Rappahanock chapter meeting at the Goat Farm

Hello all,

The meeting was more or less called to order around 10:30 with Ken K4ZW
officiating. There was no business to discuss so we went right to
individuals discussing their recent activities. In addition to many regulars
in attendance Steve NY3A and Fred K3ZO joined us.

W4IM John - Has been slowly rebuilding his shack. Meanwhile he's been
operating from NI4VA in Caroline Cty VA. John was also active with the
Fredericksburg club K4TS from Curtis Park in Stafford County for field day.

NR4M Steve - During the big storm he lost power until Monday. Antenna-wise
the rope boom on the 80M delta loop broke, the rotator on the top 15 stopped
working and middle 15 needs to be realigned in azimuth. The feed on the top
40 is broken but that was caused by cockpit error, not wind. He just
replaced the QRO 2500 amplifiers with Alpha 8410s. The QROs played great but
he's more comfortable with the "conventional" way the Alpha tetrode amps are
tuned as opposed to the QRO tetrodes. Steve brought the Taj Mahal on wheels
to the K4TS field days operation and worked 15M cw. At the moment it's
undecided whether a M/S effort will be made in IARU or if some antenna work
will be done. Hopefully the wx will be a bit cooler.

N4JOW Joe - Joe reports that after working one of the RTTY contests from
NR4M that it has become his favorite mode. He has ordered an eleven element
Teledyne log periodic to replace his yagis. He'll gain better antenna for
the WARC bands with it.

W0CN Dan - Has retired from the Air Force after 26 years and returned to the
VA area from Hawaii. He has now thrown his lot in with the "beltway
bandits". Since returning he's some a little contesting with a remote link
to KH6. He did field day with the Virginia Beach contingent and is looking
to to ARRL SSB from TI with WA4PGM and gang.

KE3X Ken - Between family, work and qualifying for WRTC Ken's been quite
busy. He's trying to work out a m/s effort of single op effort from a
competitive station in CQ WW Fone. Ken's swapping his Alpha 78 out for an
87.

K4GM George - Has been involved with teaching code to no-code hams as part
of his CW OPS participation. He commented that there is a lot of apparent
interest in cw on the part of the no-code contingent, which is obviously
great! George also participated in field with the K4TS group. He says he's
looking forward to operating various cw and rtty contests from NR4M as long
as work doesn't interfere!

K3ZO Fred - Fred's first comment in reference to what George has said about
no-codes interest in cw was "I think we're on the right track where folks
want to do code, rather than being forced to learn it. It doesn't appear
that he had any damage from the recent wind storm other than the 80/40M
beams becoming out of azimuthal alignment. He said the good thing is the swr
on his 6M beam dropped from 1.2:1 or so to 1.0:1.

N4NW Tom - Had no storm damage. He worked the VA qso party taking 2nd place.
He had a problem with a tic ring that was identified to a control problem
after a lot of trouble shooting. Tom discussed performance of his 5 el yagi
at 65 feet with that of his Steppir at 120 feet or so on 6M. He said the
high Steppir appears to be better on multihop to Eur but the 5 el is
probably better in working the states. He worked out a great deal in trading
a malfunctioning Alpha 87 in for an Alpha 9500.

K4EU Steve - Has continued to do a lot of traveling, resulting in reduced
contesting. He finished as top Roanoke HP Mixed class in the 10M contest.
Steve played around little in the VA QSO party.

K4EC Fank - Said that he didn't seem to have a lot of incentive to get on
the air from home with his R5 vertical after operating from the Goat Farm.
He has no storm damage and the R5 survived the wind ok.

K7SV Larry - Had a tree strike the reflector on his KT34A during the wind
storm. As was the case with Fred's six meter antenna, the bend in the
reflector dropped the swr on 15 cw from 2:1 to 1.7:1, so it was a good
thing. It doesn't look quite as good as it did, but he doesn't expect any
DLs to tell him he's 599 with bent reflector flutter! The six meter beam
developed a 3:1 swr since last time it was used. A trip to the ground and
some grooming didn't make any difference. It still seems to work.

K4ZW Ken - Reported that the WPX CW M/M effort from NR4M may set a new
record. He discussed the exceptional conditions, especially on 15 meters
during the contest. Ken is considering construction of an 8 circle array for
80M. He's looking at a work trip to ST0 in the near future.

N3ZV Whitney - Reported progress in getting his 100ft self supporting tower
up is going slow, mostly due to funding going to other considerations such
as vehicle replacement. Whit described how the controller for his Prosistel
rotator sustained damage during a thunderstorm even though it wasn't
connected to the rotator. He enjoys 160M and rtty.

WK3W Rob - Has a shipping container full of tower and antennas removed from
a fairly large contesting station in TX a year ago. Rob's been battling a
couple of different construction companies involved with building his home
on Lake Anna in VA. He doesn't expect to get much done with the antennas
until the legal battle is done and the house finished.

NY3A Steve - Said he made the trip from PA after seeing scores and pictures
of the NR4M station. He wanted to get a look at it and meet some of the ops.
After the meeting there was a lot of discussion with Steve regarding his
efforts with skimmer and the skimmer network.

The meeting was adjourned and the group continued various discussions while
enjoying a repast of burgers and sausages.

Larry K7SV