[AATV] ATN-AZ Winter Meeting

[Bil Munsil]

Non-members are always welcome.

ATN WINTER NEWSLETTER 2005

On the Air to Coast to Coast

W5ATN W6ATN W7ATN W9ATN K9ATN www.atn-tv.org

ATN Chapters & Presidents

ATN-AZ ATN-CA ATN-CAT ATN-GA ATN-IL ATN-IN ATN-NV ATN-NM

Harold Moody Ron Ralph John Henry Geoff Earl

K7AED WQ6I K3ZKO N4NEQ KA9SOG AA9XW KB7BY N8TV

WINTER MEETINGS:

Arizona: Saturday January 15 at 12 noon at "Big Apple Restaurant" 1330 N. 
Dysart, Goodyear

Directions: Get off the I-10 at Dysart road (about 11 miles west of Phoenix) 
and head north. Talk in is 448.4 PL 100 Hz.

California/Nevada: Saturday February 19 at noon following the "New ATN 
Breakfast" at Floe's Café on Merrill Ave just east of Euclid at Chino 
Airport (9:30 AM). The meeting location is at 250 Turner Ave., Guasti (near 
the junction of I-10 and I-15 north of Ontario Airport) at the San Secondo 
Church Hall at 12:00 noon sharp, doors open at 11 AM.

Directions: Get off the I-10 at Haven, go south then right turn on Guasti 
Rd. Left turn on Turner and left at second driveway into the church parking 
lot (park in the back please).

Talk in: 146.43 MHz simplex & 1286.15 MHz Repeater on Santiago, PL 85.4Hz.

Our ATN winter meetings is your opportunity to participate in system 
technical discussions, ATN polices and renew your dues (used to help offset 
site rent fees and insurance) and some officer elections. If you are unable 
to attend the meeting in your chapter you can renew by mail by sending your 
dues donation to the ATN chapter secretary/treasurer in your state listed on 
the ATN website (new member/renewal form provided too) www.atn-tv.org

Come participate and meet your fellow ATVers including many from other ATN 
chapters.

NEW ATN CHAPTERS:

ATN-C-AT (Central Atlantic, C.A.A.T.N. merge with ATN)

ATN-IL W9ATN affiliated with the Rockford ARC

ATN-GA affiliated with the Big Shanty Repeater Club

ATVQ: Gene WB9MMM with the help of the contributing editors has done a great 
job improving the magazine with more technical articles and ATV news 
worldwide. ATVQ is a must read item for every ATVer! Check it out at 
www.hampubs.com

ATV at DAYTON 2004:

Many ATN members were there this year from almost all of our chapters, we 
had a great time at the Friday evening dinner at the Stockade Inn at 6 PM 
hosted by ATNA.

ATN PLANNED DAYTON 2005 ACTIVITIES:

The national meeting will be on Friday evening with the exact details to be 
posted on the website in the near future. The ATNA/ATN dinner location in 
the past has been the Stockade Inn, 1065 Springfield St. near Downtown 
Dayton but we ran out of room last year and in process of finding a larger 
dining room to hold us all in comfort.

Ron Cohen, K3ZKO has a booth for the club and so far two volunteers from his 
chapter. He has requested a list of volunteers from all ATN chapters to help 
man the booth and get the necessary passes to get in early before the Hara 
Arena is open to the public. Let's make this a share experience and promote 
the ATV mode and ATN. Please email Ron at rcohen at voicenet.com ASAP thank 
you!

ATN WEBSITE:

Don KE6BXT has done a great job this year with the website and making 
several updates including an ATV forum. Great work Don! Please email a 
digital photo of your ATV studio (shack) to Don at ke6bxt at qsl.net so it can 
be included on the website. Log on to www.atn-tv.org and check out all the 
new changes!

ATN-AZ NEWS:

Ron KG6SAB, a resident in both the AZ and CA chapters has been appointed by 
the trustees to reorganize the Arizona Chapter, Ron brings great experience 
in organizing and promoting clubs. More details at the winter meeting.

WHITE TANK MT:

A new controller is under construction to add more inputs to the repeater to 
allow linking to Mt. Lemmon and a link towards California. A new low loss 
feedline has been installed last month, Ron KG6SAB, Ward WB7VVD, Greg N7VUB, 
and Mike WA6SVT braved the bad weather to install 220 ft of 1 5/8" Heliax to 
reduce the feedline loss.


