“Storm Watch”
Newsletter of NZ1U – The
Barnstormers Contest Group
“The
Barnstormer’s News”
Volume 5 No.2 February 9, 2000
4th
Annual Christmas Party Report
As expected, the 4th
Annual Barnstormer’s Christmas Party was fun for all that could make it. Those
that were present: KB1H, KB1DFB, AA1CE, N1XS, K1GX, K1JCL, W3TB, and K1ZE. The
flu bug kept NB1U and Matt home and the same also for Jake “Six-Pack”. But hey, we did our darnest to eat all the
food of which there was way too much. K1GX ate for 4 hours!!! Mary even
ventured out to sample the buffet. I thank all that brought the goodies. What a
surprise to see Sheky, K1ZE, walk in. The bottle of dark rum he brought was my
downfall. I think the last thing I remember is my forehead having a “F1” imprint
from the CT keyboard. It was the 160 Meter CW contest and someone shacked me
off to bed about 3:30 AM!
I want to thank all of you
for the nice framed CQ magazine cover and calendar pictures. We hung that up
right away. If you did not sign the back please do next time you are here.
Those in attendance who have help KB1H contribute millions of points for the
YCCC effort were given new ARRL World Maps. Yes Mark and Frank, your’s are
still here.
Well, another party is
history and now for the second half of our contest season.
Club Callsign
Applied for….
We have applied for a club
call. This is the first stage to getting a callsign for the “Barnstormers”
After issuance of the club call we will look at what vanity callsigns are
available.
Work to be done before
ARRL DX CW on Feb. 19-20:
1. We still are trying to find a way to re-install the director element tip on the KLM 40 Meter beam. We are looking at a bucket truck and maybe the crane again.
2.
During the weekend of Feb.
12th and 13th we are going to lay new radials for the 160
meter shunt fed tower. We now believe the problem with changing SWR is really a grounding problem. Plans are
for a minimum of 12 quarterwave radials. Please try to be here to help run the
wires. I suspect both days we will be working on something.
3.
We need to test the TL-922
amp. We installed the new 3-500Zs. Anybody want 2 that are approx. 24 hours
old? I may try to get some credit from RF Parts.
Hopefully we can get this
work done and also get the stations set up.
Plans for ARRL DX CW – Feb. 19th & 20th…….
We will once again be in the
MultiOp/Two Transmitter class. Plans are to set up three stations though with
the third being a spotter station. Rigs will be KB1H FT-1000MP & Alpha 77,
K1EBY IC-775DSP & TL-922, and NB1U TS-850 & LK-500. NB1U’s station will
be the spotter and standby station should one of the others fail.
Being only two transmitters
we can manage our time a little better. We should be able to keep fresher Ops
in the chairs. Please remember to “OPON” when sitting down. There will be
reminders to do so.
Ops committed so far are
KB1H, K1EBY, N1XS, AA1CE, KB1DFB(for one or two QSOs), NB1U, and W3TB. Ted has
antenna damage and will spend some time here during both the CW and SSB
weekends.
Frank has met his meeting requirement
so the only regular that has not met the ARRL requirements is Max, N1LYA. Max
usually helps out on SSB weekend. WE only need 2/3 YCCC Ops for the total score
to count for the club score so 100% YCCC Ops is not a must here.
New Hardware….
Thanks to Chris, we will be
installing an ethernet system to connect all the computers. This project will
happen after the ARRL contests and probably before the CQWW WPX SSB. Chris has
gotten a 16 channel hub with 5 ethernet boards to start us out.
We have requested the use of
the YCCC club call AJ1I again for CQWW WPX SSB. We may have to wait in line and
only get the use if noone asks for the call as we did have it last year.
With the recent mechanical
failures of the 3 element KLM 40 Meter beam we have started to contruct the
full size 3 element 40 Meter beam. Fondly called “The Dallas” after it’s
creator, this monster has a 48 foot boom made out of 3” aluminum conduit. The
boom alone weighs about 120 pounds!! The boom is assembled and we are gathering
plates now for the various element to boom and boom to mast mountings. We hope
to get this in the air sometime this summer. We plan on documenting the
construction with the digital camera.
We plan on re-doing the KB1H
Superstation Web site starting pretty quickly. Any suggestions? Let us know
during the ARRL contests.
Well, enough for now. See
you in the weeknd before the ARRL CW and of course during the contest.
73 , Dick(don’t give rum to
the indians)