energy’s stockpile of shelved holes-in-the-ground ran out. In a fit of cleverness, BJ leashed his son Karlyn to a stake and had him run in circles until a 4’ hole was worn into the earth. In another complication, Fleck’s tilt-pole tower was not to be found once the hole was ready. Despite repeated requests for a search party, all listeners on the WOB repeater refused to believe Bruce’s plea for help, thinking it was a ruse. Finally BJ located the missing tower while cleaning trash from his well-organized shed. While most Trojans were of the opinion that 3 yards of concrete for the little tower’s base was a bit of overkill, they were glad to see this project come to a close.
The hamburger fry both hams held in celebration with the club was deemed generally successful, although many members were grossed out by the eating habits of some attendees. The sight of KØBJ adding Crisco to his 5th hamburger patty, KØQP hogging both chocolate cream pies, and NØXNJ getting schnockered on straight vodka chased with jalapenos was just a little revolting for those Trojans with more delicate appetites. Then there was NØXJ’s repetitive and somewhat tedious 25 minute explanation of traffic handling…. And we apologize to the latecomers who didn’t get any warm food. A break in the grill’s gas line was considered fixed, but KØFJ’s use of cheap Wham-O tape to effect the “repair” quickly failed (in typical fashion).….
APRS CAPERS - DE KØFJ – Lots Radio.
WA0VJR ACTIVE IN LAS VEGAS HAMMING KØBJ and family enjoyed a week of spring break at a timeshare place just south of the famous “Strip” in Las Vegas. On Thursday of their stay, Bruce met up with ex-Trojan Butch WAØVJR and his buddy Fred at a restaurant for dinner, followed by a monthly club meeting (one of 3 clubs Butch participates in). This one is the Nellis ARC, which meets in a rec building on Nellis AFB, home of Top Gun school. Meeting logistics were complicated by the start of the Iraq war and consequent movement of Nellis to “Condition Bravo”. BJ’s name was submitted beforehand as being sponsored by a Nellis club member in the Air Force, but it still necessitated 10 minutes’ paperwork once on base. Time well spent, as it was interesting to take part in this club’s meeting.
An interesting part of their upcoming plans is providing comms for a 185 mile foot race from Baker CA to Vegas (race to be run in 7 mile relay legs). The club’s main repeater, plus a portable on the same RF freq. but different PL tones, to be put on the other side of the intervening mountains, will provide simplified comms. Each team has a support van trailing its current runner, and APRS stations will be kept in the lead and last place teams’ vans, giving automated updates on status of the race trail. The club is also planning a cookout and party at the RV park of some members. Stories were also recounted of recent efforts to operate the 160M contest from a car with a screwdriver antenna and wire stinger thrown into trees. In fact, K0BJ tried to sked this operation which Butch was participating in but didn’t hear them, although they copied Bruce’s sigs.
The program was provided by a salesman from Amateur Electronic Supply who brought a sampling of 8 modern VHF and HF/VHF/UHF compact rigs. Quite interesting was an FT-817 teamed with an after-market active tuned whip antenna, capable of operation w. up to 20W on 160-6 meters! The sweet device extends to a mere 3.5’ and is tuned with a variable cap. near the bottom of the collapsible whip. Bruce missed the live demo of this device as he and son KBØMBS held tickets for a Blue Man Group concert not long after the meeting. The l’il antenna reportedly works out 100 miles+ on 160 and into Europe on 20.
IMPORTANT NEWS MAY AFFECT FUTURE FIELD DAYS
Newington,
CT
April 1, 2003
Following the ARRL's introduction of this year's "F" class for EOC
stations, other classes have been proposed for future runnings of
Amateur Radio's most popular on-the-air event. Given that most
veteran operators have participated in one or more Field Days that
fit these qualifications exactly, it may be that there will be more
classes in next year's report.
The proposed new classes are:
Class J - an entry in this class indicates that all equipment used
during Field Day was complete JUNK. 100 bonus points are available if
any of the equipment actually catches fire or damages another piece
of equipment.
Class M - if your group MEANT to get on and had the best intentions
of being active, but just couldn't get it together, send in a summary
sheet for this class. No logs or dupe sheet are required. 200 bonus
points if you forget to send in the summary, but meant to.
