DO WE WANT A 'FLOATING' MEETING VENUE? A few Trojans have been discussing the idea of making the club a little more intentionally regional, similar to the old Wheatbelt club which met in member homes throughout the 9 nw KS counties. Thoughts mainly have centered on having some meetings at the NWS conference room in Goodland. This would be a big change for the club but if done right could expand our draw and membership and create some fun. Give it some thought and we'll discuss this at the meeting.

NWS SPECIAL EVENT AGAIN Scott N0QE has announced that the NWS Special Event will be run again the first Saturday of December. There's a good chance the Trojans will be invited back to help run flagship station N0A from the Goodland NWS office. Last year's event drew Ham operations to more than half the nation's NWS offices and this one could surpass that.

SIMULATED EMERGENCY TEST UPCOMING Thomas County EC K0FJ reminds that the ARRL Set Emergency Test (SET) is usually the first weekend in October, although groups can elect to hold theirs anytime from Sept. 1 - Nov 30. Mike is looking for persons interested in using APRS, our portable antennas, or other unique ways to flex our emergency practice muscles. Let him know of your availability and ideas. Citizens Medical Center has approval from the board to install a permanent multi-channel commercial radio and antenna system with Amateur VHF frequencies in their boardroom. Mike is working on a blackout of normal communications for this SET and will hold ARES meeting prior to the event.

KANSAS SECTION CONVENTION Mark your calendars for Sunday August 19^th. The ARRL Kansas Section Convention will be held in Salina at the Bi-Centennial Center. This is always a great convention. It would be great to see a large group from the Trojan Club attend this event.

SCANNER BOOKS NEARING Work continues on the new 4^th Edition of our successful scanner book. They will have an all-new format and this is the first time one is being published after wide access to the FCC database via the Internet. There are over 500 new listings that will be in this book, so hopes are high for good sales. Assistance will be needed to bind the first new run of books. Gavon's will again be helping gratis with marketing. THANKS Gary, Rich and Rose.

FIELD DAY The TARC Group enjoyed another successful Field Day at Shalz Field-Colby Airport. Our QSO totals were down by 260 SSB Qs, however KØBJ held 402 CW Qs compared to 411 last year. 10 and 6 meter did not materialize this year. 26 Participants and Visitors took part in this years event. Thanks to all for setup, teardown and operating. The Free Press had great pre and post coverage, and we had some fun eyeballing during the event. Putting up the new Rohn mast turned out to be a bearcat; teardown was much simpler thanks to KB0LGX appropriating the use of a bucket truck to unbolt the section stops. We'll have to give some thought to our raining method next year.

402 Total CW QSOs X 2
922 SSB including 67 Novice station 10 meter Qs X 1
= 1726 QSO Points X 2 Power Multiplier + 900 Bonus points Total = 3352

Last years total was 3856. No word yet from the NOMADs, but no club had more fun that we did.

PACKET RACKET de Mike K0FJ - It's interesting how many APRS hams have commented on the recent activity out of our area. I've had 4 emails from Colorado Texas and Wyoming saying it's nice to see the reports and activity here. There has been some good DX lately with the 'normal' morning openings to the south, as well as Wyoming and the northwest.

BANDSCAN Emergency Coordinator K0FJ is requesting that we monitor the repeater more diligently when the skies are threatening. The last couple rough wx nights have had minimal ops available for spotting. He appreciates all the assistance Club members have given to the ARES nets. BT Some people get caught doing the goofiest stuff….. KC0IWH was recently quizzed by his boss as to why he was tapping the pointer on his torque wrench. The sad thing here is that his boss didn't even act surprised when Mike explained he was practicing Morse code for his ham ticket BT Gary W0TM reported on his Vail QTH activities in the All Asia CW contest this year. He only made 400 QSOs this time. When he got home, the medallions from Japanese PT&T for North America winning multiop score in last year's cw and ssb events were in the mail. K0FJ/BJ were in on the earning of the ssb medal. He just headed back to 1000' in western CO, figuring that'd be better than the heat and humidity of KC. BT Ex Trojan and Motorola dealer Ron K0SWU and xyl Carly were in Colby for an anniversary recently. Ron had a bout with colon cancer but had 'clean' surgery and says all is well. His son Robby is getting married in Hawaii this autumn. BT K0BJ attended a 3-balloon launch in Manhattan. The payloads were parrot repeaters and APRS/GPS units with telemetry, film cameras, etc. After the balloon excitement, launch site owner K0HGJ, ex-trustee of the KSU W0QQQ club, demoed his BIG Tesla coil for Bruce, producing some 3' lightning. BT FJ OXP BJ and xyl Janice attended the Midwest/Dakota ARRL convention in Sioux City. Lots to see and do along the Mighty Mo' River. The guys snagged a cheap fixer-upper Ham-M type rotator for KC0JAO, and Mike made a bargain for a boxful of TNCs, most of which are finding their way around to nodes or shacks. Patti won a swank prize at the banquet -- a Flying Horse Callbook CD which just happens to dovetail in with Mike's DX for Windows software, giving him near-instant, on or off-line access to operator data when scanning the bands. BT Further to the TNC item above, Jim KC0HBR is now in the APRS scene running a tnc to his HT and cruising the UNPROTO world with WinAPRS. Thanks to the K-N guys for doing some fixup work on the tnc & cables. HBR also picked up a bargain Magellan GPS BT Dale KB0SYH in Hoxie is running a TR-751A on 2M to a homebrew J-pole collinear, and putting a nice signal into our machine. BT Shawn KC0CVS is scheming on a modulated cw project from the Jul y1997 QST which would allow cw practice over 2m. A few Lawrence hams have interest in the project. Does anyone remember Fleck holding his 2M mic up to his oscillator and sending practice on the .82 machine? A few area hams used that as part of their practice regimen.

NEXT MEETING JULY 12 PIONEER MEM. LIBRARY - 7:00PM. Floating meeting venues, SET plans, etc. Program -- could be any one of 3 Dxpedition videos -- victims' choice.