“Storm Watch”
Newsletter of
NZ1U – The Barnstormers Contest Group
"The BarnStormers
News"
Volume 11 No.1, January 11, 2006
And a Good Time was had by All!!
Well, January 7th was our 10th
Annual Barnstormers Christmas Party. I hope I list everyone that was here:
KB1H, KB1DFB, N4XR, KE1LI, K1EBY, N1GKI, NB1U, K1GX, W1TJL, K1ZE, Matt (NB1U
Harmonic) W1MKM, and WB2VVV.
The food was outstanding with Kim’s mystery meat chili
being made with buffalo meat.
I am sure that Vic’ cheesecake and Mark’s
We were not deprived in the libation category either
with KE1LI bringing two types of homebrewed beer and N1XS donating a bottle of
rum (check received). The rum is the
bottle on the left.
The first to come were K1EBY and W1TJL about 5 PM and
the lights went out about 3 AM! While the webcam ran (it quit updating around
midnight) N1XS in
The usual cigars were smoked by some. Everyone thinks
they are Red Aubach!
One of the annual highlights is of course the awarding
of the “K1GX Award”. Remember, this award is now for doing good things where in
the past the award went to someone who pulled a real bonehead mistake during
the year.
Seeing this being the first year the award was for
good things I decided on co-winners. First, Kim, KB1DFB, was one of and
probably the most important winner of the award. Since near the beginning in
1988 Kim has helped with construction projects, tower projects, building
operating benches, and just plain running around for us. Some of this when he
himself did not have a license. He really deserved this award! The co-winner
was Jay, N1GKI. This year we upgraded all the computers, installed new
operating systems, got the webcams running, had live score updating, and also
converted over to N1MM Logger. With our main IT guy, N1XS, moving away Jay
picked this ball up and really ran with it! Probably more for his convenience
but good for us, all the computers are accessible by Jay remotely and he spends
many hours in his shack keeping our computers updated and also configured for
the next contest. Because Jay accomplished all this during 2005 I just felt I
did not want to wait until next year to present him with the award. So, to Kim
and Jay, thank you for all you have done and our score would not be nearly as
high without your help.
Kim KB1DFB, Jay N1GKI and needing to loose that belly
KB1H (in my defense I had already drank about 3 gallons of KE1LI’s homebrew! I
was ready to blow!)
We have quite a few more pictures and are planning to upload
them to a special section on the website. Some captions have been added to the
pictures that are really hilarious! Keep a watch on the website for all this.
Thanks Dave for taking the pictures and working on formatting them.
We also received two nice operating recognition awards
from the YCCC for our contribution to
the club score.
What do we do now….
N1XS asked what had I announced as new projects which
I usually do during the Christmas Party. Well I guess there are not too many
new ones but ones which I still would like to see finished.
I am sure this is going to carry into next year but it
is always good to have the list around so everyone knows we have stuff to do.
Amplifier Report
The TL -922 is back from Beltronics. $285.00 to
repair. I have tested it and it seems to be a little light on 160 because the
FT-1000 is rolling back to only 50 watts output. On 80 I have the full 100
watts and more than 1KW out of the amp.
The HF-2500 is just about repaired. The RF section
works but we have some problems with the metering circuit. We hope to have this
repaired this week.
Frank’s LK-500 still needs to look at.
Mark’s LK-500 is working well with a new set of
graphite 3-500s
VHF Sweepstakes – January 21-22
We still need help operating during this contest. 6M –
432 Mhz. , four bands, Multi/Limited category. Please let Kim or I know if you
can help. Some of our usual is heading
to N1ROZ to help out in a M/Unlimited effort.
Well, talk to you soon and look for Frank in the NAQP
CW this weekend. Watch the webcam for score and if he falls asleep!
73 Dick