TROJAN ARC HARMONIC

CHRISTMAS PARTY DECEMBER 13 AT KØBJ We'll gather at Bruce and Janice's home at 1553 County Road T around 6PM, and plan to eat at 6:30. Like last year we're planning a pot-luck meal primarily of hors d'oeuvres or finger-type food. Spouses and family are encouraged to attend. There will be little or no program and plenty of time for visiting. To find K0BJ QTH: from K25/US24 go west 3 miles to Road 16, 1 mile north to Road T, and half mile west to 2^nd house on right. Don't forget the January post-holiday party at the Colonial in Oakley on regular meeting night.

NWS SPECIAL EVENT DEC 1 K0FJ N0QE KC0JAO and K0BJ set up the Trojan trailer, yagi and dipoles at NWS Goodland for the 24 hour N0A operation as part of Skywarn Recognition Day. The NWS hams and WA0GBN also operated. Highlights included QSOs with former Trojan Mike KC0IWH/AG, who passed his General only 3 hours before his first QSO with us! NWS hams Aaron KC0KOR and Bruce KC0KOU ran some of the pileup, as did Dave, a non-ham GLD employee who spent 3 months on Swan Island in college operating HR6SWA for patches and recreation. Dave remembered his ham lingo well. Thanks to JAO and FJ we ran a 3^rd station primarily on PSK31, and XJ's recently modified coax-trap dipole served as the antenna for that station. We hoped to give the upstart N0G gang at Des Moines a run for the money and top QSO honors; however we dropped form 800 to 700 QSOs and they expanded from 1150 to 1300!. The SHARCs et.al took W0PMW Dodge city to 281 Qs. JPEGs of the operation are at http://www.crh.noaa.gov/gld/ and results, as they come in, are at http://hamradio.noaa.gov/ The Trojans have agreed to help with certificate requests -- stand by for worknight info.

MT SUNFLOWER CERTIFICATES KB0MBS Jon did design work on a photo-pased certificate for our K0S operation with the SHARC gang in October. KC0JAO has designed a traditional-sized QSL card and we plan to send both, and a letter, to station requesting confirmation. We're on the verge of a work session to bang out the 120 or so certificates.

November Sweepstakes - from W0MI SHARCBYTES
The SHARC club call W0MI was used in the November Sweepstakes for 2001. Operators KA0BAJ / Gary, AC0E / Jim and KA0RID / Marion were the operators that worked Gary's station. They started operation around 4 PM Saturday and shut down around 2 PM Sunday. The crew had a successful event, contacting all 80 sections in the contest. The
total number of stations contacted during the event was 517. The best part of the 24 hours was the food that was made available by Gary's wife Patty, which kept the energy level at its maximum for the three operators. Thanks to Patty and Gary for making the event for W0MI 2001 November Sweepstakes a success. N0OMC / Dean also made an effort to participate in November Sweepstakes, his first year, operating his station in Lakin. Dean
made 105 contacts, working 9 hours and was able to chalk up 54 sections. Great work!

Special Event 2001 SKYWARN Recognition Day from W0MI SHARCBYTEs The Boothill ARC hosted the 2001 National Weather Service Skywarn special event offer from the National Weather Service's Dodge City office. K0BAI / Kenny made plans with other club members to get antennas, equipment and operators in place for the 24 hour operation out of the Weather office. The weather for the Dec. 1, event was excellent. KA0RID checked with the NWS operators on duty when the operating started and there was not one lighting strike in the United States. Noise free for the evening across the U. S. The radio operators were supported by the Boothill ARC, and the Sandhills ARC. KG0MT / Marty reported that 281 contacts were made with 49 of the 96 National Weather sites operating. There were 12 amateurs supporting the radio operation: K0BAI, AC0FV, KC0ALR, KC0AUD, KC5IQP, AC0E, W0OM, KC0LAV, WB0WRA, KG0MT, KC0LOS, KA0RID.