Class T - also known as the "Little Red Hen" class, entries in Class
T must show that 5% or less of the available operators actually did
all the work while the rest stood around TALKING. Multiply score by
1.5 if less than 2% of the operators did all the work.
Class Z(zzz) - Recognizing the trend as average operator age
increases, this class is available to groups where everybody falls
asleep after dinner on Saturday evening.
Along with the new classes, additional Bonus Point awards are under
evaluation:
25 points if any member can actually find an ARRL Radiogram form
5 points for each QSO using funny phonetics that actually make the
responding operator laugh so hard that beverage squirts out his or
her nose. Double points if they weren't drinking a beverage at the
time.
Double the QSO points for each contact made on an antenna that has
fallen down without anybody noticing.
Field Day brings out more operators every year. Recognition of
the "real-world" situations can only serve to increase participation
and reporting accuracy.
73 de KE9MA
BANDSCAN We’re in that interesting time of tropo conditions on VHF. A mobile going to eastern KS was solid into our machine beyond Hays, and a non-IGated APRS report came across from Del Rio TX (home of the infamous Doc Brinkley’s 2 Megawatt XERA on-air prescription service of the 1940s). BT K-N Communications, home of our club station, has a new phone number and email address: New phone r 785-460-7612
New e-mail address kncomm@st-tel.net BT Dave N5DBZ has received a new nickname…….. While explaining the logarithmic nature of radar reflections to the Thursday evening wx class at CCC, the subject of “DBZ” in radar reports came up. It is a decibel ranking of strength of precip. echoes. Dave confirmed that yes, his callsign was chosen as a ‘reflection’ of that fact. After determining that 5 DBZ indicates a very small amount of precipitation, the Trojans have duly dubbed Dave as “The Little Drip”. BT At its last bimonthly meeting, TARC’s Bylaws Compliance Committee voted to submit an additional proposed Field Day Class (refer to article above) for consideration. Our committee suggests Class +33. For this class double QSO points would be given for using electrical tape cheaper than 3M’s 33+ grade AND using no more than 1.67 wraps/connection. An additional 10 pts per PL259 would be awarded if ALL PL259s at the site are waterproofed with bubblegum or (gasp…) nothing. BT Kendal Schacher KB5ZFE is working at Culligan. He comes to Colby from the Amarillo area. Kendal is currently QRT with a bad battery pack but is hoping to get back on VHF. If you hear him on say hi. E-mail - kb5zfe@carrollsweb.com . BT KØBJ solved his contest cw auto-keying needs with a bit of overkill. Bruce bought the W5XD box that takes advantage of numerous WriteLog features. The box will provide smoother-generated cw that’s more easily adjusted for speed. Beyond that, it handles switching demands of a single op/ 2-radio setup, the increasingly popular contesting method of hotshot ops. Although BJ is a little leery of taking contesting THAT seriously, he has heard reports that this method of contesting cuts down on the Sunday boredom often experienced in the longer contests when ‘fresh meat’ is a problem. Bruce’s FT-847 would serve as a good #2 rig if and when he decides to utilize his new toy to its full extent. BT If you’ve tried the club website URL listed at the end of this newsletter to no avail, try again. The URL was changed about 10 months ago and our listing has just been updated with this issue! BT For any contesters out there looking for a good program…. This used to be THE standard. Nowadays it covers fewer contests than most of the other fee-based softwares, but it’s still popular, especially on the East Coast:: Hi guys, As of today, I'm making CT freeware. That doesn't mean I'm stopping work on CT, just that I don't want money for it anymore. I have changed the permissions on ctvault to let anyone download. The manual is being converted to PDF format, and I'll be updating it over the next few months. - Ken K1EA BT
NEXT MEETING APRIL 10 7:00PM K-N COMMUNICATIONS Field Day plans, ???
The Trojan Amateur Radio Club is a general interest educational and public service ham club. We maintain 2M and 70cm FM repeaters and APRS packet digi and I-Gate. Dues are $15/annually, payable to Mike Albers KØFJ 145 E. Cherry St., Colby KS 67701. Material from the Trojan Harmonic may be freely copied; attribution is appreciated. News requests to KØBJ, PO Box DX, Colby KS 67701 or bfrahm@colby.ixks.com. Subscription changes and requests to KØFJ k0fj@arrl.net. Club website at http://www.carrollsweb.com/bfrahm/trojanarc.htm