TROJAN ARC HARMONIC

JANUARY 2004

Editor Bruce Frahm KØBJ Send articles to k0bj@arrl.org

Publisher Mike Albers KØFJ Subscription requests to k0fj@arrl.net

MEETINGS 2^nd 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

WØWOB IRLP Node #3608

145.65 156.7 PL

KØFJ-2 APRS DIGI 144.39

KØFJ-1Ø APRS I-Gate

WØWOB APRS Weather Node

NØOXP APRS Weather Node

CCC BASKETBALL RECOGNITION The college is thanking area volunteer groups by having a recognition at tonight’s (Jan. 7) CCC/Garden City basketball games. TARC’s name, along with other service groups, will be printed in the program and announced at halftime of the men’s game. AND we have been given free admission to the game! The ticket desk in the lobby of the Community Building will have tickets for Trojan ARC members – just ID yourself as such to get into the game.

K0QP K0BJ K0FJ and XYLs are planning to attend. We’ll try to sit together and coordinate on .82 if possible. The women’s game starts at 6PM and men’s is at 8PM. The Trojans are no longer undefeated, but are red-hot and it will be a fun evening.

DUES DUE We didn’t do a good job of passing the hat at the December meeting….. 2004 dues, still at $15/year are now due. See treasurer K0FJ at the meeting or send to address in the footer of the newsletter. Your support of TARC is appreciated.

IRLP NODE SORTA UP The continuing security and coverage issues with the IRLP node will take up some time at the club meeting. Currently K0FJ has the node running at home. Mike’s home web access is sufficient for good operation of the VOIP audio, but the RF link is fairly weak due to makeshift antenna. The system is good for the immediate Colby area, however. One recent caller into the node was from Indiana and had relatives near the other KS IRLP node near KC. They were complaining of too-wet wx. Go figure…….

QSL BUREAU DUTIES EXPAND As K0BJ makes his way to the ARRL BoD meeting the trusty Explorer will be parked near KCI, and most likely Zero Bureau manager KB0U will be making a ‘deposit’. Rick is on ‘grandkid watch’ with his first expected around that time, but he hopes to get whatever N QSLs are on hand into Bruce’s Ford. Plus….. he will bring the promised X bureau along as well. Rick advises the volume on X is a bit less than half that of N. Until sometime in the 80s, a leading X in a callsign suffix denoted a licensee in the Experimental, not Amateur, service, so the number of calls is much less.

SKYWARN RECOGNITION DAY WRAPUP We had a lot of fun at SRD this year, although the number of QSOs was down. K0FJ K0BJ N0QE N5DBZ did a lot of the setup with AC0J and N0XJ assisting. The above, less N0XJ, stayed to operate. We also had help from K0BLU and K3RRY who made the trip over from Oberlin for the morning shift Saturday, and weather forecasterTrent KC0QBH worked the pileups for a while. Joy KC0QAV also made a couple QSOs.

K0BJ made some modifications to last year’s MS MailMerge database and Word document and NWS staff, mainly Scott and Joy, found photos for this year’s certificate. It will feature Hurricane Isabel, the May tornado outbreak, and western wildfires. Look for the certs to be on the streets in a few days.

CHRISTMAS PARTY AT MONTANA MIKE’S This was an enjoyable evening with about 25 attending, including 3 NWS personnel. We had lots of informal visiting and everyone introduced themselves. Each of the hams mentioned an enjoyable or notable incident of the year in their ham pursuits.

K0BLU/K3RRY ANTENNA PROJECT Gil has been hard at it…. Again….. and the 35’ crankup tower is up and helping his signal into the .82 machine. We still need to help Gil and Char get their A3S over to the tower, and we’ll be looking at a plot to get this completed. If it goes up in subzero wx, it’ll probably stay up longer, according to theory……… But we probably will want to opt for a balmy day for installation anyway!

APRS CAPERS - DE KØFJ –

CONTEST CAPERS K0BJ operated short stints in the ARRL 160 Meter contest (conflict with SRD, and KSU Big 12 championship…) and the 10 Meter contest (trip to KB0MBS graduation in Manhattan). Bruce and K0FJ had planned an entry in the January RTTY Roundup, possibly to include K0QP, but that plan was foiled when Mike came down with the crud prior to the contest. He did make 15 Qs toward the end of the contest. As it turned out, HF conditions have been pretty flat recently.

BANDSCAN K0BJ is off to Hartford next week for the January ARRL board meeting. Bruce has a new neighbor on the back row of the board room. KA2ANF, a YL from New York is the incoming Hudson Division Vice Director. On Bruce’s other side is Mike K1TWF, the east coast op. who kept BJ and W0NO in line with east coast techniques in the Islands on the Air contest this summer in Rhode Island. BT One of our VE team’s examinees, Darrell KC0RCX of Jennings has been on the .82 machine. Darrell has a Ringo Ranger up and is working on an Eggbeater he hopes to use for some VHF SSB work. Also in his plans is to get his code up to 5wpm and get the General ticket. Darrell says he’d thought of getting licensed for years, and he must be trying to make up for lost time. He has NINE rigs, of which 2 are for HF (icluding an IC-735 like our ‘new’ club rig courtesy Kyle Andregg’s estate). BT Condolences to Lauren W0LD, whose father passed away. Lauren is a frequent voice on our repeater, as they travel from home in Colorado Springs to see his family in Smith Center. Lauren is a bigtime VHF op, having visited Cuba for a contest operation around a decade ago. And he’s no small force on HF either. BT Roger W0HLU of Manhattan became a Silent Key recently. Roger was K0BJ’s DX Elmer when Bruce was attending KSU. In fact at the time Roger was just back from two years as VU2HLU. A job for the university in India took him and XYL Donna to the city of Hyderabad. Roger’s death made the DX bulletins. His QSL manager W0PAH, chem.. professor at KSU, became Bruce’s manager on the 1979 Yankee Trader DXpedition. BT Darel WA0GBN and Pat had a good time on their cruise around Puerto Rico. Darel didn’t make any radio QSOs while there, but did have a QSL via landline with a ham. Bet they wish they were back there now instead of enduring this cold wx…… BT Mike KC0IWH continues as El Presidente of the KSU ARC, W0QQQ. Spottsy recently got the club’s 2 meter machine troubleshot and back in service.

NEXT MEETING JANUARY 8 7:00PM K-N COMMUNICATIONS dues, IRLP, Oberlin tower project

The Trojan Amateur Radio Club is a general interest educational and public service ham club. We maintain 2M and 70cm FM repeaters, APRS packet digi and I-Gate and IRLP link. 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