JSCARC warmly welcomes new members during our 2018 Membership Drive. New license classes, New club project builds, New operating Events, New club activities! Come to the next meeting and we’ll roll out the red carpet. Keep checking this site for updates and rollouts of our new activities. 73 (best regards), W5RRR
W5RRR 2m Net Traffic – 2/6/18
1. Shack refurbishment
- Carpet pulled out
- Tile installed – wasn’t done correctly, so N5FWB demanded a redo, which is complete
- Tile now in place, but await proper reinstallation of baseboards and damage to drywall during their removal
- Baseboards reinstalled, but again N5FWB has demanded rework of poor workmanship
- Keith is requesting all-hands-on-deck to now paint the walls before reinstalling furniture
- Bob sent out APB for painter help for Thurs- Fri
- Will finish shack with 2 new modular desks (from MCC)
- one will be replace satellite station, one will be Emergency Ops Center station
- both on far fall (where IC-781 was)
- 3 existing desks will sit side-by-side on primary wall
- rework antenna coax patch panel onto smaller footprint
- one will be replace satellite station, one will be Emergency Ops Center station
Note: historical heavy satellite console/rack will be excessed, but we’ll take photos for historic files
Winter Field Day Photo Gallery
Check out a few photos captured during our Winter Field Day operation!
W5RRR makeover (in progress!)
Here’s the first glimpse of our newly tiled flooring.
Many thanks to Jerry, N5FWB, who managed to get us this nice upgrade from our ratty carpet.
So, much of the equipment has been moved to a temporary holding room for now. The tiled floor is now complete, and we’ve decided to paint the walls while the opportunity exists. Standby for an all hands on deck for painters this week. This shack refurbishment includes installing 2 donated operations desks from the MCC (thanks AB5SS). One of the new benches will replace our old Satellite console and the other will be set up as an Emergency Operations Center station, against the wall where the IC-781 current sits. The remaining 3 wooden benches will be placed side-to-side on the primary wall, while we also shrink and update the patch panel into a smaller footprint that can sit ontop of a bench top.>
W5RRR Mail Call
Thanks to KG5HOK the shack now has a real mailbox! With the clubs new found activity online, we’re getting tons of mail asking for QSLs. We now have our separate mail tray at the Gilruth and it’s regularly filling up. So our new shack mailbox will be a nice touch to place incoming QSLs and … Read more…
AB5SS is a World Class VHF/UHF Rover Contester.
John, AB5SS, is a World Class VHF/UHF Rover Contester.
2000 – 1st place in the US and Canada (AB5SS+W5DF)
2002 – 4th place in the US and Canada (AB5SS+W5DF)
“From 1998-2002, we ran a serious competitive rover station and had many top 10 rover scores for the US & Canada.”
—John Maca, AB5SS
On his truck, John had radios covering 6m through 3cm (that’s all 10 bands – 50/144/222/432/902/1296/2304/3456/5760/10368 MHz).
Winter Field Day (WFD) 2018 @ W5RRR
WINTER FIELD DAY 2018!
On a cold, rainy weekend of the January 27th, members of the JSCARC successfully marked W5RRR’s presence in our first ever 2018 Winter Field Day event. KB5PGY, W9TWJ, and W5OC setup portable operations from the outdoor picnic tables adjacent to the W5RRR shack. The intrepid trio strung up a variety of temporary antennas which included two long wire antennas (Zepp, End-Fed) strung from the trees and two exotic portable vertical antennas: 1) The Next Generation Antenna (N6BT) V-8 and 2) the Transworld TW-2010/4040, both ground mounted. The V-8 antenna required a bit of ingenuity to mount but W9TWJ ended up hammering down 2 leftover fence posts from last year’s summer FD, which worked great as a self supporting ground stake.
KG5NQP, 2M Net Control 1st Timer
Special shout out to Christi, KG5NQP. Christi is a new ham and graciously accepted a quick turnaround need to serve as Net Control for the JSCARC weekly 2m FM Tuesday net. With no experience, nor practice, she bravely accepted the challenge. With a standard script in-hand, she did an awesome job from the W5RRR VHF station.
2/8 Monthly Meeting Information
Brown Bag Lunch Meeting: 12:00pm–1:00pm CT in Building 30, Room 3090.
Evening Meeting: 6:30pm–8:30pm CT at the Gilruth Center Inspiration Room.
Observations from a 1st time VHF contester
What I learned for my 1st exposure to the VHF weekend conte
st.
- VHF/UHF/Microwavers are serious hams.
– They communicate and take these operations very seriously
– They operate strange expensive radios and antennas from their cars
– They pre-arrange operating times and coordinate with others
– They operate big signals and hunt out the little guys
- The W5RRR satellite antennas are not fun equipment for this type of contest