May, 2009    

The next meeting of the Club is Tuesday, May 5, at 7:00PM in the EOC Training Room. The Technical Presentation will be by Tom Harbron, W9EEL, on “Shannon’s Law”. This is a follow-up on the last meeting discussion on narrowbanding. Tom will go into detail on the technical aspects of deviation and how close channels can be technically.

We are operating the .82 Repeater under the new Club Call, W9OBH. It’s great to hear that call regularly.

As you probably have noticed the .82 repeater has been on the lower antenna (as noted by the lower tone reset beep) for some weeks. We had Lectro visit the site and Dan reported that the RF package and the Duplexer seemed to be working as expected. Following that visit the Technical Committee checked all of the connections and got some special lubricant/cleaner for each connection. Following that work it didn’t appear that the sensitivity came back up to normal. Since that time we’ve been on the lower antenna.

The primary antenna on the top of the tower has been replaced a number of times. Also the connector at the antenna end has been replaced. However, that feedline has been in place since the building was built in 1972, so perhaps it’s time to consider replacement. Quotations have been received and will be discussed at the meeting. The complete replacement of the antenna and feedline will take about all of our treasury, so we’re looking for some alternate financing. We’ll discuss this at the meeting.

Remember that the Dayton Hamvention is upcoming in only a few weeks. Don’t miss this opportunity to stock up on needed parts for your projects and to investigate the newest in equipment.

There has been a lot of work involving the Emergency Management communications ECC and the MCU. Some has been discussed at the Comm. Division meetings. We’ll bring you up-to-date on the latest thanks to a great deal of work by Tom, KA9SYP, recently.

Dick, WA9STB, had surgery last week and I’m happy to report that he came thru it well. He’s recovering now and we all pray for him to return to full activity soon.

We don’t have a lot of information this month. If you have anything to report please bring it up at the meeting.

See you at the meeting on Tuesday.

73,
Steve