TROJAN
ARC HARMONIC
FEBRUARY 2003
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-2 APRS DIGI 144.39
WØWOB APRS Weather
Node
WØWOB-10 APRS IGate
TROJANS ARE NOW “ZERO NOVEMBER” QSL MANAGERS As
a result of KØBJ and KØFJ attending the WØDXCC convention last fall in Omaha,
the Trojan club volunteered to handle incoming ARRL QSL bureau cards for
all “ØN” cards. In other words, bureau
QSLs to any US ham with a zero followed by the letter N will come to ARRL Hq in Connecticut, or to the WØ bureau in Overland Park,
but will then be sent to Colby for us to sort, put in client envelopes and
mail. Bureau manager KBØU passed files, a sorting tray and supplies to KØBJ as
he was flying out to ZF-land. On his return Bruce took the stuff to K-N where
operations will take place. We successfully sorted some Spanish cards. Gregg
and Jeff also spent a lot of time going through a dead (unclaimed) QSL box
looking for changed calls, incorrect callsigns, etc.
This turned up a card intended for Bruce – ZF2CM via KØNJ (instead of BJ). Only
by chance did the N cards end up at a place where this mistake would be known,
and some lucky Czech ham will get a confirmation that otherwise would have gone
unanswered. This will be a learning and interesting
project; time will tell just how much labor is involved with it but the “J
quadruplets” have all agreed to handle the chores.
SKYWARN
RECOGNITION DAY CERTIFICATE FULFILLMENT Certificates for
SRD2002 are now being produced in a much more automated fashion than last
year. Bill Moore NC1L, manager of ARRL’s
DXCC desk, agreed to write a Word Mail Merge program to specs given by KØBJ,
and Bruce did the associated artwork in Adobe Photoshop. This was a rather
complex project, as 14 endorsement fields plus the certificate’s callsign
holder needed to go into the database to fill variables in the Word
certificate. Once the project is completed, Scott and the NWS crew will be
providing certificates to all the ops at NØA, plus all the NWS offices who
participated. We’ll also get word from them on how many certificates went out
the Armory Road door.
IT’S STILL DUES TIME $15
individual member dues are payable. Mike KØFJ is the new treasurer and is still
accepting dues payments. A list of paid
members will be included in next months News Letter.
BALLOON LAUNCH
AT DEER TRAIL January
25 was the date for double action with balloon sout
of Colorado. The now-familiar
EOSS group did a launch up in the Rockies, and of more interest to us, a newer group called ESOS launched from
near Deer Trail. This balloon has hovering capability instead of the more
familiar rise & burst method. With the prevailing winds that Saturday, the
balloon approached our area but was cut down under control for a landing
southeast of Burlington. Details and photos available at http://www.geocities.com/ke0vh/ESOS . KØBJ, who was enroute to KCI and the Cayman Islands, and KØFJ, worked ballooning guru Don KAØJLF of KC who was coming out
for the launch the previous day. A note
of local interest is the launch took place on the ranch of Ray and Donna
Morris. Donna was the librarian at Pioneer Memorial Library and was formerly
married to Sheriff Tom Jones. She provided soup for the ballooning hams.
The Great Plains Superlaunch and
balloon symposium will be in Boulder June 13-15. This is a great opportunity for hams
interested in ballooning to get some book-smarts as well as practical flying
experience.
75M RAGCHEW LEADS
TO LOCAL REMINISCING The multiop
contesting group that has recently been operating from WØNO’s
QTH in Beloit has a standing 9PM Tuesday evening sked
on 3.810. On one recent sked John WØCEM/7, wintering in Phoenix, had a fellow ex-Junction Citian, Bob W3IEZ in tow. When Bob discovered some
participants were from Colby, he was excited because he used to live in this
area and operate as KØRFX. His first QSO was with Curt KØDIP of Gem, one of the
herd of Knudson hams. But Bob’s fondest memories were
of Ray WAØCTP, or as Bob referred to the Oakley pharmacist, “Cuspidors,
Toreadors and Picadors”. This author never heard Ray use those
phonetics, but I fully agreed with IEZ’s assessment
of Ray as a very gregarious and thoughtful ham. (apparently
one of Ray’s QSLs featured drawings of the 3 items in the phonetics…..) Another tidbit that I’d never had the luck to
witness was Bob’s claim that Ray built a 40M QRP rig. Nothing terribly unusual
about that, especially in the early 60s, but this particular homebrew project
included its own steam-driven power generator! Now that would have been
something to see. Allen, can you confirm any of this or add details?
