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Mid-South Amateur Radio Association
Please Note New Meeting Date Change to First Thursday
August 2, 2012
7:00 p.m.
The August meeting will be at the Police Precinct at 6850 Whitten Bend Cove. Map and directions are on the web site.
The meeting will be a slide show with pictures of Field Day. We have lots of excellent photos by Ken Laseter and Dennis Foster. Dennis has some information on patches and Roger has information on the Officers and Directors Liability Insurance question.
Meeting Schedule
This the last meeting at the precinct for the year. They have training during the months of September, October, and November. In December we will have the annual Christmas dinner at Coletta’s on the normal meeting night of Thursday December 6. It is almost Pearl Harbor Day so we will have some appropriate recognition of it. We will keep you posted on the meeting locations so stay tuned. Presently we are tentatively planning for the November meeting to be at LeBonheur where we will have our annual elections and a tour of the hospital which is quite impressive. The September meeting is tentative for an eating meeting at Patrick’s. We are still working on the October meeting.
I will miss the August meeting as August 2, is my 43rd anniversary and I committed to take Mary out to dinner. We will be having dinner at Herbsaint in New Orleans. As a result of the LebonAppetit dinner we have invitations to eat at several fine dining restaurants. We are committed to 4 “Fine Dining” restaurants in New Orleans in 3 days. This sounds great but believe me this is “Weight Watcher Hell”. I will have to run a lot more than usual when we get back. We will be driving and I have made arrangements for Mary to drop me off in Jackson MS. on the way back.
Repeater Update
Lots going on with repeaters. Our 6 meter machine is tuned over and up and burning in on dummy loads in my garage. As soon as we get time to tune the duplexer we will switch it to the duplexer and put it on a low outside antenna at the house. It is working perfect so far with 70 watts into the dummy load.
The 900 MHz machine has a problem. It appears it is at the top end of the Heliax or antenna. We cannot see much from the ground but all looks Ok. We will need to climb to the top and check it out. It has high SWR and TDR readings show an open circuit at the top. We will schedule an exploratory climb to the 320 ft level to inspect it. After we inspect and figure out what is wrong we can arrange a fix.
When you’re studying for your license you are a “pork loin”. When you are licensed you become a ham. When you climb a 40 ft tower or put an antenna on your house roof you become a “Smithfield Country” ham. When you climb a commercial tower over 200 ft. you become an “Alan Benton” ham. If any of you would like to upgrade let me know.
Delta acquired several late model MSF 5000 440 repeaters. We have been helping them out and they have donated 2 of them to us. These are later models than our MSR2000 and we will replace the MSRs with the MSFs. The MSF repeaters are all digitally programmed and not for the “faint of heart”. It is akin to flying a piper cub [MSR] vs. a 747 [MSF]. We have the programming software and connectors to program them. All of the normal functions are built into these and as such it is extremely difficult to interface them with a normal controller [it isn’t required]. We’ll keep you posted on the upgrade/change out as we go forward.
Field Day
Field Day was a great success. We had 116 folks sign in and I’m sure we missed a few. The total cost was $430 and both Delta and Tri-State have offered to contribute. Randy VanVoorhis is working on the logs to determine our point counts etc.. We’ll get you a preliminary total as soon as he has one.
Here is the point count for Field Day from Randy VanVoorhis.
It looks pretty respectable since we weren't hard contestors.
Subject: Total Points for Field Day = 1,976
> ARRL Field Day Entry Form
>
> Call Used: W4EM GOTA Station Call: (none) ARRL/RAC Section: TN
> Class: 3A
>
> Participants: 115 Club/Group Name: DARC - MARA - Tri-State
>
> Power Source(s): Battery
>
> Power Multiplier: 2X
>
> Bonus Points:
> 100% Emergency power 300
> Media Publicity 100
> Set-up in Public Place 100
> Information Booth 100
> Satellite QSO completed 100
> Youth participation 80
> Youth operators=4 Youth participants=7 Submitted via the Web 50
> Total Bonus Points 830
>
> Score Summary:
> CW Digital Phone Total
> Total QSOs 425 0 138
> Total Points 850 0 138 988 Claimed Score = 1,976
>
> Submitted by:
> Randy VanVoorhis, W4RMV
> 3457 Josee Lane
> Bartlett, TN 38135
> E-mail: randy@markseven.com
>
> Comments:
> (blank)
>
> Band/Mode QSO Breakdown:
> CW Digital Phone
> QSOs Pwr(W) QSOs Pwr(W) QSOs Pwr(W)
> 160m 80m 139 100 28 100 40m 91 100 109 100 20m 51 100 15m 144 100 10m 6m 2m 1.25 Other Satellite 1 100 GOTA TOTAL 425 0 138
>
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