Minor correction to the December meeting schedule for those who want to spend time with a pine tree on the 25th.
Let’s do it on the 18th, 7 PM. BYOT.
How does December 25 at 7 PM sound? Good? OK, see you there! 😉
Excused: Jim AB5JK, Mary KU5Z, John KG5ZTH and Erik K5WW.
Our apologies for those who waited around in the parking lot.
Next meeting: next month.
Since last month’s meeting was such a huge success we may have to find a larger building. If that’s the case we’ll announce it here.
For now: meeting in the education conference room, at 7 PM on the 27th.
Attending: Jim AB5JK and Erik K5WW. Excused: Dave WA6YJW.
No disorderly conduct this time; so the meeting was started as soon as everyone was seated. And took of their rain coats. Not necessarily in that order.
Biggest news: our EchoLink and AllStar nodes will be offline for a few days. The “old” hardware was disconnected a few days ago. Jim is implementing the latest and greatest soft- and hardware; but he is making good progress so the wait for everything to go live again will be minimal.
Treasurer report: $1,200.05, after the purchase of the new vertical antenna for our repeater. That antenna has been received; and keeps screaming to get installed.
Smaller accessories and coax connectors for the new installation and general maintenance of the other antennas were ordered and received and relocated to K5WW’s trunk. They too keep screaming to be installed; but KU5Z got tired of having to put in ear plugs at night so those items can now scream away – in the trunk.
In other words: we’re as good as ready. All we need is a day of mild weather, and our lift (not Lyft) driver to travel down this way, some time in November. Which is just around the corner, so we’re excited!
Other news: Dave WA6YJW is about to move to Panama. We tried to talk him out of it; but no-go. The beaches must be so nice! 🙂
Meeting adjourned at 8:03 PM GPS time. See ya next time!
Oktoberfest? Boring!
CARC meetings? Super exiting!!!!
7 PM on the 23rd.
It’s been a while since we put our pedal to the metal and participated in a big contest; but this past weekend KS5TX and K5WW got together to play in both the CQ WW RTTY contest and the Texas QSO Party.
Despite the radio problems at station 2, having one less operator this year, 10 and 15 meters not opening much, and the beam being “locked” to the northeast we got a result we can be proud of:
2015 was our best effort ever in this contest; hence the comparison with that year.
We made a few dozen QSOs less; but we operated 6 hours less as well. The score’s not even half of what we had in 2015; but that’s because of the juicy multipliers we missed on 10 and 15 meters. And we had fun; so we won! 🙂
Oh, the Texas QSO Party… No time, sorry!
Thank you for visiting our club shack.
We hope you had a great time! And that you signed the visitor log. If you didn’t: you’ll find it right next to the door, before you even enter the shack. It looks like this file: Coyote Amateur Radio Club visitor log. Don’t be shy. Soon we’ll be entering with a key card; so you might as well get used to identifying yourself.
Feel free to use all the equipment. Make some QSOs! Or just listen to fellow radio amateurs. But if you make QSOs please log them in the paper logbook right next to station 1. That’s the one on the left. Pencils a-plenty right in front of it.
And in case you find one of more radios turned on when you enter: please don’t turn them off when you leave. It/they were on for a reason. The same applies to all the computer hardware you saw: leave it on. Leave the air conditioner on too. But you can turn off the light.
Also, the TS-2000 is not always connected to an antenna. If you use it make sure to connect the coax.
On behalf of the people who work hard to keep everything running: we thank you.
The meeting was called to order at 7:15 PM local time.
Attending: Gary K5QOW, Jim AB5JK, Doug KC5TRQ, Jason KS5TX (via EchoLink) and Erik K5WW.
The Treasurer reports $1,580 in our sock. That’ll go up a bit because Gary, after a long absence, decided to grace us with a visit and pay his dues and made a little donation.
Discussed were the many issues that have popped up at the club station in the past 6 months or so. There are so many by now that we’ll have to do a bit of maintenance – soon!
First issue discussed is the repeater antenna. At times the repeater’s range is barely a mile. We checked the SWR (from the ground) a while ago; and it was found to be perfect. But we may have an intermittent connection on top of the tower, either the coax connector or the antenna itself. So it will have to come down for repair. At the same time we discussed replacing the antenna with a (much) bigger one, and perhaps a larger diameter coax, which will extend our reach quite a bit.
A few weeks ago the rotator controller started acting up. In a matter of minutes it went from the heading indicator running way too fast, to the backlight going out, to not working at all. The Club Station Trustee did some troubleshooting, found some broken parts, ordered and replaced them; but only achieved partial success. Because of that Jason KS5TX generously donated a brand-new identical rotator and controller (thank you from all of us!). The controller was replaced and now the antenna rotates again; but the readout on the controller is not responsive. So at the very least there’s a break in the controller cable on top of the tower. Or worse. Either way: another reason for a “tower work party”. And we now have a spare rotator, in case we need to replace it.
All in all we’re looking at relieving our sock of about $600, for the new repeater antenna, renting a lift, and miscellaneous hardware items. Everyone wholeheartedly agreed.
The maintenance will be done at an as-yet to be determined weekend in October (yes, 2018!). Volunteers are always welcome; all you need is your optimism 🙂
Other antenna news: Richard N5YPJ donated a gently used hy-gain AV-640 HF 8 band vertical antenna. Has all the parts, minus one or two small washers and bolts that rolled off of the transporter’s truck roof during transport…Thank you, Richard; we’ll put that to good use one day!
Two big events we will be participating in at the end of the month: the Texas QSO Party and the CQ WW RTTY Contest. Come have some fun!
The meeting was adjourned at 8:02 PM loco time.
Will be September 25 at 7 PM. You should attend, really!
