SPOTTER TRAINING M******** Thomas County spotter’s training will be held at the CCC Union at ***** pm

TROJAN ARC HARMONIC

MEETINGS FRIDAY NOON CCC ROOM 106

WORK NIGHTS 2nd THURS OF THE MONTH 7:00PM CT

PIONEER MEMORIAL LIBRARY

WØWOB REPEATERS

146.22/.82

444/449.65 156.7 PL

KØFJ-2 APRS DIGI 144.39
JUNE 2002

MOTHER'S DAY BBQ/FOXHUNT POSTPONED Between low potential attendance and some cool weather, the BBQ and foxhunt on Mother's Day was postponed. We have some interest in reviving the foxhunts, so look for this to be rescheduled, after the Field Day rush.

DAYTON REPORT KØBJ traveled to Dayton with 4 other KS hams including first-timer ex-Trojan Dale NØKQX of Garden City. The weather was threatening rain Friday but otherwise was fine, if unseasonably cool. IRLP-type plug n' play systems from two major manufacturers, a mini-forum area at the ICOM booth, and a device that records an entire 80 kHz chunk of RF on a VHS tape for 6 hours were some of the hot, interesting items. Bruce picked up a 'new' Alliance HD-73 rotator for the club, rated at 10.3 sq. ft. Having dinner at Wright-Patterson AFB with Nobel Prize winner Joe Taylor K1JT, and scoring in the top 25% at the Kansas City DX Club's pileup contest were two social highlights for Bruce.

TROJANS INVOLVED IN CRIME Despite the non-belief of the victim, it finally came to KØBJ's attention that his 90' Universal tower had been kidnapped and held for ransom. The ransom seemed to revolve around planning a 'decent burial’ for the tower. BJ offered a compromise of making plans to get KØRXT's old tilt-over drill stem pole tower put up, and that was enough to convince the kidnappers to reveal that the tower had just been shifted 60' to a lean-to in the barn! By the way the pole tower project is waiting on a hole and concrete truck, but could see completion before the next newsletter is out.

HAM LUNCH Word from NØOXP indicates the CCC Union cafeteria will remain open through June, so we can continue meeting there a while longer before a return to .82 roulette to determine our Friday eating venues. The crowds have been sparse but the food selection has still been good. Thanks for the info Patti.

WX NET The noon Central Time weather net/briefing has been getting pretty decent checkins. It's nice to have a heads-up on spotting prospects, which seem to be pretty sparse this season, anyway.

FIELD DAY This year Field Day is as early as possible, June 22-23. We've had one tower work night in which a 3-section Tristao tower like our 2-section trailer-tower had the original 4^th, top section reinstalled, minus a few bent feet of tower! Our next work night will complete work on the guying and base of this tower, which we're planning to use for wire and VHF antennas. Other plans for Field Day are being formulated at Ham Lunch and on the air on .82 Some regulars will be missing this year so we can use all the help we can find.

BIG BALLOON EVENT IN MANHATTAN Lloyd Verhage is putting together a balloon launch and symposium in Manhattan for July 5-6. This will be a great opportunity to learn about this sub-aspect of amateur radio for anyone willing to take a 3.75 hour drive east.

BANDSCAN Dale KBØSYH is quite an antenna fiddler. He recently replaced a 2-bay stacked J-pole with a Diamond collinear at 60' and hears our machine FB from Hoxie, as well as catching Hutch and Hartwell a lot of the time. It also beats the J-pole for staying up in the wind…. At the other end of the spectrum, he replaced his 160 meter inverted L with a full wave loop at 30' that he's pretty pleased with. BT Butch WAØVJR, the Trojan's gambling and 807 quality inspector out in Las Vegas, has changed his email to Butchb@shellworld.net Tnx for the info Butch BT Gregg NØXJ says that even a lowly coax dipole can snag DX eventually -- he got the K1B Baker Island expedition in the log once they were BEGGING for 10M contacts. BT KØBJ got wild at the MO state hamfest and purchased a microphone boom and new Heil HC-10 dual-element mic for 'all those' SSB contacts he makes. BT Kinda eerie May 6 as the 2M band was open to north Texas and .82 had some chatter from spotters discussing the previous night's fatal tornado in Happy. BT KCØHBR recently had his ladder G5RV ladder line give way in the wind, taking him to only 10-15-20 capability. He's working on splicing the break. BT Congratulations to SHARCer Chad KCØIZV of Scott City, who pulled down the Irving Cook WAØCGS $1000 scholarship from the ARRL Foundation. Great going Chad! BT KØBJ KØFJ NØXJ KCØJAO NØXNK K3RRY and KØBLU joined advanced wx class presenters NØQE and N5DBZ for dinner at Montana Mike's. They and NØXNO were among the attendees of the event at the Community Building. BT Not being satisfied with JUST a new IC756 PRO at the shack, KØFJ has added a Rotor-EZ to his manifest. The little device provides hands-off, no-brainer turning of your CDR/HyGain family rotator with the quick twist of a knob and RS232 control from WriteLog and DX4Win. BT NSØO is out of the hospital which is great news, but whatever laid Chet low is still a mystery to the doctors. Could be it was cw-withdrawal, in which case his hopes to make Field Day this year may be a winning prescription. BT KØBJ recently bagged P5/4L4FN in North Korea. That's an all-time new one for Bruce, and leaves him needing 2 Chinese islands and 2 Indian islands to work 'em all. BT Big time station owner Alan WØNO from Beloit joined Ham Lunch May 10. He and son Matt were retrieving an overhauled semi tractor from Oakley. BT Among the challengers at the infamous Kansas City DX Club cw pileup contest were WØTM and KØBJ. The winner this year copied 54 callsigns, while Gary and Bruce scored very respectable 34 and 39 respectively. On the way to the contest Bruce bumped into Andrew ZF1EJ, owner of the ZF1A club station where ZF2CM's operations have taken place the last 2 years. BT Among KØBJ's Dayton purchases was a reconditioned 2.3 Mpixel Toshiba digicamera. This may clear the way for some photos in the newsletter……BT Among the folks that made it into KØBJ's eyeball log at Dayton was perennial VHF contester George W1XE. Living near Boulder, W1XE's call is heard on backscatter from here in most contests. George was on the TI5N Dxpedition to Costa Rica for the WPX contest -- an effort of the Grand Mesa Contesters. BT KCØJAO is now a happy camper -- he received his first QSL shipment from the incoming bureau. It takes a while to fill up the pipeline, but now that he's done that, he'll probably keep the KC to Colby mail truck overloaded…. BT Dale NØKQX says that the SHARC and SW Kansas weather modification group have some Tigertronics tm-1+ packet units that will probably be for sale. This is a trannsmit-only APRS device, which when coupled with a GPS and transmitter, will give your vehicle's position reports on the APRS system. Anyone with interest in this can contact NØKQX in Garden City. BT KCØJAO was at his kids' sporting events recently and worked all continents with the mobile rig in a short period of time! The HF bands have their really good days at this point in the sunspot cycle. KØBJ logged the Pratas Island BQ9P group the other day, which leaves him still needing Scarborough Reef off China, and both Andaman and Laccadives off India to work 'em all on at least one band.

NEXT MEETING JUNE 13 NOON CCC UNION BJ and FJ will be at the Midwest/Dakota ARRL convention in Sioux City. VP NØXJ will be in command. Thomas Co EMS may be attending an upcoming meeting to solicit our help with their 9 Run Run 10K run and a new 51K bike ride. This year the event is August 3.

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 Kathy Lindberg NØXNJ, 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