| 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, October 1, 1998 in the Emergency Communications Center (ECC) located on the third floor of Building 11. Final plans will be made for our participation in the October 3 Clinical Center power outage test.
The meeting was called to order by Vice President Larry Martin at 12:10 p.m. The minutes of the August 6, 1998 meeting were accepted as written.
Members attending the meeting included Bill Hook W3QBC, Mike Kahn KA3GSV, Albert Lock
KA3WCF, Larry Martin W3IBO, John Muller W3QF, Frank Nice and Tom Vegella K1FEX. Trent
Smith KQ6ID was welcomed as a visitor and prospective member.
The coax cable running from the ECC to the base of the antenna was shortened, fed through the hole in the wall and fitted with a new PL-259 connector by Bill Hook on August 11. It was found that the 115 vac outlet on the roof near the tower as well as the outlet in the room nearby are not energized. Therefore, it was necessary to use a gas-fired soldering iron to install the new connector. We should arrange to get power to these outlets before attempting further work requiring soldering or drilling. A volunteer was sought to draw SWR vs. frequency curves for the R7000 antenna.
Jim Hobbs has compared the R7000 vertical with the 40 meter wire dipole for use over a path to North Carolina and has found the vertical to be satisfactory although it provided signals two to three S units lower than the horizontally polarized dipole.
John Muller again operated solo at the ECC. He used 2 meter FM to take message traffic from MEMA Pikesville. He also made progress toward handling messages by packet radio with the Montgomery County RACES station WA3YOO. Another effort on packet will be made during the September 8 exercise. John requested that other members avail themselves of this opportunity to learn message handling and how to use the transceivers in the ECC. Trent Smith and Bill Hook offered to assist John on September 8.
Jim Hobbs was unable to get air flowing into the ECC despite experiments with the thermostat and the air lines therein. Albert Lock offered to ask for help from maintenance personnel. Logbooks and other NIHRAC documents were damaged in July when water leaked into the ECC from above. A way to prevent future condensate leaks is needed.
We understand that all items on the present inventory have been accounted for. Items other than "Personal Use" and those valued at $5000 or more have been removed from the list. NIHRAC should prepare it's own inventory of ECC equipment to help protect us against loss.
The handout detailing instructions for the proper acquisition and disposal of accountable NIHRAC equipment as presented by Ms. Sandra Miller at the August 6 meeting was posted in the ECC and provided to members. We again thank Ms. Miller for her excellent efforts toward assisting us in solving our property management problems. Andy Mitz has suggested that Dan Reggia be appointed as Chairman of a NIHRAC Property Management Liaison Committee that will work with the Emergency Preparedness Branch's Property Custodian to ensure that proper procedures will be followed. The Vice President appointed Dan to this post.
Tom Vegella has loaned the DMAT a PK-232 all-mode controller for use on VHF and HF
packet. Jim Hobbs has begun to helping Albert Lock and Tom in setting up a packet station
in the ECC for learning the techniques. Other NIHRAC members who have recently acquired
multi-mode controllers for their stations include Chuck Sherman, John Muller and Bill
Hook. They too expect to learn more about HF packet.
Trent Smith KQ6ID was unanimously elected to full NIHRAC membership. Trent is from California, holds an Advanced Class license and is a Howard Hughes Institute scholar working at the Laboratory of Chemical Physics in Building 5. He owns equipment for HF, VHF and packet radio. Trent's interests include building equipment, HF DX contesting, emergency preparedness and learning about digital and satellite communications.
The next Clinical Center Power Outage Test will be held on Saturday, October 3 from
1:00 to 3:00 p.m. All members will be contacted and urged to participate. We plan to have
two operators at the NIHRAC ECC to serve as Net Control on VHF and UHF and may use simplex
as well as both the NIHRAC VHF and UHF repeaters.
After experiencing a water leak, a work party to install the R7000 antenna and DMAT
activities, the ECC has been in a state of disarray. Progress toward a cleanup has been
made by Albert Lock who transported a cartload of equipment for surplus to the EPB office.
Tom Vegella donated another cartload of unwanted non-accountable items to Larry Kress of
the FDA. More work is required to put the ECC in good order.
We've received several packages of paper for the ECC laser printer. Thanks to those who responded with a contribution so that we may continue to print documents from the Internet and other sources.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:50 pm and was followed by some additional cleanup of the ECC.
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