TROJAN ARC HARMONIC

JULY 2003

 

 

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

 

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

 

NEXT MEETING JULY 10  7:00PM K-N COMMUNICATION

 

FIELD DAY FUN  The club voted at the last meeting and the winning venue was Phillips Park. The location turned out noisier than scouting reports had indicated. This was a noticeable handicap for SSB operations, but didn’t hurt cw too much. 15 meters was open some of the time, but 20 and 40 were the workhorse bands. 80 was limited simply due to a heavy rainstorm Saturday night that shut us down around 11PM. It continued to rain till 4AM, and nobody managed to get the network and radios reconfigured until about 6AM. We’ve concluded that droughts could be ended just by doing Field Day at Phillips Park! 6 meters failed us this year, with only a local contact with an I-70 trucker.

KØQP KCØGLA NSØO KBØLGX log ‘em while NØXJ stands by for repairs.

 

Aside from the line noise problems and wx, Phillips Park brought high marks for the family activities and general ambiance. Kathy NØXNJ whipped up a great cookout Saturday evening.  KØQP and KØFJ did much of the prelim. setup Friday. KCØGLA Nathan showed Saturday with his homebrew eggbeater antennas still in need of phasing for circular polarization. Feeding them direct, a couple satellites were heard but nothing went in the log.  Mike KCØIWH and Chet NSØO played Hired Gun roles by traveling to help out the club effort.  In fact, Chet was 100% of our GOTA (get on the air) team this year. NØXJ chased away the few Murphy tangles we had during the festivities. KØFJ didn’t travel to Beloit due to harvest up there, so that fortunately meant we had our networking guru on hand to keep the logging going smoothly. John WAØCAL did his usual superb provisioning of the troops to keep us energetic throughout the operation. Everyone contributed to the score and fun. Others at FD were NØXNO WBØUSQ KBØLGX ACØJ KCØHBR KØBJ

WØWOB FD 2003

 

Two things were a special treat this year. The weather was cool and delightful, even if a bit too soggy during the night. Flies and mosquitoes weren’t much of a problem. And, even with NØXJ’s crankup tower added into the mix, teardown went exceptionally fast this year and we were packed, fed and outta there by 3PM Sunday.

 

Our 365 CW QSOs and 272 SSB contacts plus 1100 bonus points yields a score of 3104. This is considerably behind recent outings, but with propagation and line noise considerations is a good number. And we certainly had enough fun to make it worthwhile! Soapbox comments on ARRL’s contest website at http://www.carrollsweb.com/bfrahm/FD2003.htm

 

BALLOON LAUNCH  The Edge of Space Sciences multi-balloon launch at Deer Trail a couple weeks ago was NOT attended by Trojans KØFJ/BJ as planned. Turns out the balloons had to be on the ground earlier than first thought, due to FAA considerations, and the launches were moved up to 7AM MDT. The Colby duo decided getting up at 3:30 our time to make the action was a bit much. However Mike did rx. all balloons RF and plotted their progress on UI View. It was an entertaining consolation prize. This launch was the practical side of a big symposium held in Boulder., together making the 2nd Great Plains Super Launch. This is an opportunity unique to our area and would be interesting to attend in another year. The first was held at KSU in Manhattan.

 

APRS CAPERS  - DE KØFJ – New updates to the level 2 APRS severs and UI-View are making NWS warnings and watches easier to view on the APRS scene.  Some problems till exist with NWS offices that border more than one state.  The longer message format to include the multi-state info is causing problems with the APRS server conversion program.  For those using UI-View, several new snap-in applications have been released.  Check the web page for info. 

 

The mystery of the on again – off again problem at the St. Francis WX Node has been solved.  Gregg – NØXJ had to make a visit to the office where the WX equipment is located.  While there, Gregg checked the power output on the Kenwood radio and discovered less than 1 watt into greater than 10:1 SWR.  Bad connectors on both ends for the coax were the problem with the SWR.  Gregg replace the lower connector and a bucket truck is scheduled to replace the top connector.  Scott- NØQE has a replacement radio ready to go.  Plans are in the works to convert the location into a UI-View ARPS Digi in the near future.  This should bring the St. Francis WX info in on a regular schedule. 

