PRESIDENT'S CORNER
Greetings, All, and here's looking forward to a great New Year for the CMRA ! I would like to say Thanks to all of last year's officers for their efforts, and wish the best for the new slate.
There are a few challenges facing the club these days. Two that come to mind are the lack of communication between club members, and our lack of a permanent meeting place.
Robert, KB0TCR, has made arrangements with Boone Hospital to secure us a meeting room at least through April. We aren't expecting to get our usual room at Boone Electric back until at least August, due to the renovations going on there. If Boone Hospital meets our needs, we may be able to use that location for the duration. Look for directions later on in this letter.
As far as getting our members in closer contact, we need to work on several areas. Getting '76 back home and on the air will go a long way. Not so very long ago, you could ID on '76, and pretty much expect someone would engage you in a QSO. Nowadays, that would be the exception, rather than the rule. We all need to be more active on 2 meters. Check into the Wednesday night 8:00 and 9:00 nets, if you can. Start a QSO on the way to or from work. Another task the club needs to accomplish is getting out a Club Roster.
Some of the reasons people join our club are to:
Let's all pull together and make the CMRA the Best club it can be! 73, es CUL OM/YL de WY0B ...
CLUB NEWS
At the Holiday Dinner meeting at Country Kitchen on January 9, 1996, the members present ratified the full slate of new officers by unanimous vote. They are:
President: Jim Lawler, WY0B
Vice-President: Rob McMinn, KB0TCR
Recording Secretary: Dewey Bennett, WM0H
Corresponding Secretary: Mark Foecking, AA0UJ
Treasurer: John Brandt, KB0PHQ
Member-at-large: Jesse Bowen, WM0Y
Most of the officers have Internet addresses also. They are:
Jim Lawler jlawler@mail.coin.missouri.edu
Rob McMinn rmcminn@mail.coin.missouri.edu
Mark Foecking mfoeckin@mail.coin.missouri.edu
John Brandt jbrandt@mail.coin.missouri.edu
Jesse Bowen pharmjwb@muccmail.missouri.edu
Questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome by mail, e- mail or over the air.
FEBRUARY MEETING...NEW LOCATION!!!! Thanks to our new VP, Rob, KB0TCR, our meetings will be held at Boone Hospital until we can regain use of our room at Boone Electric. The meeting will be on February 6th at 7:00 pm, in Cafeteria Room B. We can park in the north lot of the hospital in any space not reserved for M. D.'s. The north lot may be accessed off E. Broadway by turning on to Williams and taking the first left. One then takes another left at a sign saying "Outpatient, Radiology, etc". The north entrance of the hospital faces Broadway. Rob will be monitoring 146.685- in case anyone has questions. We will have testing as usual after the meeting. Meetings will be held there at least through April.
We will have a program this meeting -- kind of a "show and tell" open forum for any equipment that anyone would like to bring, show, or demonstrate. Rob will also show us the packet station at Boone Hospital. See ya there!!
REPEATER!!!!
We need to get a work party together in order to restore 146.76- to its former glory -- atop Paquin Tower. The repeater is currently on the air from a 20 foot antenna in Mike, N0LBA's yard. Some electrical and feedline work still need to be done before the repeater can be placed, but the cabinet is up there and fastened. Keep your ears out on the Wednesday night nets to volunteer or for more information.
DUES!!!!
As Corresponding Secretary, I have been asked to update the mailing list for this newsletter. The letter is for current members of the club (life members included). However, there are many hams on the list who have not paid dues or come to a meeting in a very long time. Part of your dues pay for the mailing and copying costs of this letter. By March or April I must delete from the mailing list those people who have not paid their dues or otherwise contacted the club about continuing to receive it. Dues may be paid at the club meetings or by mail to the club post office box.
EQUIPMENT REVIEW : The Alpha 89 MF/HF Linear Amplifier
By Mark Foecking, AA0UJ
I recently had the opportunity to purchase an ETO Alpha 89 linear amplifier* from the estate of a Silent Key, at about half the price of a new one. This doesn't happen often! The amplifier was slightly over a year old, and had been used very little. These are legendary amplifiers, and after using it for several weeks, I can see why!
The amplifier is capable of over 15 dB gain with 50 watts drive from two 3CX800A7 ceramic triodes on the 160-10 m bands. A 50 CFM blower keeps the tubes cooled, and while it is a bit noisy, does a good job even under continuous key-down conditions. Tuning is easily accomplished by centering a moving dot bar graph display. There are three other bar graphs for forward power, reflected power, and grid current, as well as switches allowing plate current and drive power to be read on the tuning bargraph. One of the nicest features of this amp is its extensive protection circuitry. Overdrive, high SWR, grid and plate overcurrent, and several other common operation errors cause the amplifier to immediately switch to standby mode. The appropriate LED blinks to show the nature of the fault, and upon correction, the amplifier can be immediately switched back into operation. This avoids frying two very expensive tubes!
The amp came to me with 10 meter coverage enabled, which invovles merely cutting an easy to get at diode. T/R switching is accomplished by PIN diodes which can follow the QSK output of my TS-940S perfectly at 30 wpm CW, and do it silently. PIN diodes are held to be less rugged than vacuum relays, but the amp comes with a four year (!) warranty, so ETO seems to have confidence in their engineering.
The power transformer is shipped separately, and while it is a bit difficult to install by oneself due to its weight, the wiring is straightforward and involves no soldering. Once installed, this is a HEAVY amplifier, and may be best moved by two people. Power requirements are 240 VAC at 20 amps, which gives a measure of the overdesign of the power supply. The transformer is rated at 3.5 KVA, which translates to approximately 3800 watts of peak input power. This should be sufficient to produce over 2500 watts of output, however, I do not have a wattmeter rated for such power, so have not verified this. It is also ILLEGAL to run that much power!!!
Input SWR was never higher that 1.3 on all bands, due to the tuned input circuitry, and the low drive requirement means distortion from the exciter is minimized. I have received several reports of "nice signal" on SSB from both my Kenwood TS-820 and TS- 940S. Harmonic suppression in the pi-L output network is rated at over 55 dB, which is as state-of-the-art as it gets. I have less of an RFI problem using this amp than with my old Swan Mark II.
MANY contesters and other serious amateurs use these amps. They are expensive, but very nice, and are the sort of investment one makes for a lifetime. I'm very happy with it, and I hope it will help put me and WD0DVG a bit higher in the contest results.
*The amp is produced by Ehrhorn Technological Operations, 4975 N. 30th. St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80919. (719) 260-1191.
INTERNET!!!!
Al Kullman, N0REF, has lost his home page on the Buffalo Freenet. He is now set up on COIN at http://www.missouri.edu/~hckulla
Also, the University of Missouri Amateur Radio Club (UMARC) has a Web page at http://students.missouri.edu/~w0zln/. Quite a bit of nice stuff on this one, too. Happy Browsing!!!
HAMFESTS
March 23 + Ararat AR Shrine Club, Kansas City, MO
Roger Bessmer, KB0IIG
2525 Southwest Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108
816-842-0400
April 13 + Joplin ARC, Joplin, MO
Andy Gabbert, KA0TUD
1020 Carl Junction Rd., Webb City, MO 64870-1029
417-673-8371