MT. LEMMON:

The Mt. Lemmon repeater is under construction to replace the old repeater 
lost in the fire last year. Harold K7AED, Greg N7VUB, Ward WB7VVD, and Mike 
WA6SVT installed the antennas and one feedline before dark this fall and 
plan to return to finish the feedline install. Greg and Harold are finishing 
up the repeater so it can be transported up to the site.

ATN-CA NEWS:


ATN SUMMER BBQ MEETING:

This year the meeting was at WA6SVT's QTH in Crestline. This was a BBQ 
social event. One business item that was discussed and approved was an 
addition of two vice presidents to help us get organized better as a 
chapter. Don KE6BXT and Allan W6IST bring with them great experience in 
running organizations. The two vice presidents are appointed till the 2005 
Winter Meeting were elections for President and Vice president will be made 
by the membership.

The person with the highest vote will be president and first runner up will 
be vice president. Any member in good standing can run for office.

We all had a good time, Mike gave away lots of goodies (he got rid of lots 
of junk) and this was the last time most of us had a chance to socialize 
with Stuart W1LEG. He passed away shortly after the meeting due to organ 
failure; he was only 45 years young. Stuart was the British Ham who came to 
the states several years ago with his great humor. He will be missed.

Tom O'Hara of P.C. Electronics made a great deal on 1.2 GHz downconverters 
for ATN members on a quantity basis shipped to one address and paid with one 
check. 20 Converters were bulk purchased by ATN members in the ATN-AZ and 
ATN-CA chapters. Contact Tom at tom at hamtv.com for deals for ATN members.


Thanks to Jim K6CCC for running the Monday night Mt. Wilson ATN net, Roland 
KC6JPG and Dave KA6DPS for running the Tuesday night linked system ATN Net.

SANTIAGO:

The ATV repeater has had two outages, one due to lightning striking the 
power lines and damaging several power transformers, the other outage was 
due to a truck striking a power pole. Daryl N6QPK made two maintenance trips 
this season, one to reset the controller after the lightning strike and the 
other to work on the 434 MHz receiver. Two trips were made to Santiago last 
fall to repaint the inside of the site building for the landlord. Norm 
KD6OMV, Daryl N6QPK, Gene K6BNN, and Mike WA6SVT were in the work party.

OAT MT:

Allan W6IST, Joe K6TBA, Norm KD6OMV and Mike WA6SVT finished the move into 
the new Oat Site. Bill WB6DYM and Abel N6ENL gave us a rack. We teamed up 
with one of the other ham groups at the site and Bill WB6DYM to finish the 
tower top site receive bay above the 100 ft tower.

The bay features an 8.5 dB wide band antenna at 113 ft. A custom three port 
433-464 MHz combiner that was designed by Mike WA6SVT and Bill WB6DYM using 
three DCI 10 pole filters one for 433-444.5 MHz amateur band and the other 
two for the land mobile bands. Each filter is followed with a Chip Angle 
preamp and splitters to feed several receivers. The transmit antenna is at 
90 ft (the highest TX antenna on the tower).

BLUERIDGE MT:

A 5 GHz FM link is in progress to replace the 1253 MHz link to provide 
better picture. The early winter weather has snowed in the access road and 
the project will resume after the snow melts in late spring.

MT. WILSON:

The repeater is back on after major construction at the site. The old 1960s 
vintage power supply and video DA was replaced to save space and improve 
reliability. A new controller with a link input is under construction so we 
can link Mt. Wilson into the system.

SANTA BARBARA:

Rod WB9KMO has added a new lower loss VSB filter to the repeater output with 
notches for 1253 and 1286 MHz to allow better 1.2 GHz reception to link 
receivers. Each spring ATN has the responsibility to cut weeds around the 
facility in exchange for using the site, Most of the time Rod gets stuck 
with this chore. If you can help this spring, please contact Rod at 
rod at sbatv.org

Mt. Palomar (Palomar ARC)

Art KC6UQH built up a new 1253 MHz receiver for the Valley Center Link and 
worked on several areas of the repeater including fixing the intermittent 
crowbar problem with the power supply, now the repeater is more reliable.

