[Fourlanders] Contest Update - Workday Report

[Bob Lear]

I want to remind everyone that we have received few responses to Bill's 
first call about the contest.  We are now only four weeks away with the 
only station set up here being 222.  Let's hear your plans for the contest.

Workday report:  Sherman W4ATL, Johnny K4SQC, Ron WW8RR, Rich KX4KD and 
myself Bob W4ZST met here at 10AM on Wednesday 12/19.  We managed to get 
the 6m beams and omni's in the air and tested on the air.  Same for the 
2m beams and omni's.  It was nice to have a large group to get this all 
done easily.  I also have found a new young man, Eli, to work for me 
part time and he was here that day and helped with the antennas when 
needed but I kept him busy with other tasks around the property mostly.  
I wasn't of much use as I had pulled a muscle in my chest the night 
before and it was quite painful so the group let me mostly supervise and 
answer questions about the set ups.  I kept Eli working until about 5:30 
though.

Ron will come one day next week to set up the 432 antennas.  He and I 
will easily be able to do that ourselves.  We'll also take my 432 EME 
antennas and trailer down then.  Sherman turned my 432 EME antennas to 
horizontal polarization before he left and I was able to check in to the 
432 net that night, first time in many months.  I've also checked in to 
2m and 6m sideband nets with the contest antennas, using my FT-897 
barefoot.  They also look good on the analyzer.

Ron also worked on the club contest computers, backing up, updating 
etc.  He also worked on the 222 station and finally found the cause of 
the hum problem we had been having.  Turned out to be the USB ports but 
one is working fine and we have good audio using that one.  N1MM 
recording and playing audio files nicely now on 222, so that station is 
ready now for the contest.  The antennas were already up for 222 as we 
had them up for the EME contest.

I went to get BBQ pork sandwiches and fries for the crew to have lunch 
before we were finished.  Good BBQ from Hickory Prime here in Dahlonega.

Thanks again to all who helped with the workday.  We are in good shape 
now for the antennas and next need to make some progress with the 
stations setting up.

73, Bob