Zero Beat 09 2012

Mid-South Amateur Radio Association

http://www.maraonline.org/

September 2012

Eating Meeting This Month – see Details

Thursday September 6

6:30 PM Patrick’s Restaurant 4972 Park Ave.

Please note that the Sept. Oct., and November meetings will be away from the Police Station.

Our September meeting will be an eating meeting at Patrick’s restaurant at 4972 Park Avenue. It is just west of Mendenhall on the north side of Park Avenue. You can order off the menu whatever you want. You can get specific directions and menu ideas from their website at www.patricksmemphis.net.

There will be a very short program with a few announcements. No major business is planned at this time.

We need a head count to let Patrick’s know how many are coming so please RSVP to me at abrigno@comcast.net with the head count.

We will also discuss the October and November meeting plans and schedules. Tentatively, our October meeting will be a cookout scheduled for Saturday afternoon October 20. We are leaning toward the clubhouse but are looking at other locations. The November meeting will be at LeBonheur with a tour of the facility.

Crossbow for Launching Antennas

Roger Schlichter has made an antenna launcher using a hand crossbow. Total cost is in the $75-100 range depending on what you have on hand. I am also fabricating one with his consulting help. Hopefully we can bring one to a future meeting and show it off. We used it to secure the 6 meter “J” pole in the tree in my backyard and it shot an easy 40-50 feet into a large oak tree.

Repeater Update

Both 6 and 440 repeaters are still going strong in my garage. Dennis and I are working on modifying the extra large duplexer that we bought with the 6 meter machine. It would only go up to about 50.4 MHz and we are hoping to get it to 53.450 with our mods.

We are looking at a tower climb sometime next week to get a look at the 900 MHz antenna to see if we can figure out what is wrong with it and get it repaired. We prefer reasonably cool weather so stay tuned and we’ll let you know what is going on. This will be scouting expedition to determine what is wrong and make any simple/light repairs so we could use some help. If you would like to volunteer for ground support or would like to climb the tower to assist please let me know.