SKYWATCHING - 1 WINNER & 1 LOSER A big coronal mass ejection a few weeks ago spawned a very impressive aurora display a couple evenings later until the moon interfered about 10PM. N0XJ/XNJ K0FJ N0OXP K0BJ KC0JAO KC0HBR N0XNK were among those jockeying cars for best view of the show. A large and bright sheet of green was accented with active ryas, arcs and curtains of red. The colors represent different ionization levels of various gasses present in the ionosphere. On SSB Sweepstakes night skywatchers were primed for Leonids meteor storm viewing at 4AM, and encouraged by a break in the foggy Gulf nights of the previous few evenings. As the temp. dropped fog billowed in and was impossible to see anything from Colby. KB0MBS and KC0CVT went out at 3:30AM under clear Manhattan skies and at best were seeing 40 meteors/minute! Jon commented that even more impressive were the long-lasting trains behind the brighter meteors. K0BJ is a 2-time loser on the Leonids; he was clouded out in Colby back in 1967 and missed a 50 meteor/second show!

MAD SCIENCE? December 12, 1901 is the purported start date of transAtlantic SWLing, as Marconi transmitted the letter S in Morse from Poldhu England where it was reportedly received in Newfoundland. Fifty years and one day later a human baby was propagated onto the plains of western Kansas, and subsequently sent S -- in fact the letters W-N-Ø-T-A-S (and K0BJ et. al) -- all over the world.

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jcraig/marconi.html

BANDSCAN Dave KB0SYH has been busy erecting antennas in Hoxie. On the high end he's built a 2M J-pole, and at the other end of the spectrum he has a 160/80 meter fan dipole fed with ladder line. BT Jeff KC0JAO recently built a 12/17/40/80 meter dipole with clever coax-cable traps from the W8XS design in the Antenna Handbook. Jeff's worked well enough to inspire Gregg N0XJ to retro-fit his 40M dipole for 80/40/20/15/10. BT Darel WA0GBN's fairly recent HF privileges haven't kept him off the high bands. He bagged Newfoundland and Alaska on 6M during the recent openings, and worked into Iowa on 70cm. BT K0BJ and K0FJ recently had their All Asia North America 1^st place medals (W0TM multiop) mounted in wood by retired pastor Gene Shoemaker, all the better to show them off. And BJ just added a slick 2000 CW Sweepstakes Midwest Multi 1^st place plaque to his shack wall. BT K0KHP helped out with setup at the N0A event in Goodland, just down from his QTH. Dave recently got replacement wheels and is back patrolling Sherman County roads. BT K0BJ was named "windiest op" at the N0A special event by the other ops. NWS station ops are encouraged to make the contacts more than just a quick exchange, but it seems Bruce tended to get a bit carried away. The ultimate came in a PSK QSO with Puerto Rico when 'BJ nearly overflowed the type-ahead buffer…. BT Among those finding excitement on 6M recently has been Gary W0TM. He and Phil N0KE were driving from Vail to Denver for Phil's presentation to the Mile Hi DX Assn on winning the world QRP in CQ WPX from Costa Rica. While mobile they chatted with a few Europeans! BT Mike K0FJ held a multiop for SSB SS at his newly-moved shack. K0BJ served a few hitches and KC0JAO pulled duty twice but Mike did the lion's hare of the work. The guys swept all 80 multipliers by 11PM Saturday night which is EARLY, and ended up with a respectable 1250 QSOs, which nonetheless was well behind their seasoned contest buddies in Beloit and likely won't quite put them in the Top 20. The J twins suffered with intermittent RX and tore into a footswitch, the rig fan, remote coax switch at top of the tower, and even reset the TS570, in case it was QRMing itself. They finally sank 1 hour below the permissible 24 hour operating time. The problem was cured when JAO inquired as to why the squelch was turned up a bit…….. BT Butch WA0VJR will leave the glitz of Las Vegas and be at a Computer School in Florida from Dec 17 through Dec 22, then back in Wallace until Dec 27^th. Maybe a few Trojans can meet with him if holiday schedules permit. Butch and Darel WA0GBN have been keeping a Tuesday sked on 14.240 at noon CT.

NEXT MEETING DECEMBER 15 6:00PM CST. Pot luck Christmas party at K0BJ QTH. Bring the family. We may have short discussion regarding possible dues increase, and officer elections.

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. Dues are $10/annually, payable to Kathy Lindberg N0XNJ, Colby KS 67701. Material from the Trojan Harmonic may be freely copied; attribution is appreciated. News and free email subscription requests to KØBJ, PO Box DX, Colby KS 67701 or bfrahm@colby.ixks.com Online archive of some past issues at http://colby.ixks.com/~bfrahm/trojnls.htm