[Fourlanders] W4NH - January VHF Contest

[Jim Worsham]

Count me in Bob.

73
Jim, W4KXY

Sent from my iPad

> On Nov 22, 2016, at 5:37 PM, Bob Lear <w4zst at windstream.net> wrote:
> 
> Time to get things started and make plans for the January 2017 ARRL VHF Contest.  Weekend of January 21-22.  At the W4ZST QTH as usual.
> 
> We will schedule a workday or two during the Holiday season to get the remaining antennas set up.  Right now, only the 2m terrestrial contest antennas are in the air at W4ZST.  I will announce when we schedule something.
> 
> I have heard rumblings about a new 6m amp going around.  Let me know about this for planning as I have NOT yet had time to work on whatever the problem is in my 6m Commander amp.  (See EME contest report!)
> 
> Johnny is also planning to use his Flex 6700 and Maestro for the 6m station.  This should be very interesting and a nice introduction for the group to the top-of-the-line SDR transceiver.  We have not yet set it up here for testing but a couple of folks are working out the interfacing, etc.  It is planned to do a test session sometime soon at the contest location to see if we have the set up figured out.  We have done computer and network testing with the different versions of Windows and WriteLog that are required by the 6700.  We'll keep everyone posted on our progress with this.
> 
> I expect the usual band captains to come forward and bring the usual stations except for the aforementioned 6m station changes and Kos working on using a new radio (FT-991) for the 2m station. Kos, let us know what progress you have made integrating that new radio for 2m and whether you need any help getting things going.
> 
> Highlight:  Johnny wrote a very nice article about the FourLanders contesting efforts for the November NFARL eNEWS bulletin.  Thanks to Johnny for a nice article that we hope will be good publicity with the large North Fulton club and that it may result in some of their members joining up with us.  The NL is online at www.nfarl.org
> 
> I did have the nice Fourlanders poster and some pictures up at the Stone Mountain hamfest but really didn't see interest from anyone.  I think attendance was down somewhat and I was pretty disappointed to have set up the tent, 3 tables, posters, radios, antennas and tuners on display and sold nothing!
> 
> I had sent this out to a few of the members but want to recommend it to everyone both for your own edification and to maybe help with our efforts to recruit more FourLanders:  Kim and  I went to the Microwave Update Conference (MUD) in St. Louis the weekend of October 13-16 and had a great time and learned some interesting new stuff and met some new folks and lots of old friends too. Anyway, the luncheon speaker was Ward Silver N0AX, who writes columns for QST and is the editor of the ARRL handbook and antenna book.  Very nice fellow and an interesting talk entitled 'Ham Radio......Now What?".   Sort of about the future trend of HR but also much about what we need to be doing to keep it going and to keep our clubs going; increasing membership, meeting attendance, etc.  He sure got me thinking and I'm going to try to change some of my ways that are a possible negative impact on others (like dissing' FMers, DeathStar, etc.)  They aren't going to be receptive to our message if we up-front discount them!  The talk is available on 'Ham Radio Now' on YouTube.  It is episode 242 on HRN.  This talk was given at a different conference but it's the same one we got to see and hear.  It's an hour long but I think you will like it and hope you will find it instructive as I did. He is a good speaker.  Highly recommended.
> 
> This should be enough to get us started.  73, Bob
> 
> 
> 
> 
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