[AReU] Next Tuesday is the day!!!!!!

[w4tas]

How quickly time passes!!

Here it is almost time for the March AREU meeting. 

I have a couple of projects that I am working on. 
The first is a patch antenna for the 2.4 GHz downlink on 
AO40. I found a design by W0LMD that works very well. 
I installed it in place of my trusted three turn helix and it 
performed as least as good. Another good trait is that 
the antenna is very sharply tuned as opposed to the 
broadly tuned helix. The desensing I was experiencing 
with my uplink is completely gone. I will have a unit for the 
group to look at as well as a set of parts for another one. 
This will show you the relative ease of building the unit. 

I also gathered up an old cavity from Ed stash at the 
storage area. I disassembled it and after doing a little measuring 
found that it might work on the 70 cm band. After draining 
the water from it and cleaning up the corrosion I modified 
it slightly and it works on 70 cm. The band pass loss is 
rather high (2 db) but the ultimate rejection is beyond the 
measurement range of my spectrum analyzer. 

I'm hoping that Ron will bring his "state of the art", very 
expensive spectrum analyzer with him to the meeting so 
we can examine the "true colors" of the cavity. It is very-very 
old. I think that Noah used it for his repeater aboard the Arc. 
Maybe that's where the water came from. 

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Bell Shoals Baptist 
Church next Tuesday night at 7:00 PM.

73

Tony