Zero Beat 06 2012

The June meeting will be at the Police Precinct at 6850 Whitten Bend Cove. Map and directions are on the web site.

Program

Will be some photos of Dayton this year and a discussion of Field Day Plans. See more Below.

Software Order

Randy gave out most of the software at the May meeting. If you missed it you can contact him (378-8900) and he can get it to you or bring it to one of the meetings.

Dayton 2012

Dayton was a lot of fun this year and Memphis was well represented. Dennis and others took a lot of photos and we will show and discuss these at the meeting. Dennis Foster takes the prize for a first timer at Dayton. Some folks buy fittings, some buy coax and Heliax, some buy radios. Dennis bought two440 MHz MSR2000 repeaters. The repeaters are on low split UHF commercial frequency, included a manual, test set, are in cosmetically very good condition, and the price was exceptionally good.

6 Mtr Repeater Update

The channel elements for the 6 meter repeater have been sent off to be recrystalled for the new coordinated frequency. We should have them back in a month or so. Plan is to put it on WKNO tower when we get it ready. 6 meters propagates pretty well so coverage should be good.

444.175 UHF Repeater Update.

The Motorola MSR2000 repeater is still percolating on 44.175 MHz with tone 107.2 at my house in south east Bartlett. It is on a 20 ft push up outside the shop so it has limited range. Last month I noticed the repeater would key up and stay up. This is not good. The problem was traced to the squelch gate card which has an inline dip switch on the board vs. the older board which had jumpers. The switch had gone bad and I replaced it with the older jumper board that continues to work fine. The newer dip switch boards were supposed to be easier to set and an improvement but there have been issues with the dip switches failing.

Eventually it will go back to WKNO to replace the Icom brand repeater that we have been using. If you are close by in Bartlett try hitting it. It is turned down so it is only putting about 20 watts to the antenna so the coverage is limited during this testing.

Field Day - June 23 & 24 - 2012

Field day is beginning to come together. All the clubs want to do a joint event and we have reserved the Clubhouse in Country Club Estates for this year. General plan is to set up Saturday morning and operate through Sunday afternoon. More details will be coming quickly as we get serious about the planning. Right now we are prioritizing things. It is Field Day so there is a good possibility that we will have a radio on the air but even if we don’t have a radio on the air, we will eat, so we need to firm up the menu first. Radios come a close second. We will probably need a clean up day prior to Field Day to remove some leaves that were left over from and earlier clean up at the clubhouse. We’ll keep you posted; stay tuned.

NO July Meeting

There will be no July meeting. Field Day is the July meeting so we will have a clip board with a sign up sheet. Please be sure to sign in.