Amplifiers

[RKILE at delphi.com]

    The prudent use of power amplifiers would not hurt anyone. Speaking for
myself I've operated on 160 meters for twenty years most of the time using
high power when required. It has allowed me to work all continents and
pursue DXCC from a less than favorable geographic location. It is quite
possible to run high power and have a quality signal. However I will point
out that there are far too many meter watchers out there in many cases
completely ignorant of the operation of their equipment.
    Without stirring the pot too much, I will point out that opinions
expressed in QST or any other magazine always have indicated that we as
contesters are not in the "mainstream of amateur radio." We are
significantly outnumbered by those who are "impaired one way or another."
    Perhaps we should guarantee a handicap parking zone somewhere between
26.5 and 27.5 MHZ. (The Dumbing of amateur radio)


_ . ... _  Bob,  KG7D
via internet"rkile at delphi.com"

>From barry at w2up.wells.com (Barry Kutner)  Sat Jun 25 21:44:34 1994
From: barry at w2up.wells.com (Barry Kutner) (Barry Kutner)
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 94 20:44:34 GMT
Subject: amplifiers
Message-ID: <ZcRHoc2w165w at w2up.wells.com>

oo7 at astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills) writes:

> If everyone were limited to 100 watts all the time, contests would be just 
> as cut-throat.  I'm not really agreeing with the QST letter author, but I 
> see his point.   If a dedicated contester wanted to counter the argument,
> it might be better to say that contesters have good antenna systems, that
> is why they are loud, and the smaller guns should improve their antennas
> as well.   Hmmmm, maybe.
> 

Derek - How about a compromise? Let make the limit 300 watts. After all, 
listen to those Italians in ARRL DX with 300 watts. Nobody needs to be 
louder than that! :)


--=====================================================================
Barry N. Kutner, W2UP       Usenet/Internet: barry at w2up.wells.com
Newtown, PA                 Packet Radio: W2UP @ WB3JOE.#EPA.PA.USA.NA
                            Packet Cluster: W2UP >K2TW (FRC)
.......................................................................


>From David Robbins KY1H 413-494-6955(w) 413-655-2714(h) Robbins at GUID2.DNET.GE.COM <robbins at guid2.dnet.ge.com>  Mon Jun 27 12:02:20 1994
From: David Robbins KY1H 413-494-6955(w) 413-655-2714(h) Robbins at GUID2.DNET.GE.COM <robbins at guid2.dnet.ge.com> (w h w h)
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 94 07:02:20 EDT
Subject: field day
Message-ID: <9406271101.AA24400 at thomas.ge.com>

yes, i know fd isn't a contest, but i think many on here may have an interest
in the following anyway:

well, another field day bites the dust.  as i reflect on the weekend i have
a few thoughts.

1. its time to remove the repeater exemption for packet.  i think this rule
has outlived its original purpose of fostering activity on packet radio.  we
have plenty of packet users now, and the equipment is easily available to 
almost anyone so there should be no reason to try to make more activity.  let
this rule go the way of the warc band bonus next year.  as an example of the
crazyness that this rule can create, i entered this year as 0d.  right!  no
transmitter, commercial power.  the computer i used was wired directly to the
cluster node aa1as.  this could also be accomplished by someone with a dialup
line into internet that knows how to get out one of the internet-packet 
gateways.  just think, we could have users on packet that don't even have
radios making field day contacts!  since field day is supposed to be an 
emergency training simulation, how about we simulate that the packet backbones
are down... after all, they will be one of the first things to go in a major
disaster.  heck, we can't even keep the network connected thru a minor ice
storm up here.  maybe some of the nodehoppers will rediscover direct user
to user connections still work with tnc's and you don't always have to go thru
the cluster or a bbs.

2. there has been talk of adding a 'participant' class to some of the major
contests.  how about going the other way and try adding a 'contester' class
to field day?  this would give the two class idea a try without affecting
any of the contest formats, and may add some more life to the weekend for
those of us who aren't really into field day.  maybe the winner would get a
bronze mosquito plaque or something.

73, dave.  ky1h   Robbins at guid2.dnet.ge.com   


>From alan at dsd.es.com (Alan Brubaker)  Mon Jun 27 15:39:32 1994
From: alan at dsd.es.com (Alan Brubaker) (Alan Brubaker)
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 94 08:39:32 MDT
Subject: Field Day.
Message-ID: <9406271439.AA17085 at dsd.ES.COM>


Evans & Sutherland Radio Club

Call used:  K6XO

Class:      1A

# of operators:  7

QTH:        10 Miles NE of Fairview Utah @ 9100' ASL.

Power:      150 Watts  (Yaesu FT-1000).

Antennas:   80 - 10M  G5RV at 30'
            40/15M    40M GP Base at 8'
            20M       5 El. Wire Yagi at 40' fixed due east.

SSB QSOs:   946
CW QSOs:    320
RS-12 QSOs:   4 (CW)

Total QSOs: 1270

Total points:      3772 (including bonus points).

This year, we tried something a bit different. After getting severely
trampled last year on 20 SSB, we thought that we would try a wide
spaced 5 element wire beam for 20 meters. The center of the eastern 
seaboard is very close to the North Carolina/Virginia border, and 
from Utah is very close to 90 degrees azimuth. The theoretical 
beamwidth of our main lobe is about 60 degrees at the -5 db points, 
which would cover from Florida to Maine. The question was: Would we 
work anyone in Montana or Arizona with this thing? How about the west 
coast? It turned out that there was enough high angle sporadic E 
propagation to allow us to work all of the close in parts of the 
country as well as the midwest and eastern U.S. and Canada which was 
our primary target. We believe that the extra effort to hang this 
antenna in the aspen trees (which are numerous in the Manti-LaSal 
mountains) really paid off. Nearly half of our QSOs were on 20 meters 
SSB, and if we had put a dedicated transmitter on that band, we would 
have likely made many more than that. Our other antennas were made 
out of wire as well - the 40 meter ground plane seemed to play well as 
did the G5RV. Two of Dave's (KG7EW) sons did some operating, mostly on 
15 and 40 SSB. They are working on their licenses but aren't quite 
there yet. The WX was a bit windy at times but otherwise perfect. We 
had no tent this year so we just hung up a plastic tarp for shade over
the operating table. Natural air conditioning at 75 degrees during
midday. Credit for the 20 meter antenna design goes to K8CC, who
published an article on a series of 5 element designs for 20, 15
and 10 in NCJ a few years ago. We were very pleased with its
performance. Propagation seemed to be good on all bands 80 through
10. We worked all ARRL sections except for Puerto Rico (heard 2 of
them but no QSO), and CT1BOH called us on 20SSB. We did not try
160.

Alan, K6XO

alan at dsd.es.com

High solar fluxes are for wimps...


>From eric%modular.UUCP at cs.arizona.edu (Eric Gustafson)  Mon Jun 27 15:17:54 1994
From: eric%modular.UUCP at cs.arizona.edu (Eric Gustafson) (Eric Gustafson)
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 94 07:17:54 MST
Subject: field day
Message-ID: <9406271417.AA08848 at modular>

Dave,

The contester class might help some but I am more in favor of putting field
day on an 11 or 13  month schedule so that the time of year cycles through
all the seasons.

73,  Eric  N7CL