At the May meeting, 2 days before Field Day, Greg NOGR gave a demo of the Yaesu WIRES X system. On the table is a Yaesu radio, power supply, mag mount antenna, and Greg’s laptop computer. In PDN mode (Portable Digital Node mode) the radio does NOT transmit even though you’re pushing the PTT. It goes via a cable to the computer and Internet.
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Greg contacted former key member Fred KOFG (ex WBOBLR) who is retired in Missouri, and Andrew ZL1KN who lives 2 1/2 hours South of Auckland, New Zealand. (It was early afternoon there, tomorrow at 12:15 PM and 7:15 here in Iowa.)
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Terry KSOL put in his once yearly appearance and paid his club dues, pictured above sitting between Bruce NOBHB and Norm JYD.
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Terry brought in some recent QST magazines. Norm JYD took a couple and soon to be member Manny KFOIWE got some also. Manny showed up late because he lives over in Omaha, 84th and Center area, and got lost in the new construction of overpasses entering Co/Blfs on Broadway.
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Discussing our 2 repeaters took up a lot of time. Both are operating in a temporary condition. The VHF .82 machine is at our new site on Gleason Ave near St Albert High School, but running only 10 Watts from an antenna up about 20 feet from the top of the hill. In due time it’ll be atop the 200 ft tower running a hundred Watts from our Henry amp. (The tower crew to do that will cost us $4.6k.)
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The UHF 442.225 FM and Fusion repeater is out at Minden IA (nearer Greg’s house) on a 170 ft tower at 1300 ft elevation. One suggestion was to put it atop the CoBlfs courthouse downtown. No. Yes, it’s a 5 or 6 story building (where Leo KOJIU used to work as a judge) with a pretty good tower on top, but the 975 downtown elevation makes it a crappy repeater site.
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Oh yeah, we have about four (4) repeaters. Two YAESU 7000 repeater boxes, one in use for .82, and the other with a sick final that only puts out 8 Watts, plus the YAESU Fusion dual band repeater in use for .225, and finally the RF deck, a 10 Watt transmit board from our 1990s era Kendecom repeater, not the whole repeater, just the transmit board.
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Paul GXD took issue with the term ‘4 repeaters’ because he thinks a repeater consists of the box plus the cans; the Arcom controller, power supply, expensive hardline coax, and the antenna, also expensive, not like your Comet or Diamond thing.
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FIELD DAY
We’re not doing it. Do it yourself. Class 1D from home, or get 2 friends (you have to have 3 guys to do Class A) and run Class 1A (or Class 2A or 3A depending on how many transmitters you have) from the back yard. Has to be a temporary setup and emergency power I think. One of you has a generator don’t you?