NOTES FROM RAPAHHANNOCK CHAPTER PVRC MEETING 19 JAN 2013

MEETING WAS HELD AT THE NR4M QTH.

Called to order more or less at 10:30 Saturday morning. Having no new business nor old business to discuss, Frank K4EC began the round robin around the room for each attendee to discuss what had transpired in his/her ham radio life in recent months.

K4EC – Frank. In a recent wind storm Franks R5 vertical was fairly demolished by a neighbors falling tree, so now he’s down to no antennas. He’s planning on rectifying that shortly.

N4NW – Operated some in the ARRL RTTY contest. Tom has been a PVRC member since 1979 and spent 8 years traveling Africa vocationally. He build what is called a too long, too short 160M antenna based on information from Hal N4GG and finds that it is working great. Recently worked a ZS on top band.

N4JOW – When the reflector on his TH6 became cockeyed, Joe found the easy solution to be replacing it with a T-11 log periodic which he is very happy with. He also worked the ARRL RTTY contest.

K4GM – Has raised an off center fed dipole in the trees and is having great success with it 160 through 10 meters. The only band requires a tuner is 15 meters. George is spending most of his operating time at the Goat Farm.

K4GMH – Mike happily reported that he didn’t have much news and that everything still seemed to be in working order in the air. He worked the ARRL RTTY contest as well.

N4UA – Great to have George visiting from the Lynchburg area. He retired last summer and lives on a farm that is populated with three towers. His recent efforts have dealt with populating a 110ft rotatable tower with aluminum. He is primarily a CW op and is/was a past FRC member. Considering the former we can’t hold the latter against him! George loves building stuff and has a machine shop in his basement.

N3ZV – Whit finally got the feedlines connecting to all the Optibeam aluminum on his 90ft self supporting tower. He’s been having a ball playing with the yagis on 80 through 10 and a pair of 160M double bazookas. He likes to op rtty contests from the Goat Farm.

K4SKA – Phil trekked to the Goat Farm from Amherst for the meeting. K4SKA was the call of Phil’s late father who was a Navy Radioman. Phile uses a TS-940 and a 40m vertical with 2 radials. He is awaiting receipt of his mixed DXCC. Congrats Phil!

NR4M – Steve mentioned that his 24 year old daughter Jennifer has been working some in RTTY contests from the farm. He is helping her study for her ticket. He reports that Stonehenge as the neighbors call it is done. Stonehenge is a pair of 8 circle active receive arrays for 160 and 80 meters. The 80 is situated inside the 160. He found that with the expense of copper it was less expensive to run smaller wire out to the controls and feed them with inexpensive variable voltage supply. At a thousand feet 20 volts in produces 13 volts at the current draw of the active devices. A problem was experienced with 40 and 20 getting into the active devices on the 160 antenna, but a tuned circuits in series with the feed to each of the 25 foot verticals resolved that problem while preserving performance on top band.

W6SFG – Bruce traveled up with the Lynchburg group. He’s been a ham since he was 10, being first licenses in 1957. He has worked in the broadcast world engineering or production. He operated some from the Rhombic farm at W6AM. His contesting is more to pass Qs out, not so much competitive. He runs and FT1000 to an Alpha. Has a KT34 on a 75 ft crankup tower. Bruces FIRST MEETING

KK4XX – Dave also joined the Lynchburg bunch for the trip. He’s new to the area. He works up at Prudhoe Bay in AK. He works up there two weeks, then commutes back to VA for 2 weeks. He was playing with a pair of stacked Moxons on 10 meters.

K2KW – Kenny also with the Lynchburg crowd is also new to the area. He recently move here from the Dayton Oh area. He’s looking forward to his family joining him in six weeks. His first comment was that being past president of NCCC, he felt a little strange being in the midst of so many PVRCers. He’s living on 2 acres and is looking at wire arrays for domestic contests. His first thought was five elements on 40 towards the west coast! Many of you recognize Kenny’s call from the Team Vertical operations from the Caribbean. He’s a terrific cw op.

AK4SQ – Dan runs a TT Eagle to a windham antenna. His location is wife restricted antenna-wise! He says he’s really enjoyed and appreciated being mentored by the Lynchburg gang!

K3ZM – Peter just replaced his 2 el F12 40M yagi with a Cushcraft. He can’t believe the difference between the two, with the CC outperforming the F12 by a wide margin. He’s playing with a hybrid receive 4sq for 160M mixing Hy-Z preamps with DXEngineering control. If it works out, he’s going to expand it to an 8 circle.

KC4D – Bill (Lynchburg) hopes to be at NR4M for the ARRL CW DX conest. He loves 160M and worked the ARRL 160 contest with Kenny K2KW. He’s been experiencing some noise problems but thinks it’s been corrected. He’ll be doing the CQ 160 test. He’s putting a new beverage up towards Eur. Bill has enjoyed recruiting new CWS OPs members and teaching cw in a virtual classroom situation. He encourages others to recruit more cw ops. He’s got his MonstIR back on the tower with the 80M part functioning correctly. He’s still having a bit of a rotator problem with the direction indicator. He’s looking to phase 3 slopers on 80 and shunt feeding the tower on 160.

N4DXS – Steve is pretty much RTTY oriented, doing most of his contesting from KA4RRU. He’s got a small station with a 40 foot tower and is located in a bowl. He beginning to play with cw. This was Steve’s first PVRC meeting.

K3UI – Richard is another RTTY op that has worked a lot from KA4RRU. At home he’s got wire antennas. This was Richards second meeting and he was voted in as a PVRC member. Congratulation Richard and welcome to the club.
KA4RRU – Mike told of NR4M helping him straighten a 90ft tower after a tree fell on a guy wire. He never thought it would be straight again, but looks great now. He fixed some problems with feed lines and replace a 15M yagi with a 3 element SteppIR. He almost worked the XV on 80 (XV never got full call). Mike’s an RTTYer who is usually active in contests from home, but joined NR4M in the ARRL this year.

N2QT– Mark, another of the Lynchburg group said he’s maxed out what he can do with antennas, so was looking to see what he could do with more radios. He’s comfortable with SO2R on RTTY, but said he’s not quite cutting it with SO3R! Mark has been playing with RTTY Skimmer.

K7SV – Larry Has been playing with the 8circle rx antennas at NR4M. Worked 9V1YC one evening on 80. Somewhat active all bands from home. Recently worked JA7NI on top band. It was Larry’s second Q with Japan on 160 from the home qth where he runs 100W.

W0MAN – Susanne (yeah she’s from the Lynchburg area as well!) hasn’t been very active recently due to a couple of health problems. She enjoyed the company of K7SVs dogs during the meeting!

W4JAM – John, the other half of the W0MAN/W4JAM team says he’s more of a dxer than contester. He’s been busy filling band slots. He’s new to RTTY and just worked FS for a new one.

W4WWQ – Pete (Lynchburg) visited us during a meeting two years ago. He runs the K3line and just replaced an old tribander with a 3 el SteppIR with the 30/40M trombone. He was having problems with RFI in his DSL connection. As he began replacing steel guy wires with Phillystran things have begun to improve. He does some contesting, mostly S&P on phone.

K0OO – Pat lives in Washington DC and enjoys contesting. He has been active as KG4OO and K0OO/ from various places.

Following the discussions, Steve NR4M talked some about the PVRC operation using the W1AW and NU1AW call signs during the upcoming Radiosport contest in July.

The meeting was adjourned and everyone enjoyed burger, brats, chip, soda and beer.