The next CMRA meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 8th, 1997, at 7:00 p.m. in the Community Room of Boone Electric Co-op. A VE exam session will follow the meeting ( provided there are three VE's on hand and any prospective examinees.)
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There was a great turn-out at the June meeting. We had to move the meeting back to Boone Hospital at the last minute due to some flooding at Boone Electric, but lots of people found their way to the gather-
ing. Besides the usual business, there was a vote on amending the requirements for mem-
bership, as mentioned here in the past. The amendment was approved. Hopefully, this change will
benefit the Club with increasing membership. Three new members joined the Club; Harold Ward,
Phillip Urquiola, and Tom Raodelander. Welcome to the Club ! There was also a flurry of VE
activity, with lots of elements passed, resulting in several new amateurs in the area.
Congratulations to All !
Unfortunately, the turn-out for the June Breakfast wasn't as good as we enjoyed for the meeting.
I suspect the cause was a large number of people were out of town for the weekend. I'm already
looking forward to the July Breakfast (aren't you getting hungry just thinking about it ?) The
Breakfast will be Saturday, July 26th, at 8:00 a.m. We meet at Country Kitchens on Providence
Road. Bring a friend, and an appetite.
As mentioned in previous issues, we have an official date and place set up. The 1997 CMRA
Hamfest will be held on September 6, 1997 between 8:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.. It will be held at
Good Time Country on Highway 163, which is just South of Columbia. We will be able to get the
doors open for vendors about 9:00 p.m. the Friday evening before the event to allow vendors to
set up early. The Flea Market area will be indoors (as well as the commer- cial area). Pass the
word. Also, Robert, KB0TCR, has got all the paper work handled, and our Hamfest is now
officially sanctioned by the ARRL. Mark the date on your Calendar.
Perry, N0NMC, has offered his services as Hamfest Chairman, so all hamfest correspondence can be addressed to him at his email address:
pogletre@mail.coin.missouri.edu
or to his mail address:
Perry Ogletree
3609 Bray Ave.
Columbia, Mo. 65203
The Club should consider holding another class for prospective hams. We have a list of interested
people from our demonstration at the Air Show, and I am hearing from more people every week,
it seems. One of the purposes of our Club, as stated in the Constitution, is to promote Radio
Knowledge. Another is to advance the general interest and welfare of Amateur Radio and the
Community. An approach that has worked well in the past, has been to have members volunteer
to be responsible for a short section of material. The material is spelled out in the syllabus,
available from the ARRL. If we can get five or six people to help, it becomes a much easier and
enjoyable task for all. A typical section usually runs about 15 minutes. This is a great chance to
give something back to the Hobby and meet new people.
The Field Day turn-out was also apparently a victim of a busy weekend. Lots of "Regulars" were
out of town, myself included. A couple of intrepid souls still made a valiant effort, braving the
elements and bugs, to put K0SI in the logs of the deserving. Bill, KB0TNM, and Robert,
KB0TCR, were active from Rock Bridge State Park for several hours and several Qso's. The
letter from the Park got Bill out of a potentially sticky situation about 3:00 a.m. Thanks for
getting on the air, guys !
I sure had a great time this year at Dayton. This was my second trip. The weather was much better, since they changed the date and moved it to May.
Another thing that made a difference in the trip was going with a couple of veteran Flea Marketeers, verses going just to see it, as I had on my first trip. You can drag back a lot more "stuff" if you can scoop up an arm load and drop it off at your flea market space than if you have to keep hauling it all the way back to your vehicle before you can grab another hi.
A couple of treasures I took home were a copy of HFX, a 386 laptop (in real rough shape), and an FT3000 DM. HFX is a propagation prediction program I've been drooling over for a couple of years. The interesting thing to me about it is a Ray Trace mode, which shows the number of hops a particular frequency will require to make the trip to a given QTH, as well as the location of the hops. I'd like to download some "Big Gun" logs (available on the Internet) and see how much of their magic is predictable via HFX. I could look at my logs, but since my antenna farm is so limited I don't think there would be too much to learn. One of the key input parameters you need to enter is the take off angle of your antenna. I'm not sure what that would be for a rusty, short wire sloping off my tower at a whopping height of 30 feet, but I'll look into it.
The FT3000DM is a pretty decent 2 meter mobile. It can put out up to 70 watts, and I enjoy the increased range on the way to and from work. I'm sure the Ops on the other end of the QSO's enjoy not having to strain their ears copying my poor old HT anymore, too.The rig has 2 fans, and I have noticed that the first time I hit the PTT switch they kick on on a hot day. It also can receive from about 440 up through 900 MHZ, less the cellular band, and can be set up as a cross band repeater, with output on 2 meters. I was able to get into the Jefferson City repeater from North of Moberly recently. Much better than the HT hi.
I was also able to play with an IC765, the new rig from Icom with the great looking Spectrum display. I think they list for around $2700, and they were selling for $1550. If I hadn't already grabbed the FT3000 I probably would have been in a lot more trouble when I got home hi.
I didn't make it to any of the Forums or suites, so I'll have to be sure to make it back to Dayton
one of these years.
I also recently had the opportunity to play around with NA, a logging program for contesting. We
had 2 laptops networked and keying the rigs from the keyboards. It was pretty motivating when
the other Op managed to sneak in 2 or 3 Qso's to my 1. You could see other Qso's as they were
made. Another neat thing about it, was after you entered the other end's call, if you hit the insert
key it would spit out his call plus the exchange. This gave the other Op the chance to correct you
if you mangled his call. This was my first paperless contest, and I'm hooked. You could also pass
messages to other Ops across the network, and since we were wearing head phones, this made
inter-station conversation much easier. Thanks to Greg, K0GN, for dragging me into the pa-perless contesting age !
In order to cut costs, we need to trim the mailing list. If you see an X on your mailing label, the Club has received your dues for 1997, and you will remain on the mailing list. If you haven't got your dues in yet, it's not too late. You can send them to John, KB0PHQ at :
Central Missouri Radio Association
PO Box 283
Columbia, Mo.
65205
Also, contact John if you should be shown as paid, but currently aren't. (Sorry
about that!)
Your dues help the club (and Amateur Radio in general) by supporting the K0SI repeater, our
Hamfests, this newsletter, and in lots of other ways. Dues are $15.00 per person / $20.00 per
family. Such a bargain!
Well, that's about it for this now. If you would like to submit an article to the Squelch Tail (or
have an idea for an article) just let me know.
73, es CUL ...
de WY0B