NWS OFFERING
WX CLASS AT CCC The Thursday night for-credit weather class
at CCC has 18 participants, including the Trojans’ own NØOXP and KØFJ. They
report lots of interesting coursework and active discussion among the
participants. The drawback, of course, is that Mike won’t be attending the next
couple TARC meetings and we’ll be hard-pressed to come up with an hour’s
discussion! On the horizon is the
spring spotter training class. This is scheduled for Tuesday March 11th
just prior to the march TARC meeting. All area
Hans should plan to attend this training.
Dave N5DBZ will be the instructor.
He has been hard at work on the material for this years
class. He will have a newer format for
this years class.
Dave will also be teaching an Advanced Spotters class in Colby in April
or May. Details for that training will
be noted here.
APRS HAPPENINGS
- DE KØFJ - Anyone interested in checking the weather or
APRS activity who does not have equipment can do so at the www.findu.com
website. KØFJ provided an APRS demo at
the NWS Class in Colby during the session that pertained to methods of
gathering weather data. All participants
skipped the mid class break to check out the wx and
APRS activity projected on the big screen.
That class also covered the proper way to set up your backyard Weather
Station. KØFJ has the handouts with that
information if anyone is interested. KØFJ
and ACØJ will be hitting the road to setup an APRS demo at the National Weather
Service Office in Goodland in the next few weeks. Anyone interested in APRS is welcome to the
demo. KØBJ will provide a mobile demo
from Colby that will test the WXØGLD-10 Digi in Goodland. The WX station in St Francis will be
re-configured to pass wx data into the Colby digi.
BANDSCAN KØBJ/ZF2CM and family recently enjoyed
their week in the Cayman Islands. The first few days the wx was
not much better than nwKS (70 here and 75 there) but
the last 3 were markedly different and somehow the change of scenery can’t be
beat. Bruce was glad to finally do expedition logging electronically, even if
it was by using his old 486 and CT. That was then converted to ADIF and
DX4WINdows. Just shy of 1000 Qs went in the log, and BJ was glad to get in 3
SCUBA dives including a night dive. BT ACØJ and NØXJ attended the Kearney hamfest and report a decent crowd
and some good buys. The boys continued to Grand Island where Jeff discovered his ATAS100
whip had broken off. Luckily it found its way into his pickup’s bed, and he
successfully replaced it. The ØN Buro clients in clued Gary AGØN, WAØVJR’s
buddy from NE and Alan WØNO BT In an eyeball ragchew
with ZF2CM, Cayman ARA shack owner Andrew ZF1EJ discovered he will be in Las Vegas the same week Bruce’s family is
there for spring break. Andrew is attending a water purification seminar –
that’s the business he has on Cayman. The two hope to meet up while in Vegas. BT Beloit contester Alan WØNO visited Colby
recently to pick up and get tutoring on two networked laptops which KØFJ
refurbished for Alan’s great, new competitive multi-single station southeast of
Beloit. ACØJ and KØBJ joined the
festivities and the group finished the evening by watching a DVD of the VKØIR
1998 expedition to Heard Island. This was a superb production detailing foul weather and
spectacular scenery, and challenges of bringing this isolated rock heap into the
logs of 80000 hams. BT World-traveling yachtees Mike
KM9D and Jan TF4TUG have turned up in Canton Island, operating as T31MY and providing
many locals with new band-countries. This is the pair who met up with KØBJ when
they were all on Grand Cayman 3 years ago. BT KØBJ was pleased to receive his plaque
for division-high low power score in the ARRL CW DX contest last year. Midwest
Director Wade WØEJ handed the goods to Bruce during the January board meeting. BT On their way to the KCI airport, KØBJ’s family and brother-in-law Paul Steele picked up Jon
KBØMBS in Manhattan and went to a Chinese buffet for supper. They rendezvoused
with ex-Trojan, now WØQQQian KCØIWH. Mike was fresh
off his election as president of the KSUARC.
NEXT MEETING FEBRUARY 13 K-N
7PM - ACØJ will be taking over for KØFJ and promises to have
several items on the agenda. This should
be a GREAT meeting!
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 $15/annually, payable to Gary Shull NØXNK, 755 Lane Drive, 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://colby.ixks.com/~bfrahm/trojanarc.htm
