Thomas Thomasville Amateur Radio Club February 2015 Tune in this month……………. Page 2-3 Pages 4-8 Pages 9-10 Page 11 Pages 12-17 Page 18 Messages January Minutes Upcoming Events Local Nets Special Extras The BONEYARD Officers 2015 Gary Alberstadt KA3FO President Jimmy Jones KK4ZYC/Wally Gunn KJ4KUK Vice Presidents Eleanor Doering AK4QW Secretary Bobby Cooper W4MWW Treasurer Bill Kitchens KW4EF VP Special Events Lowell Rieger NY4D Webmaster William Kornegay WK4WK Newsletter Editor Message from the President Well here we are coming up on the end of another month. Hopefully it has been good for every one of our members and families. Let me start with welcome home to Russell Shirley, KF4GBS who recently underwent major surgery to remove a tumor from his brain stem. Russell has a long road to recovery. Russell is doing rehab at Archbold in Thomasville Room 368 right near the elevators. Special prayers are also requested for another TARC family member, Roy Alligood, KJ4VHL. Roy is currently in a hard fought battle with bladder cancer. If you have any other information on our family members make sure to let us know. Lasts months meeting at the Hibachi Grille in Thomasville went well. We had over 40 members and guests present, the food was great and we heard of no complaints about quality or service. We will be meeting there th again next month on February 7 , with dinner around 6 pm followed by the meeting around 7 pm. (See attached minutes from the Secretary Eleanor, AK4QW ). A moment of discussion was held regarding the passing of Joe Carroll, W4EAN. Our own Billy Joe Lewis, W4ZDP delivered Joe’s eulogy to a crowd of about 50 people present. The main event of the evening was when we honored Mike Brown, KE4FGF (sk), for a lifetime of achievements in amateur radio with emphasis on his dedication to the Thomasville Amateur Radio Club. Nell Brown, N4NEL accepted a plaque for her late son who passed last February. During the meeting we issued Lifetime Membership Badges and ID cards to Billy Joe Lewis, W4ZDP and Nell Brown, N4NEL. Awards were also presented to the 2014 officers for a job well done in a very trying in our clubs life. Special thanks to John, Dana, Leanne, Jimmy, Buddy, Lowell and Gary. We also recognized our other members who passed this past year including Steve, KJ4UKR and Walter, N1QJ. We also recognized any other family members who were lost during the past year. We have a busy year ahead of us, with lots of things to plan for starting now. First is the TARC Annual Tailgate Event usually scheduled in March. We are working on holding an open to the public “What is Ham Radio Event” Complete with an on the air station, basic training and of course class information. Thomas County EOC would probably be a great venue, as it has parking, rig hook ups and lots of room in and out. More when we sort it out. We will need our Experienced Go To People to speak in your areas of expertise. ARRL Field Day is scheduled for June. Any interest in the organization of these events please contact Bill, KW4EF at 229-226-0736 with your ideas and efforts including station captains, setup dinner and whatever else we can do to build the event. We need some input from our members regarding a fundraising venture. It has been suggested we “TARC” purchase a hunting gun, preferably a shotgun, and sell raffle tickets to be awarded in conjunction with our tailgate, where we usually raffle a radio. It has been pointed out the return on the investment could be sizeable as compared to the radio raffle we usually do in the spring particularly in this area. If we do not have any input from our members, the officers will make the decision as we may have some large scale expenses coming this year with repeater projects planned. That’s all for now…….. See you the 7 th 2 Message from the Vice President Hello again. It was great to see a large and enthusiastic group at our recent meeting. It seemed like everyone there had a great time. The food was good and the fellowship was awesome. A couple of our regulars were unable to attend due to family and work responsibilities. We look forward to seeing you when we can. There is quite a bit of excitement about the coming year and some of our annual activities will be on us soon. I am personally looking forward to the Chili cook-off and of course the annual tailgate and Field Day will be here soon. As you all know, being a new officer, one of my primary goals is to engage and energize the club members, so