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President's Message
I hope everyone has recovered from Field Day and is having a great summer. Although we didn't get the Army tent set up in time for Field Day, a dedicated group managed to erect it on W1RH's front lawn, and it looks like we're all set for Field Day 2001.
The FARA Picnic is coming up on Labor Day Sunday, so get your checks in to me as soon as you can. It's always a lot of fun, and you never know what will happen. Martin has been known to work new countries with a wet noodle as an antenna.
The FARA shack boasts a brand new, no-tune Ameritron ALS-600 amplifier, which I picked up at HRO a few weeks ago. Thanks to Pete, the assistant manager, for talking Ameritron out of one of these hard-to-find beauties. W1RH has already tested it and found it satisfactory. No tuning required, and the 10 meter kit should be on order by the time you read this.
Peter, KA1AXY
FARA's Tent Raising
By Peter, KA1AXY
A dedicated team of volunteers worked on the Army tents that W1VIV and K1KTK acquired at auction last year. Unfortunately, the old maxim "you get what you pay for", held true. On Saturday, W1RH, N1LOO, N1JFO and your president dragged each tent out of storage, and rolled them out in the entrance way. Out of the three tents, two were so badly torn as to make them unusable in their current condition. One of those two may be repairable, but the other was torn at the points of greatest stress, the ends of the ridge pole, AND was shredded at one end.
The third tent has a "minor" 2 foot square hole, and several more pinholes. It was selected as the one to be set up, and loaded, with poles, into N1UVA's truck, for transport to W1RH's house.
On Sunday, the crew met again, aided by KB1CQI, KB1DXN, AA1ON and N1FOF, at Bob's house. It took us two tries, but we finally got the tent up. It took us about two hours to get it up, and a crew of six can easily handle the job. We needed only two extra sets of guys (supplied by Ed) for the ends of the ridge pole.
The tent stayed up through lunch (thanks to Karen) and Kerianne's chocolate chip cookies vanished rapidly as we let the tent "air out".
After lunch, we took the tent down, folded it and returned it and the poles, stakes and guys to the club. Ed generously offered to store the extra poles at his barn. We believe the tent we set up will work as a Field Day shelter, and Dick, K1KTK has offered to try to get the biggest hole repaired as a "training exercise" at the National Guard tent repair facility.
The bottom line is that setup and tear-down of the tent requires a crew of six to eight for an hour, and a pickup truck or flatbed trailer for transport. Even unrepaired, the tent is usable with a tarp draped over the hole. The canvas on the roof is "thinning", and has several patches, but, with proper care, should last us for quite a few Field Days. The most important thing is to make sure the tent gets proper care, meaning that it needs to be completely dry before being stored, and always lifting, never dragging it. Dragging abrades the bottom of the bundle, which turns out to be the "roof" of the tent, where we can least afford thinning of the canvas.
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