Category Archives: Club Happenings

2018 Infrastructure Improvements

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The major infrastructure improvements schedule for this summer 2018 project has been approved at this month business meeting. A special technical committee was set up to review our antenna infrastructure. Knowing that we were going to need a bucket truck to put up the 440 antenna that was purchase last year the membership wanted to know what other work was going to be need while we had the truck on site. The far tower down by the cell tower has been empty for quite a while. Plus there has alway been a need for additional HF antennas with WARC capabilities. Also the 70 foot tower to the right of the club house is getting close to its end of life. Before it fails it was decided to replace it with the Rohn tower sections that we already had with only a new base and top section needed to be purchase. Also already purchased is two new VHF and UHF yagi antennas. With the recent Red Cross and ARRL ECOMM sessions at the club house a need for a VHF and UHF vertical beam antenna to work surrounding repeater was needed This was needed due to our current VHF & UHF beam antennas were all being horizontal polarized. The final antenna is a discone antenna  that will be run to the work bench area.  This will not only let us receive VHF & UHF on this wide band antenna but transmit to.  Below is the complete list of improvements scheduled to be done this year, and the work starts this next week!

  1.  Mount the new 440 antenna on the repeater tower
  2. Take down the old 70 foot tower and replace it with the Rohn tower
  3. Move the 6 meter yagi to the VHF tower
  4. Mount the new Mosley_PRO-67-C antenna on the Rohn tower
  5. Mount a new DX Engineering HEXX Beam on the far tower by the cell tower.
  6. Mount new VHF & UHF vertical beam antennas to the club house building
  7. Mount a Discone antenna to he new Rohn tower

So by the end of the summer we should have six new antennas at the Steel City club house grounds.  The work starts this next week on Wednesday June 27th with weather permitting the 70 foot tower is going to be lowered.  This needs to be done first so that a new base can be fabricated for the new Rohn tower.

 

Pictures of Scout Demo

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Here was our setup at the event.  From the left to the right we had Karls remote set up decoding morse code. My IC820 VHF/UHF radio. The clubs IC-756Pro and finally Nates Kenwood 8330

The Scouts were have their district meeting and awards night and us “vendors” were at the other end of the pavilion picnicThat our very own Nate tuning up his good old rig using the ladder as a antennaHere is Christine having some club scout working the VHF radio and talk to Chris, Art, and Joe via the radio. Showing off the club banner

Scout Leadership Demo Thursday Night

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Our club was invited by the Boy Scout to give a demo at Clever Park on Thursday night from 6:30 pm to around 8:00.  The help we need now is it would be nice to have people standing by on the Steel City 2 Meter repeater incase we need to make some contacts.  We will also try to get on 10 or 20 meters if we can get the HF radio working that is a little bit more iffy due to the noise issues we found at the park. We might make some HF contact via the remote station if we cant get the HF radio to work.   Nate was contact and he pull Karl, Walt, and myself into the demo.  Now we wont turn anyone away if you want to come to Clever Park but we really are going to try to make some demo contact via the radios.
Again any help you can give would be helpful via the radios…
Christine

Park Location:   6:30pm Thursday
Clever Park
115 Robinson Pool Dr, McKees Rocks, PA 15136

Google Maps Link:
https://goo.gl/maps/SYPUXTCkA192

How to use the WireX @ SCARC UHF Repeater

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We are currently testing our WireX connection to the Internet on our UHF repeater.  WireX is a way to inter connection radio to other radios/repeater around the whole world.  Each station or repeater has a User ID and a Room ID. By connecting to the User ID let one user connect to the station, whereas connecting to the Room ID let you connect to that person/club chat room where multiple users can have a voice chat with many other users.

The Steel City UHF repeater has a User ID of 33352 and its Room ID is 43352.  You can find other station ID by clicking on the User List link below.  This will list every other user id from around the world.  Also listed there is their Room ID which lets you have a group chat via that station.

To connect to another station or room is first find their user ID or Room ID number it is an 5 digital number.  For example the popular chat room America Link room ID is 21080 so using your mobile or HT on our UHF 444.45 Mhz repeater frequence you would DTMF the follow code #21080# which would let you connect to the room.  At this point whatever you say to go though our repeater and come out to every other user that is also signed into the America Link chat room.   When your done chatting with the other users you disconnect you just DTMF the “*” star key.

Link to find other users User ID and Room ID‘s:
https://www.yaesu.com/jp/en/wires-x/id/id_usa.php

Link to Yaesu website to find out more information about how use WireX:
https://www.yaesu.com/jp/en/wires-x/user/index.php

WireX Steel City Node Online @ 444.45 Mhz

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Final testing is now taking place!  Karl KA3VXJ and myself have been  working hard on getting a computer to load the WireX software and getting it hooked up to the 440 machine. It is working so far in analog mode but you can now connect to other stations and rooms.   Our first contact was with a guy in Portland, OR not to bad for UHF FM. We listen and got to ask some questions about WireX on the Saturday night net on the American Link room which is on Saturday nights at 9 pm.

So if you want to try it out the Steel City node number is: 33352  and like I said we are still working on getting some bugs worked out. Some of the items are, getting the digital side working.. And to find a permanent computer solution since we are running it on a trail license. We also need some help getting someone from outside our area to try to remotely connect to our node.

Hopefully Karl and myself can give a little demo this next social night.
Christine
N3LRG

For Sale – ICOM IC-756 Pro III

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Image result for ICOM IC-756 PRO III

Attention Club Members: We are selling the Icom IC-756 Pro III at a special price to any Steel City Club members.  Please check your email for the club email about the member price.  And reach out to Karl WA3VXJ {at} hotmail {dit} com if you have any questions about this radio. Members can pick this up at a lower price before we post it to Ebay.  Once we sell this radio the club will be upgrading to the Icom 7610 transceiver.

FYI: Da Bums

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Updated……………….

DST is in place and “DA BUM” will meet on this coming Monday (2nd Monday of the of the month) at KINGS on Neville Island. So 11:00 seems to work.

Don’t forget to check your “life safety” monitors; smoke, fire and CO alarms.

73 de w3svj