MOTHER'S DAY BBQ/FOXHUNT Thanks to the naggxxxx,…… er, ….. clever thinking of Kathy NØXNJ, the Trojans are having a fun afternoon and chance to get Mom out of the kitchen Sunday May 12. Resurrecting a favorite activity from our past, we're having a 2M foxhunt at 2PM. KØFJ has agreed to be the fox. Mike will have full details for us at Villa Hi Park, but anticipate scoring of 1 point per minute and 1/10th mile driven; low score wins. For those who haven't foxhunted before, a pretty decent low-tech setup is to use an H-T and your body as a shield to find nulls in the signal. As you get close in, a paperclip or no antenna can be used as an "attenuator". Once we've done our "work" finding the fox we'll start the "play" and cook him…… or how about a BBQ at the shelter house at Villa Hi. This of course is literally in the backyard of Silent Key Trojan Fleck KØRXT, Vice Commodore of the Trojan Yacht Club – Villa High Division. With luck all the XYLs and other moms involved with the club will have an edible meal, which we'll be serving at 5PM. The club will buy meat and we'll pass the hat at the picnic. Guys, don't put Mom on the spot but try to bring a salad or dessert to go with the burgers, brats and chicken. We hope all Trojan families and friends will enjoy this outing. Try to let Kathy know how many in your family will attend so we have a rough count, but nobody should be shy about coming if circumstances allow at the last minute.

National Weather Service SkyWarn Net Scott NØQE and the group at the NWS Office in Goodland has started a SkyWarn advisory net daily at 12 noon CST or 1700Z. This is a directed roll-call net that meets on the 146.820 Colby Repeater. NCS duties will rotate among the licensed meteorologists at NWS. They will take any sever WX info that participants have observed in the previous 24 hours, and advise spotter activation probabilities along with expected weather conditions in our area. This is a great way to test the SkyWarn network, keep up to date on WX info and polish net procedure skills. Those checking in late and Hams new to the Net are picked up at the end of the roll. Lets try to get lots of participation in this Net. Thanks de KØFJ

TARC ARES / RACES Net KØFJ is restarting the Sunday evening net. Net time is 8:00 pm CST on the 146.820 repeater. After the 2-Meter net, we will move to the 444.650 Brewster repeater. This will be a good test of both machines. This net is open to all area Amateurs and is a non-directed net.

NØTM off to the mountains The NOMADs' indefatigable ramrod NØTM, of Stratton NE is leaving the area. Paul is making the move to a place in the mountains; just where I'm not sure. He's been selling off some of his gear but it sounds like he will have space for a couple rigs and antennas at the new place. We hope the NOMADs will keep their organization, and our friendly Field Day rivalry, going.

KØFJ SHACK SPRUCING Mike started the month by purchasing a Garmin GPS 5. It has great onboard mapping and the thought was to think about joining the D7ØØ mobile APRS crowd. Well…. Destiny intervened, and Mike is now also the owner of Icom's swank IC-756 PRO. After an eBay purchase ran into complications, Mike grabbed one of the rigs from AES in Milwaukee. The rig is the big brother of KCØJAO’s IC-746, and has been superceded by the 756 PRO II. Word from Alan WØNO who has owned both is that the PRO is virtually as good as its newer sister. This should make Mike's QTH even more inviting for future Trojan multiop misadventures.

HAM LUNCH Just another further reminder/invitation to Ham Lunch, which has migrated to Friday noon at the CCC Student Union. With low price, wide selection, and unbeatable (?) companionship, it's an offer nobody should refuse.

WX SPOTTER ADVANCED TRAINING A few Trojans are signed up for the advanced spotting class Wednesday evening 7PM at the Little Theater. This event requires registrations due to limited seating. If you're not signed up but interested, give Scott NØQE a call and check on availability. Those who have taken this advanced course in the past give it high marks. Some of the hams are going to Montana Mike's beforehand for dinner and a chance to meet new GLD Warning Coordinator Dave Floyd N5DBZ.

