RAPPAHANNOCK CHAPTER PVRC MEETING NOTES FROM 25 JAN 2014

Meeting was called to order at the Goat Farm (NR4M qth) at 10:30AM 25 Jan 2014. There was no new business nor any old business. Going around the room, here’s what the folks have been up to:

N4DXS Steve – Lost his antenna when trees came down in a storm. He’s experiencing with software that recovers intelligence from CW. He’s looking forward to the CQWPXRTTY contest in a couple of weeks.

KA4RRU Mike – Says the cold wx is affecting his rotators. The TH6 won’t rotate at all. His 160M inv L is down. He’s waiting for good weather to fix those items as well as recovering an unused piece of feed line for NR4M’s use. He’s been having fun chasing W1AW around the bands. Speaking of W1AW he’s going to be doing W1AW/4 on RTTY in April and is looking for operators to join him in a multi band effort.

KJ4RTF Jennifer – Has been studying for her general class license (she’s working on code as well!). She operated in the Rookie Roundup and just received her first qsl card.

W4IM John – Put an effort into the NAQP SSB contest, generating points for PVRC and the Rappahannock Chapter. He wanted to remind everyone that the Virginia QSO Party is in March.

G2YL Sally – Went back to the UK to spend the Christmas with her family. Due to intense noise in the neighborhood she has given up on trying to get on the air from her apartment.

N3ZV Whit – Talked about his escapades in chasing the W1AW/ stations. He had a problem with his Alfa 99 amplifier where a trace lifted on a printed circuit board. He’s repaired it. He had a problem with bad transmit audio. After tearing the station completely apart, the problem went away, but he doesn’t know what the cause was (I think he lives too close to the Goat Farm where 90 percent of our problems are never explained).
He got on for the CQWW160 CW contest and says he felt weak the first night. He uses a pair of double bazookas antennas on the band.

KC4QP Skip – Talked about a program called “Just Learned CW” that he’s using to increase his cw speed. Skip did 4 or 5 hours in the CQWW160 CW contest, working about 150 stations. He mentioned working on a repeater on Clark Mountain recently; says it was a might cold! Skip raises (big) turkeys for a living. He talked a bit about these 40 pound birds and how mean they can be! The better grade deli turkey on your sandwich may well have grown up under Skips antennas!

NR4M Steve – Has become frustrated with trying to keep the station infrastructure up to snuff. After the CQWPX RTTY contest, he plans to not operate further contests until some updates are made. Those updates include burying feedlines that are not already in the ground, replacing the truck boxes with a small structure with a roof for terminating antennas outside, replace wiring runs using the same type of cable for an entire run rather than mixing different cables with different color codes, and is looking at using Hamation software to switch and rotate antennas. In addition he’s going to replace the active receive 4sq antennas on 40 and 20 with full size transmitting 4sqs. (Larry’s glad he has retired!)

K2WK Walt – It was nice to see Walt again. He said he has taken a long hiatus from ham radio. His return to activity was operating in the CQWW 160 CW contest.

K7SV Larry – Retired (for the second time) from the Coast Guard at the end of November. He says it’s nice to have more time for contesting and he has been more active including the CWOPS CWT events as well as the NCCC Sprint ladder on Thursday nights. He did the CQWW 160 CW with Steve from NR4M; thought conditions were a low average. Lar has rescued his 15 year old 80 meter dipole from the trees, replaced the feedline and it’s now playing well at 70 feet, strung between a couple of trees.

73 de Lar K7SV