I would like to encourage everyone to continue to participate in club activities at any level possible. Being a newcomer, I have a particularly soft spot in my heart for the new guys that are coming on. I know they will be accepted into the pack with open arms, just as I was. If you hear any of the new Hams calling out their sign, pick up the mica and say hello. They might be a little nervous about putting themselves out there, so a friendly voice can go a long way. Speaking of the new guys, one project that I am going to undertake is to start up a beginner’s net. The main focus of this will be to get new Technicians comfortable with getting on the radio. It can be a little scary just starting out. You don’t really know what to say or if you do, you aren’t sure you are saying it right. So this will be an opportunity for them to get a little more practice. I will probably need some of the older folks to listen in and chime in occasionally, just to “prime the pump” so to speak. Depending on how it evolves, I would also like to use this net as a training tool to review some of the things covered on the Tech exam and to prepare and encourage the new Techs to upgrade to the General level. More information will be available soon. We still need to find a good place in the schedule that does not conflict with other nets and activities going on. We also need to determine which repeater to work from. It is possible we will alternate repeaters, as our repeater situation continues to improve. I will gladly accept any input or advice on this project as it moves forward Anyway, that is all for me. I hope you all have a great month. Remember to keep Russell and Roy Alligood in your prayers. I look forward to seeing all of you soon. Jimmy Jones KK4ZYC 3 December Meeting Minutes The meeting was held on January 10, 2015 at the Hibachi Grille in Thomasville, GA. The meeting was presided over by President Gary Alberstadt, (KA3FZO). There were 43 people in attendance. Gary began by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and proceeded to ask if there were any guests. A gentleman named Cecil Porter from Tallahassee, has become interested in Amateur Radio has been studying and will take his test next week. A gentleman named Gerald Creel and son Josh knew Mike Brown, Gerald is a General and will take his Extra soon and his son Josh is a Technician. Gerald offered his help with work on the repeaters as he does that for a living. Gary introduced the new officers, including himself Gary Alberstadt (KA3FZO), been a ham since 1980, active in almost all aspects of ham radio. Jimmy Jones (KK4ZYC) Co -Vice President who has been a ham almost a year and plans to encourage new members to talk on the radio, on a new net maybe and make them and their families feel comfortable because we want a family oriented club. He also is in charge of membership cards, which Gary added as a dues & membership incentive. Wally Guynn (KJ4KUK) Co-Vice President who said that everyone should know, him since he has been a member for some time now and wants to encourage new members to be comfortable on the radio and wants new events and good times with the club and people to learn new skills to make it more fun for an entire family. Bill Kitchens (KW4EF) Vice President for special events, unfortunately was unable to come, his wife had an event with the Boy Scouts that was very important that they both attend. He will be in charge of all events like Field Day. 4 Eleanor Doering (AK4QW) Secretary has been a ham since 1978 and a member of TARC since 2009. She will tape record the minutes and send them into William Kornegay (WK4WK) Newsletter Editor. Bobby Cooper (WM4WW) Treasurer said he didn’t know he had to make a speech but he said he just takes the money…and runs! He says that’s it. He was first licensed in 1976 and his first call was KB4HBO. . Newsletter Editor, William Kornegay, WK4WK, works for Tallahassee Police in Forensics and was busy working. Lowell Rieger, NY4D, is Webmaster and lives in Savannah, GA and it’s too far for 1 meeting but will make it for the Tail-Gating. OLD BUSINESS: News on the repeaters John Swicord is still in the repeater committee, He says it is good to see the group getting back to business. On the 147.195, Metcalf machine has been taken down, K4GFD has GE background and is getting the pre Amp tuned up and getting it back to Nirmal for final work prior to being re-installed on the TV 6 tower. The circulator didn’t give