HWC Shield Harvard Wireless Club Bulletin
April 27, 1999
Hello HWC:

Excellent attendance last evening with KO1O, K1XQ, N1EXQ, K9HI, N2MSE, K3UOC and KC6TAH present. N3OQB is out in sunny California but will hopefully be back in town by this weekend. Here's the news:

  1. We welcome Nick Akers, KC6TAH to the HWC. Nick is a JD student at HLS, holds a Tech-Plus, and will be around for the '99-'00 school year as well. Look for his contact information on the Members Only roster.

  2. Mass QSO Party - We did some training last evening on TRLog with K1XQ and N2MSE . No problem! As we had planned, I'll be operating Saturday, 2:00PM-Midnight and Bill will do the Sunday 7:00AM-5:00PM stint. Nick is scheduled for SSB Saturday and Phil is our Sunday SSB guy. The two Daves and Nick Akers will try and swing by for some operating time when they can. Bill & I plan to work CW when our SSB ops are here and then we'll go to SSB when we work solo. I'll post suggested operating frequencies at all three positions. Hopefully Frank will also be able to join the fun. All others are more than welcome! Contest goal: 1,000 QSOs & a multi-op win.

  3. We received the testing materials from the ARRL VEC this week. The session, as you know, is this coming Tuesday at 7:00PM. VE's will meet at 6:30 at the club to coordinate. Regular meeting to follow testing.

  4. The April Flea was a big success! Our flea workers (Phil & the 2 Daves) report a large attendance and @10 hours of work credit for the HWC. Way to go! Let Phil know if you can work the May 16 Flea. This will be a good month to really pack the work crew with HWC members. May flyers and posters are at the club. All grabbed a stack last evening. Hopefully our undergrads will be able to poster the yard. We placed notices in the Gazette and Crimson which will continue to run the week before each flea. We're off to a good start.

  5. As I write this, Matt and Andy are on the roof assembling antennas. The 5-element 6 meter beam is complete and shows a FB SWR on the SWR analyzer. The X-7 elements are done & the boys are now working on the boom and matching network. This hardware is going up today! Drop by and have a look.

  6. Bill volunteered (in a manner of speaking) to do the repair work on the 2M multimode Kenwood to Kam cable. As you recall, this little eyesore has plagued W1AF for years. The February flood did this absolutely no good and my abortive soldering attempt finally killed it. Good luck Bill!

  7. Final word on the new QSLs is that they will be shipped out a week from today and we'll have them by next Friday. KYFC.

  8. The mailbox conundrum continues. Scott Haywood installed a nice new box for us by the front door. VES objected. Then a drop box was installed on the door to utilize the mail slot. Too small for magazines. Stay tuned next week as this drama unfolds :-)

  9. The roof hatch is now locked. You'll find the key on the shack key ring. This is a complete set of HWC keys, so if you use it, be sure and return it to the hook.

  10. Bent Electric just installed the new cover for the old electrical box in the outer room and also installed a lock on the new breaker box in the hallway. We have a key for that new box, as well. In the event you ever lose a circuit, first check the breaker box in the shack, the box in the outer room and then the box in the hallway, in that order. Our two inner boxes are not locked.

  11. The outer room renovation is nearly complete. It looks great! Now that was a job *long* overdue. All that remains is for our property manager to replace the wiring to the light switch and install two ceiling lights. That's coming soon. And as we discussed last evening, since the front door can no longer be propped open, we'll see if Scott can come up with a doorbell arrangement for us.

  12. I installed a new ceiling in the shack this week. A major improvement, for sure. I also did some work on the ceiling fixtures and installed 150W bulbs. And with new acrylic ceiling panels the room is much brighter now. The next job is to remove the old carpeting and install the new carpet squares.

  13. Phil is working on scheduling our NE Vice-Director for the May 25 meeting. We'll keep you posted.

  14. KC6TAH is having a look at our draft Articles, Bylaws, and Duties and will give us some pro bono advice. K9HI strongly recommended that we stay on task with these documents so that they will be ratified by the time we adjourn for summer. Give it some thought, HWC.

  15. K1XQ will purchase a new logging program to use for everyday W1AF logging. This will also help him in his work of tracking the W1AF DXCC records. KO1O is digging out old W1AF log files which can be imported into this new Windows log program. With a little detective work and perseverance, it may be possible for us to generate a running log with virtually all W1AF contacts from the past 10 years in it. Now *that* would be great!

  16. N1EXQ was not able to get the OCR software for W1AF. Fortunately, our trial copy is still cranking out documents. Our latest project is the Alumni Section. It's kind of an oral history of W1AF through the eyes of past members. It's a real interesting concept that we hope will grow over the years and also attract HWC alums to our site. And we'll keep working on the photos, documents and QSLs little by little. Some old QSLs (3KO, 1BLG, etc.) received by the HWC back in the early 20's will be posted soon.

  17. We had an interesting query from K1ZM, outgoing president of the YCCC about HWC antennas. Jeff is putting together data about various antenna farms in MA in order to build a case for a second tower at his Orleans contest QTH. Hopefully, the info we passed on to him will help. I also asked Jeff about 160 antennas for the HWC as he is the author of a very popular book on 160. He suggested an inverted L or an inverted vee. Hmmm. . . Wonder if K1VR or W3EF have any thoughts on the subject.

  18. Antenna update -- the X-7 is done! Two antennas assembled by lunchtime. Are these guys good or what?

  19. Frank was able to put the muscle on the UC Finance Committee to the tune of $350. Good going! It's not as much as we asked for but it sure beats the $200 first offer. Every little bit helps. K3USC returned a small stack of unstamped IRCs to us that wouldn't sell. Thanks to Brian for liquidating all the rest. IRC sales paid for much of our new paint job. Speaking of that, I neglected to mention that Brad also painted the three long benches, the shack door, clubroom door, entryway and bannister. Lookin' good!

    That's it for this week. Hope to see as many of you as possible this weekend.

    73, Mike
    K3UOC

     [Home]      [Intro]  [Roster]  [Archives]  [Photos]  [Meetings]  [Bulletins]  [Events]  [Contact Us]  [Resources]  [Guestbook]  

    ARRL Logo Harvard Wireless Club is Affiliated with the American Radio Relay League, Inc.

    © 1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College.