ATN-C-AT NEWS:

Welcome to the ATN family! This new chapter brings with them ATV repeaters 
(most linked) from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 
December 5th was the winter meeting with the main topic, linking to the 
Baltimore ATV repeater. Discussion of aligning with ATN also was 
covered(editor's note, due to finding out that we have a new ATN Central 
Atlantic Chapter on the last evening of putting this newsletter together, 
more info about the meeting was not obtained).





ATN-GA NEWS:

SWEAT MT:

The repeater at Sweat Mt. now has a new coverage map on the website thanks 
to Matt KC7GSA. Ralph N4NEQ reports the repeater is running well and many of 
the locals meet for what is known as "lunch bunch" at a local BBQ. He sent 
Don KE6BXT our webmaster an updated info package for the website.

ATN-IL NEWS:

ROCKFORD:

Our chapter had its winter meeting on Saturday December 4th. The meeting was 
called to order at 9:27 AM. After the business part of the meeting and dues 
paid, a discussion of priority of items to enhance the Rockford Repeater, 
results are 1st purchase of a new 434 MHz receiver (2nd input), 2nd tower 
camera and 3rd preamps for the existing 1253 FM receiver and the 434 MHz 
receiver.

The repeater has 4 inputs on the controller: 1253 MHz FM, 434 MHz AM, and 
NASA Channel, Temperature (outside and equipment/final amplifier) in 
addition to the ID at the end.

We had new officer elections.

President: John KA9SOG

Vice Pres: Dan KC9ATR

Sec/Tress: Gene WB9MMM

We had a storm take down the antenna and mount and after re-installing it 
and two trips to the site we found the feedline had a high VSWR. Currently 
we are using a temporary LMR-400 feedline.

We replaced the 421.25 MHz modulator, added the 434 MHz 2nd receiver and the 
repeater is working well except for some DTMF decoder problems with the 
higher tones. The repeater has been seen as far away as the N/W Chicago 
suburbs. We hope to see many of the other ATN chapter members at Dayton this 
year. Friday night is the National ATN/ATNA dinner. See ATVQ for more 
details.

73, Gene

ATN-IN NEWS:

CROWN POINT:

Henry AA9XW has added the ATN-IL new club callsign K9ATN to the repeater. On 
the way to Dayton last year Gene WB9MMM, Shari N9SH, and Mike WA6SVT ran 
mobile tests on the repeater.

Charlie K9BIF is a new member from Goshen Indiana; He was at Dayton last 
year talking to Mike WA6SVT and some of the other ATVers about an ATV 
repeater project he was working on. This month Charlie reports his 439.25 
MHz in with both 427.25 and 1253.25 MHz outputs is running well at the home 
QTH and in process of locating it to a site near Goshen to provide better 
coverage. We hope he will include his repeater into the ATN family.



ATN-NV NEWS:

Mt. POTOSI:

The repeater has a new trustee, Frank N7ZEV. The repeater has been under 
upgrades by Frank, N7ZEV. Mike WA6SVT made a trip this summer to help too.

ATN-NM NEWS:

Ben's Bluff:

Nothing new to report 73,s Earl N8TV and Darlene KD7HPN.

NEWSLETTER:

Now that ATN has more than doubled in size since the last newsletter and now 
national. I would be grateful if each chapter would appoint or elect a 
contributing editor who can update their chapter's member list (I have the 
master list on Microsoft Access), report news about the repeaters local 
events and activities happening in your chapter.

At the present time ATN publishes a newsletter two times a year and it is 
sent to the email address of each member, it is requested that any email 
change be sent to your local ATN chapter secretary and a copy to 
wa6svt at aol.com . Each newsletter is posted on the website too.

Events between the newsletters publication dates are posted on the ATN 
website www.atn-tv.org , the event notice posting request can be sent to 
ke6bxt at qsl.net activities, events, and work parties are located on the 
calendar for each month. Meeting notices are usually listed on the main page 
banner too.

THANK YOU:

The ATN Trustees and management want to thank all of the members who donated 
items, designed and built items, helped at the sites. It is your efforts 
that greatly help make ATN the now national network that it is. ATN is the 
world's largest & Successful ATV repeater club thanks to your help and 
support of the Membership.

K1ATV
Hams should be seen as well as heard.
Tucson AZ