much improvement in fact it decreased its output. The antenna was mounted horizontally on the platform and will be mounted below the platform vertically. We hope to have it done in the next couple of weeks. The EOC machine will work in the frequency change nothing much needs to be done but a Spectrum Analyzer tuning. The Boston 147.240 has a low output and John has the radio for it at home but hasn’t been able to check it out yet. Gary stated, the 147.060 the FEMA machine, it will be turned on in the next couple of weeks. It is a matter of clearance for DHS / FEMA Region 4 they need to compile a report and get ARRL Certified paperwork. Gary made a compliment to Terry, N0TW and Mack, W4GLM on what a great job they had done on the Jefferson County 145.430 machine, “it does quite well, 5 another asset to the ARES efforts”. Terry and Mac both ignored the comment and did not acknowledge it. The Treasurers report was read by Bobby W4MWW. The treasury report was accepted as presented. No minutes from December meeting as it was the Christmas party. Billy Joe Lewis, our first life member came to the Joe Carroll funeral and it was a heavy rain so not too many members attended. However Billy Joe spoke for 20 to 30 minutes how he met Joe and how he got interested in Ham Radio. Everyone there listened with interest. NEW BUSINESS: Steward Chandler on Sky-Warn and Tallahassee National Weather Service. There is a state ARES meeting in Forsyth, GA. February is the start of our severe weather season up until April. This is an El Nino year which means escalated weather events. Any interest in Sky-warn we have a webinar training but there is nothing posted and if enough people are interested they can request training.. In regards to activated outlooks of possibility of severe weather the National weather service in Tallahassee dropped the activation network we have to self-activate to put ourselves under the sky-warn umbrella. Virgil Castleberry on ARES net, He wants to try different repeaters and simplex on his Ares net on Thursday evenings at 9:00. Bill was going to talk about the Tail Gate. It is usually held the last Saturday in March. We will do it, but if there is no interest we can put it on the back burner. On the other activities we had, the Peacock parade we got several unanswered emails and we were told that if we weren’t interested that they would find someone else who was. Gary got back to them explaining we had a death in our club and that if they still want us we will be glad to do it again. 6 We had some interest in bowling for fun. If there is interest we will pursue it. We have another life member award to give here tonight and that one is to NELL BROWN. Everyone applauded! Nell Brown said, “Thank you, that means I’m the oldest person here!” We just chuckled. For last year’s Officers for what a difficult job it was last year with the death of our President, but they held it together and a job well done! John Swicord, President. Dana Swicord , Vice President for Special Events, Lowell Rieger Webmaster, Buddy Peeples, Newsletter Editor, Leann Doering, Secretary, Jimmy Jones, Secretary (Interim) Jimmy that is your first Radio award! Bobby Cooper, Treasurer. And Gary Alberstadt, Vice President. Most important of all the Ham of the Year Award. Our officers had a very hard time with this because of all the good hams that are now silent keys this year. So this year the ham of the year is a little different, we are naming it the Thomasville Amateur Radio Club Life Time Achievement Award for a lifetime of outstanding dedication to Amateur Radio….. KE4FGF….MIKE BROWN,SK, given to his beloved mother Nell Brown! She was overjoyed and replied “Thank you very much!” Everyone applauded for a long time! Then Gary handed out certificates for working the Spaghetti 100 to Steve, Stewart, Jimmy, Gary, Daniel, Wally, and Bobby. Thanks for your participation. Alan Slaughter and Alan Terrell for testing. Alan Slaughter is a W5YI and handles all our testing sessions along with the VE’s who help out with the testing. It is 3rd Saturday at the EOC. Andy Clark, NX4AC, Instructor for Electronics at Moultrie Technical, is the instructor for our Amateur classes and February classroom sessions are coming up. Alan Slaughter has been handling all the test sessions since field day and even in November and December when it is by appointment 7 only we had 1 and 3 or 4 technicians and upgrades at every session. Questions on licenses or upgrades? Email