 

INTERESTING TEST TAKERS PASS THROUGH OUR DOORS     Our VE team has had a fun time testing Bob and Corinne Talbot. The couple are missionaries to Mozambique, who had returned to Hoxie and called up wanting to educate themselves from the ground up in short order and get radios not only for hamming but to facilitate their mission comms on low HF commercial freqs. The pair cracked through Now You’re Talking and passed the Techs (Corinne with a perfect paper!). Then they started studying for the General……  Bob had a CDL exam to work on as well and begged off, but Corinne passed the written with flying colors and had two groups of > 1 minute perfect copy on her cw exam, to earn General. Pretty stout performance for short-time ham wannabes, and congratulations to both. They are completing pre-deployment stuff in Minnesota, and will soon be in Mozambique. We’re hoping to hear some C9 activity out of them and their IC-706 and windom-type antenna. They will be using Win-Link for email messaging, so in any case we should be able to stay in touch with the Talbots.

 

BIG JOKE ON THE TRAIL AGAIN   Wanderer KØBJ is at it again…. After attending the summer ARRL board meeting, Bruce and family are meeting Alan WØNO and his XYL Phyllis on Rhode Island’s Block Island. They’ll take a ferry and stay on the 2 x 4 mile island for a week. Alan has a BUNCH of gear and antennas he’ll be motoring to the east coast with. The pair will set up a station for playing into Europe during the week, and will get Bruce’s ARRL board cellmate Mike K1TWF to join them in a multiop effort in Britain’s Islands on the Air contest July 26-27. The guys should attract some attention with their Acom amp, close to shore location at the house they’re renting, and the special island contest format.

 

They are borrowing the callsign of Jack N1DX of Maine for the contest. Jack and Bruce spent 9 months at sea visiting and hamming from Easter, Pitcairn, Western Samoa, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands and other savory DX locales in 1979. Then they joined forces in Jack’s little winter hangout of SW Puerto Rico in 1992, traveling to DXCC “country” Desecheo Island KP5, which has since become quite a rare place due to illegal immigrant occupation and drug running.

 

Be on the lookout for WØNO and KØBJ during the week of July 20-27, and for N1DX from 1200Z the 26th for a full day.

 

TESTING OPPORTUNITY   It’s not yet in concrete, but there will PROBABLY be a VE test held Saturday July 26 in the afternoon at City Hall in Colby. Contact KØFJ if you are interested in testing at that time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BANDSCAN    Tropo conditions have been hot the last few days, with interference bars on the TV stations. Nathan KCØGLA has been shooting some DX on 2M FM, and the Hutch, KC and other repeaters have banged in at times.  BT  Bruce KØBJ had a bizarre problem with his new VX7R – it liked to lock in TRANSMIT mode without warning! His first clue was often a real warm sensation around the beltclip holding the little beast, and he wonders how many of his mumblings might have gone out over the air…..  Anyway HRO Denver’s generous return policy saved the day and he’s now running a new VX7 without the extra ‘feature’. Now, to figure out how to do all the fancy stuff with it…..  BT  Allen KØMXU continues to work on refurbishing his long-suffering HF tribander. The last we knew, he was still waiting for the tree-trimmer to show up. We’re hoping to hear him back with a potent HF signal one of these days before the snow files again.  BT  During Field Day KCØGLA cloned his FT-847’s extensive satellite up/downlink memories into KØBJ’s 847. Saved Bruce a lot of work, and might get him encouraged to really get that 90’ VHF self-supporting tower up this summer.  BT  A KC5 from Tulsa was mobile recently and on the .82 machine. He needed help locating some kin – the Guilfoyles of Colby. Big Joke got him aimed the right direction, and later Bruce was invited over for an eyeball QSO. It soon became apparent that KØFJ should be in on the conversation too and such common interests as ham ballooning, flying, APRS, IRLP and other fun stuff were being argued and discussed. It was a fun evening for all concerned, made all the more fun when Mrs. Guilfoyle’s homemade cherry pie made the scene.  BT  When an I-70 ham asked about the city fireworks display July 4th, one thing led to another and NØXNO NØOXP KØFJ KCØHBR and KØBJ all ended up congregating at KBØLGX’s salt mine, the public works lot to watch the show.

 

NEXT MEETING JULY 10  7:00PM K-N COMMUNICATIONS   A fairly relaxed agenda (I think…)  Maybe IRLP location discussion…..  KØFJ and NØOXP will be picking up grandson Riley on Thursday and will not be at the meeting.

 

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 linkl. 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