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).
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@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@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@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@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@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@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.