Alan Slaughter or Andy Clark or on Facebook, or twitter. We want to teach on soldering iron and kit building, some never held a soldering iron before. Some have built kits in the ’60, 70’s. Kits can be built cheaply. Lots of resources here and test equipment etc. connectors, antenna building and so on. You can always find somebody to help you here. We need to start doing some training especially as we get closer to field day. Gary said, he has received an email from a friend in a club in North Carolina. In the newsletter there was an article on LTE. As in cell phone type technology. Gary will be sharing the article in the newsletter coming up. Remember Russell goes to surgery at Shands next Wednesday keep him in your prayers. Caroline Peeples , Buddy’s wife had surgery again on her rotator cuff in Atlanta and all went well. Gary concluded with Thanking everyone who came and hope they enjoyed the dinner and meeting. And the meeting was adjourned. Next meeting February 7th at 6pm at the same place. Eleanor, AK4QW 8 Happy Birthday Billy Joe Lewis February 3rd William Kornegay February 3rd Sally Moniz February 4th Mike Swiderski February 5th Richard Bochkay February 13th Norm Scholer February 18th Dave Hand February 26th 9 Feb. 6th – Friday Morning Breakfast – 8:30 AM Q Café Feb 7th – Monthly Meeting @ the Hibachi Grill 6 PM Feb 13th – Friday Morning Breakfast – 8:30 AM Q Café Feb 13th – Orlando Hamcation Feb 20th - Friday Morning Breakfast – 8:30 AM Q Café Feb 21st – VE Test Session 10 AM Thomas County EOC Feb 27th - Friday Morning Breakfast – 8:30 AM Q Café 10 Local Nets Please monitor webpage @ www.thomasvilleamateurradioclub.com and emails for any updates and changes to the nets until the issues with the repeaters are resolved. Thursday Night Youth Net @ 7:30 PM 147.195 PL tone 141.3 Hz Thursday Night Net @ 8:00 PM 147.195 PL tone 141.3 Hz Southwest District AREs Net @ 9:00 PM 145.170 PL tone 141.3 Hz 11 WHO YOU GONNA CALL? What happens when your antenna is lying in the ground and there is no one around to help you get it back in the air? Ask Eleanor Doering and she will tell you that there just doesn’t seem to be anyone with the time, skills or youth to help. I heard of her plight months ago and thought how sad it was to have a very good radio transmitter and all the right accessories and not be able to use them. I mean, we all like our toys and sure want to use them whenever we get the urge to put some “fire in the wire” so to speak. I really couldn’t imagine not using my radio for a year, could you? The Christmas Party at The Farm was where we finally decided that she needed her antenna fixed. The story goes sort of like this; she and I were talking over dinner and I asked if her antenna was still down and what were her plans to get it back in the air. She told me it was still out of commission and she didn’t have any idea about how she was going to get it fixed. She also said that she thought hams were supposed to help each other. I told her that we do take care of each other and she retorted that no one had come forward to help her raise the antenna. I think I was being goaded into coming down to Coolidge with my helper kit. I told her that my Christmas break was coming up shortly and I was going to make some time for her. I recruited one of the other Moultrie hams, Ray Strickland – KK4JRL, to help. Ray is a member of the Colquitt County Ham Radio Society and a very knowledgeable fellow. I was glad to have him with me. We went to Ms. Eleanor’s house for a recon trip on the Wednesday before Christmas week. This was the only day available for us to make the trip. Unfortunately I forgot to call Ms. Eleanor and we showed up unannounced. She was grateful for the visit even if she wasn’t completely sure who it was at first. She quickly recognized me and was happy to see some progress on her antenna problems. Ray and I determined that the job wasn’t going to be too difficult. Our walk around found that the ropes used to guy the pole had deteriorated along with the ropes used to stretch and anchor the antenna wire. The halyard pulley had become disconnected from the antenna pole and had brought down the center connector for the antenna. This job was going to require some new ropes and muscle, hopefully not a whole lot of muscle. Ms. Eleanor had already ordered and received some new ropes from DX Engineering, shoot we were all set. All we needed was some tools and ladders and we were going to have an antenna back in action. 