FIELD DAY - COMING SOON TO A RADIO NEAR YOU This year Field Day is as early as possible, June 22-23. Our annual derby to see just how badly harvest screws up FD plans should be exciting as usual -- IF we get any rain soon. KCØIWH and KCØCVS are mumbling about maybe getting back for the event so we may once again have some ex-Trojans as hired guns. NTS formatting work - KØFJ has assigned all members the task of composing and formatting 1 piece of written traffic to be sent during FD as part of our bonus point effort. Bring your first attempt to ham lunch or see Mike on the air, and he'll help with any necessary corrections. This'll be a good training exercise and help our bottom line. Current plans are similar to recent years -- we're looking at the Colby airport terminal and the usual complement of rigs, antennas, towers etc. from club and member pools. FD will be a bigger and bigger part of our meeting discussions.

MORE DXCITEMENT As the fun of last month's Pacific Dxpeditions faded, a new operation from Mellish Reef, VK9ML, showed up on the bands and some Trojans logged them. Some smaller operations from Cambodia, Vanuatu and various other locales have been put in local logs too. Some miserable conditions recently after solar flares did put a damper on things for a few days. Now Baker Island K1B is active.

BANDSCAN Word on the rumor band has it that KØMXU has been modulating the dance floor with a high school classmate in a dance club he belongs to. Good going Allen BT WAØGBN and Pat are on the road visiting Texas, New Mexico and finishing up in Vegas. Darel planned the trip to visit with some ham friends made over the years. We can all hope that Butch WAØVJR will take care of Darel and his mad money while he's on the Vegas strip….. BT Gil KØBLU has been having luck shooting DX again, and reports putting Macedonia, among others, in the log recently. BT Sweepstakes results are out and FJ BJ and JAO finished 34th in Multiop in last November's sideband contest. That was good enough for 4th in Midwest Division. Alan WØNO and 2nd op ABØS piloted Alan's station to 2nd in Midwest. The 2 Beloit guys, plus our own KØBJ and KØWA of Newton took the same station to 10th in the CW Sweeps, and 1st in Midwest. All these efforts snagged the cherished Clean Sweep of 80 multipliers and earned their trophy mugs. BT KCØJAO seems to work magic in pileups, and now he's revealed his secret. Jeff looks for "holes" in the QSX span on his IC746 bandscope, and calls in 'blank spots'. That can't be the full story, though. He recently snagged 5H3RK in Tanzania from his mobile setup, without the aid of a bandscope! Some guys just know how to shoot DX…. BT Our most recent Movie Night was held at City Hall and was viewed on a fancy digital projector. Feature 1 was a PowerPoint show on ARRL's soon-to-be-unleashed Logbook of the World database. That was followed by a DVD of the 2000 World Radiosport Team Competition held in Slovenia during the IARU contest in July. BT Just as KBØZUO's visit to Colby receded into memory, Godfrey KCØAUH from Dodge City showed up in town with a truck in sick bay at Cummins. FJ and BJ picked up AUH for a gabfest and APRS quizzing session at Taco Johns. The Trojans at Mt. Sunfower met Godfrey, who supplied the "mess trailer"/80meter shack for our October expedition. BT KØBJ may have turned into a monster…. Bruce recently submitted cards to get back on the DXCC Mixed Honor Roll. As long as he had a submission going, he stuck in other QSLs for various modes and bands and has a start on those various awards -- 95+ % of Bruce's existing credits were "mixed mode only". He's contemplating taking a suitcase full of old, musty QSLs to the July board meeting in Newington to bring his totals up to what QSLs are on hand. BT KØFJ and NØOXP will be off to the May 18 awards ceremony honoring their harmonic Dave KØKHP for his actions in the incident on I-70 a few months ago. Mike and Patti will be proud and thankful parents. BT Speaking of mid-May, Dale NØKQX and KØBJ will be putting in some serious pavement time that weekend heading to the big Dayton Hamvention. Once they hit Salina they'll be teaming with WØNO, ABØS and KØWA. The guys have a flea market spot which will mainly be used as a place for them to come out and regroup between forays into all the goodie booths that Dayton is famous for. BT Gil KØBLU is working to get his home station set up for our 70cm machine, which we hope to be using for the main wx spotting machine this wx season. BT

NEXT MEETING MAY 9 NOON CCC UNION FOXHUNT/BBQ SUNDAY MAY 12 AT VILLA HI PARK

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