RAPPAHANNOCK CHAPTER PVRC 18 Apr notes

The meeting was called to order at 10:30 on the 18th.

There was no old business. Under new business the club 501C7 effort was
described by Tom N4NW. Tom also stated that donations to the club are always
welcomed and that the coffers could use a boost right now.

As usual, after the brief business meeting we went around the room, giving
each attendee and opportunity to brief on recent ham radio activities.

K4EC Frank - Looks like he is finally going to get back on the air from
home. He is preparing to put an 80M windom in the trees.

KA4RRU Mike - Is getting ready for some antenna work. He is going to pull
the existing antennas off of his Rohn 25 tower and replace it with 100ft of
Rohn 45. There was a fair amount of 45 in the NR4M "boneyard" left over from
past military tower salvage efforts. 100 ft went to Mike and another 100 ft
went to Skip KS4Q. Ken K4ZW had some sections of Rohn 25 that are going to
be used in his 8 element 80 meter vertical array that needed galvanizing.
All the tower was loaded on NR4Ms trailer and trucked down to Ashland VA for
re-galvanizing. Mike's going to put a stack of three TH7's on the tower and
top it with a rotatable 40M dipole.

W0CN Dan - Operated with the KH7XX group for the ARRL Fone contest. He
operated 10m much of the time and found the band to be in good shape. He's
looking forward to field day!

K4GMH Mike - Has been working with Steve NR4M on a circuit to provide a
circuit to reduce relay closure delay in the 4-1000 amp used on 160. The
circuit also provides bias for the amp. Mike still has one F12 40M beam to
pull from the top of his tower in preparation for repopulating it. He and
Steve have been building four 40 meter Moxons. Two are to go up on Mikes
tower. Mike has completed the refurbishing of his 4 el SteppIRs.

G2YL Sally - Sadly Sally's tour in the US is coming to an end. On 9 July she
will be heading back to the UK and from there she goes to Bielefeld Germany
for her next work assignment. Sally always added so much to the Goat Farm
RTTY operations. She's a great op with a terrific personality. Incidentally,
her husband is looking for an Alpha 77 DX amplifier if anyone knows of
availability.

KS4Q Skip - Has been bringing his station into the 21st century. He has
replaced his older Kenwood gear with a TS590G which he likes very much. He
also replace his old Wilson system 40 tribander with an Optibeam 9-5. An
Alpha 4810 is helping push RF to the new antenna. He's having a ball with
the new stuff. He managed to work the EP6T operation on three bands. At the
Rap Chapter Christmas dinner he ingested a large parcel of Wasabi and ended
up being ambulanced to the hospital after fainting. Fortunately it was just
a reaction to the Wasabi and he's as healthy as ever.

NR4M Steve - Has been working with K4GMH building 40M Moxons. As anyone who
knows Steve would expect, they are (heavy) works of beauty. Many aluminum
parts were precision machined in his shop. While he was machining part for
the Moxons he also machine some U-Bolt saddles to be used in a pair of Force
12 C3S clones being built by Larry K7SV. He and K7SV are going to head down
to Charlotte NC Friday to pick up 1800 feet of heliax. The 30S1 he had
picked up at an estate sale has been sold.

N4NW Tom - Is converting an F12 EF40 40M meter beam that he purchased from
K4GMH to a 3 el 30M yagi. He's going to put it on his 75 ft crankup tower.
He's been busy building a sewing building in the back yard for his wife
Debby. He worked EP6T on 4 bands.

N4JOW Joe - Has replaced his IC746 with an IC7600. He really loves the dual
receiver. Joe started the CWOPS CW Academy, but due to deaths in the family
had to withdraw before completing it. He was active in the ARRL SSB DX
contest. He also took his 2M yagi down.

WZ4A John - Has been fairly inactive, but does keep busing doing amateur
testing in Northern VA.

K4GAA Ray - Has been a ham since 1960 and has been contesting for 5 or 6
years. He has a 33 ft tower with a hex beam on it. He is using a TAPR open
SDR radio driving a 500W amp. He likes CW, SSB and RTTY. Other hobbies are
caving and photography. He developed a cave radio to help check the accuracy
of cave maps. He plans on going to Dayton.

K7SV Larry - Has been building a pair of F12 C3S clones. One is to replace
his M2 KT34M2 triband which has never worked well on 15M. The second one is
for field day use by the Culpepper Amateur Radio Association (CARA). Larry's
rotatable 40M dipole looks like a C laying on it's side with the open end
down since taking on some ice during the winter. It will be rebuilt as soon
as the C3S is in the air. He is now helping instruct his third class as part
of the CWOPS CW Academy efforts. He is working with level 1 hams just
learning the code. He also helped with teaching a tech level ham class that
resulted in five new techs passing the test two weeks ago. He is very active
in the CW OPS CWT mini-contests. There are three one hour contests that take
place each Wednesday on 160 thru 10M.

David - Doesn't have his call sign yet, but is one of the individuals who
passed his tech exam two weeks ago. David was a Morse intercept operator in
the military. His introduction to the hobby was primarily as a result of
visiting the NR4M qth to correct a problem with a Virginia Broadband node on
one of Steve's towers. Dave's wife Trinity was also a military Morse
intercept operator. She's interested in the hobby but is pretty busy with a
couple of younger children.

The meeting adjourned at 11:30AM. As usual brats, burgers and libation was
enjoyed by all following the meeting.

73 de Lar K7SV