12 The plan was to come back and do the needed repairs on the Tuesday before Christmas. Well ya’ll remember it rained, it rained for days. Not only rain but the thunderstorms and flooded roads put a hold on the repairs. The next available day was the Saturday after Christmas and a short informative call to Ms. Eleanor that morning got the ball rolling. The truck was loaded with tools and a ladder. I stopped by Ray’s house and picked him up, we were off to do the repairs. Hey Ms. Eleanor even put on a pot of coffee. It don’t get any better than that folks. The first thing to do was remove all the bad rope from the ends of the antenna. This required climbing a ladder and removing the rope from around the chimney. That’s right the chimney is used as an anchor point for the inverted vee. 13 The other end is attached to the far shed roof. Both ends were taken loose and the wire of the antenna was inspected. The antenna wire is made of steel wire so there was some rust. This was cleaned and deemed acceptable for reuse. The center connector required a complete redo. The steel wire of the antenna was severely rusted and the feed line connections needed to be resoldered. The center wire connections were repaired and the pole was lowered for reattachment of the halyard pulley and guy ropes. The pulley was secured to the top of the pole by the original worm screw clamp used in the initial installation. We decided to wrap electrical tape around the clamp and pole at the attachment point to help secure the pulley. The halyard line was in good shape and was reused. The center connector was attached to the halyard rope and ready to be hoisted into the air. It felt like we were trying to raise the colors of freedom, wireless freedom. The guy ropes were to be attached to the pole around five feet from the top with another worm screw clamp. Somebody I know didn’t bring one. Yep there is always something forgotten. Ms. Eleanor came to the rescue when she walked out of her house with a new screw clamp. Now that is a real ham radio operator, ready for whatever comes at you. We attached the guy ropes as planned and the pole was raised into its original vertical position. We tied off the guy wires to their anchor points and started to raise the antenna center conductor with the halyard line. It worked perfectly, up the pole, slick as can be. It felt like we were raising the colors of freedom, wireless freedom. Our attention was then focused on the ends of the antenna. We had to attach them to the chimney and the shed roof. The antenna ends were secured to the lines with a bowline, a nonslipping loop in the end of the rope. A quick lesson on bowlines was initiated and the students said they would try to learn the knot for future use. The west end was secured to the chimney and the east end was moved from the original position on the corner of the shed roof to a few feet father east. This was done to clear a few orange tree branches. In the end we had to trim those trees branches anyway. Good enough. 14 We had done it. The antenna was back in the air and the initial test proved it was just as good when we finished as it was when it was erected. 15 Ms. Doering has her hobby, just like yours, and she is back on the air and I’m sure she is making contacts as you read this. Wow, really, really cool. I wish to thank her for letting Ray-KK4JRL and I have a small part in her pursuit of amateur radio, it was a blast. Thanks to all of the helpers out there. Andy Clark – NX4AC 16 METCALFE SPRING MARKET SATURDAY MARCH 21, 2015 STARTS 9 A.M. METCALFE COMMUNITY PARK 2009 MAGNOLIA STREET (NEXT TO METHODIST CHURCH) ARTS & CRAFTS WOODWORK RADA CUTLERY JELLY BREAKFAST GAS CARD RAFFLE LUNCH 5K FUN RUN/WALK NEARLY NEW ITEMS BOOTH RENTALS 10 X 10 = $15 10 X 20 = $25 5K REGISTRATION CALL 229-226-8762 www.runningintheusa.com Sponsored by: METCALFE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION 17 FOR SALE: ALINCO DX70 80-6 MTR MOBILE….COMPLETELY GONE THRU BY ALINCO $250.00 ICOM 718 80 THRU 10 TRANSCEIVER MINT CONDITION $450.00 SWAN 350 TRANCEIVER..COMPLETELY GONE THRU BY LEY’S ELECTRONICS $250.00 CALL RICHARD HARRIS WA4BDU @ 229 223 1038 [email protected] 18 For more information, visit our website at http://thomasvilleamateurradioclub.com/ or on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thomasville-Amateur-Radio-Club/175698692443216 Contact William at [email protected]
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