| NIHRAC (K3YGG) NIH Building 13 Room G-903 Bethesda, MD 20892 |
Emergency Communications Center NIH Building 11 Room 308 phone: 301 496-5311 |
NIHRAC Web site http://nihrac.od.nih.gov
The next meeting will be held at noon on Thursday August 6, 1998 in the Emergency Communications Center (ECC) located on the third floor of Building 11. We will hear about the PHS-1 DMAT's deployment to Ft. Pickett and will plan the installation of our new Cushcraft R-7000 HF antenna.
The meeting was called to order by Vice President Larry Martin at 12:10 p.m. The minutes of the June 4, 1998 meeting were accepted after correcting the site of Chuck Sherman's successful completion of the General Class license exam to read the Recreation Center in Landover MD.
Members attending the meeting were Bill Hook W3QBC, Albert Lock KA3WCF, Larry Martin W3IBO, John Muller W3QF, Frank Putnam N3ZPQ, Chuck Sherman N3WTO, Vernon Taylor KA3TMT, Mike Thomas WB3LHT and Tom Vegella K1FEX. Visitor Gary Shipley N5GQD from GSA was welcomed as a visitor.
1) Bob Haslach acquired the spectrum analyzer that was mentioned in last month's minutes. He asks for any insights that members may have in the use of his new Tek 547 with 1L4 Spectrum Analyzer plug-in.
2) The NIHRAC Web page has been installed on a Unix server that is now located in the ECC. Pay a visit, the new address is http://nihrac.od.nih.gov
The structural work being done on the west face of Building 11 may make it difficult to hoist a new tower to the roof and to lower the old one for disposal. It was suggested that we delay the planned improvements to the HF beam antenna until we learn about the timetable for this work. Meanwhile, other things can be done to provide needed improvements to the NIHRAC antenna farm.
It was suggested that we purchase and install a replacement for the defective HyGain 18AVT HF trap vertical. This antenna has been removed from the roof.
Last month's request for comment on vertical antennas for HF produced the following response from Andy Mitz. "The two people who I know use modern verticals say that the commercial units do not perform well on 80 m. They do well above 80. The Cushcraft R7000 is considered excellent. That is what Frank Putnam got. He reports very good performance on 20, 40, and 15m (the bands he has tested)."
A motion was made, seconded and passed unanimously that NIHRAC purchase with funds from the NIHRAC treasury a Cushcraft R7000 antenna with an R80 add-on kit. The total cost was estimated to be $510. Chuck Sherman volunteered to shop for a favorable price and to place the order.
After the meeting, an inspection team visited the roof and found a suitable mounting bracket already installed. This is located on a wall and it will not be necessary to use the railing along the south edge of the roof to attach the new antenna. It was along this railing near the new cooling towers that damage occurred to the previous antenna.
The vacuum tubes and other items recently donated to NIHRAC remain to be evaluated and decisions made as to their disposition. Andy Mitz and Larry Wolken have expressed interest in looking them over. We may find them to be a source of funds for the club treasury.
NIHRAC was contacted by Dee Andrews of the Clinical Center Director's Office who asked for an updated list of radio volunteers. Bill Hook prepared the list and submitted it by e-mail. A printed version was sent to the Clinical Center Safety Officer. Additional copies are available in the ECC and members are asked to add or delete their names as appropriate to their present situation. Because the callup list gives home telephone numbers we should consider whether or not the list should appear on the NIHRAC Web site. Andy Mitz advised that he could make this page password protected.
The DMAT will deploy July 11-24 to Fort Pickett VA. On June 16 Albert Lock asked for NIHRAC's "....help on setting up and learning how to use packet radio for DMAT deployment at FT Pickett". He was advised that a) this would be difficult to achieve because the time remaining was short, b) the PHS-1 DMAT may not have available the appropriate TNC, HF transceiver, cables for interconnection, portable computer or communications software, and c) the participants may have not acquired the needed experience and in some cases the appropriate class FCC license to operate on the relevant HF frequencies.
John Muller reported on the recent Dayton Hamvention. Of special interest were the forums of the low power operators (QRPers) titled "Four Days in May" that are held the day before and during the Hamvention. Homebrew, kit building and efficient antennas were the subjects of well presented sessions. The attraction of QRP to younger hams was evident because of the lower costs and educational aspects of building low power gear.
Member David Dodell has advised that he runs two Internet servers and offers to set up mailing lists for NIHRAC. We thanked David for his offer and will call upon him when it appears that a backup will be needed. The k3ygg sysop advised that it's unlikely that k3ygg.ampr.org will suffer a prolonged outage even in the event of computer failure at the ECC.
The following entries were changed: Binstock, Jon Glass, Seth Johnson, Jeff Sherman, Chuck
It was suggested that the NIHRAC President contact those who failed to respond to our recent membership renewal effort. The purpose would be to let non-renewing members know that their presence is missed and it's not necessary to submit a new member application to reinstate their membership.
The meeting was adjourned by the Vice President at approximately 1:00 p.m.
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