AARC Radio Shack

Wed., July 27 We (AEE3D, W2PAW, W3JLM & N3ADF) had a shack clean up party.

We first got the N-S OFC Dipole antenna fed into the repeater room and jumper-ed back into the shack. No lightning arrester on it yet.

Everything on the radio desk was removed and the desk thoroughly cleaned (including the snake poop.) We took all the equipment out to the tables in the meeting room.

We then put the Kenwood TS-570 & a power supply back and connected the OFC Dipole & Tri-band Beam. We were receiving signals on both antennas. The Rotor for the beam was turning the beam but the rotor controller seems to be flaky in that it doesn't want to display the direction at all. Just points due South.

I took antenna analyzer readings on both the N-S OCF Dipole and the Tri-Band Beam. I think the internal tuners on the rigs will tune both antennas OK without an external tuner for now.

We tried to get the LDG-100 tuner working but no go. Keith took it home to check out as he has the same unit & rig at home.

We tried hooking up the Brown-Bros. paddle/key combo but it would no work. I brought it home and did a total clean and re-wire of the combo and tested it out on my rig. AOK.

Keith moved the server computer into the shack and installed to the far right on the radio desk with the big UPS. Keith is bringing in a server router which will feed all the radio stations computers.

We still have a lot of work to do, including re-routing the beam coax and rotor cable thru the repeater room and jumpered back into the shack. We will have two stations up for the MD QSO Party. One working the OCF Dipole for 80m-40m-20m and the other working the tri-band beam for 20m-15m-10m.

We plan another work session for Sat., July 31 at 8:00AM.

73 & Yours, Aye!
Jim - N3ADF