Sunday, February 25th, 2018
8:00 AM until 3:00 PM Rain or Shine (or Snow!)
Home Economics Building, South Park
3735 Buffalo Drive, South Park Township, PA 15129
Behind the Allegheny County Police Station on Brownsville Road
Talk-In on 146.955(-) and 443.650(+) 131.8 PL
Donation $5
Steel City ARC will be holding it first testing session on April 7, 2018 at 10 AM at the club house. To make sure we have enough testing material for the testing session we are requiring preregistration by March 26th. Please visit the VE Testing web page for more information and how to contact Art, WA3BKD
UPDATE: Today the Remote 3 computer was move out to the communication hut. A separate dipole antenna that was donated by Karl WA3VXJ that was add to the repeater tower which is on antenna “A” input, and for antenna “B” input we have it hooked to the old Diamond repeater antenna. The remote is now separated from any of the club house antennas.
Since we replace the computer that was hooked up to the Remote 1 station that free up the old computer. While we were having issues with the ports on that old computer the computer itself had not died yet. So the IT group decided to keep in functioning until it dies completely. We have move the SDRPlay to the old computer and rename the computer to Remote 3. It is using the same Teamviewer ID for the old remote 1 station and the only thing you need to do is click on “Communicate” and make sure “Computer Sounds” is checked. Like you can see in the below picture.
Hello Members,
The computer for Remote 1 has been update and now open for members use. The Skype name stayed the same but the Teamviewer ID did change. Operations is the same as before we still need to add some programs to the computer like FT-8 & SSTV. If you didn’t make it up to the club house this past Wednesday and need the new Teamviewer sooner please email Karl or Christine.
The remote station at W3KWH logged over 3000 Qso’s as of today 1/3/ 2018.
Kenwood TS-590sg remote 
Kenwood TS-2000 remote
W3KWH FT-8 Log
Wondering how popular the new digital mode FT-8 mode is getting? We downloaded the logbook from the WSJTX program on just the Kenwood TS-590 rig. This one radio had over 952 QSO with other FT-8 users from around the world. I have broken down the log by the different bands and have sorted the list by call sign. I have also included the complete logbook in Excel format if you want to dig it down farther.
BAND NUMBER OF QSO
6m 88
10m 9
15m 154
17m 2
20m 172
40m 351
80m 2
160m 157
Unknown Band 26
Total QSO 952
PDF of the logbook sorted by call sign
Steel City 2m FM Repeater is now running HIGH POWER
Update 12/23/17
Today’s work party was very successful we discovered yet another bad jumper which has now been taken out of circulation. So here’s the update the 2 meter radio is now running on the amp with an output of 85 watts, and the noise is gone in fact it is sounding even better. While tracking down the noise we temporary move the Fusion repeater down to two meter side and it was fun trying out two meter digital. At this time the Kenwood is hooked back up so the controller and Echolink continue to work.
Since we moved the Fusion machine down temporary we decided hook the New Fusion DR-2X repeater back up to the 440 side. Since we bought the new SWR meter we quickly found the bad jumper when the SWR hit 5 to 1. Thinking that temporary antenna was the problem we hooked back up to the tower mount folded dipole antenna it too had the same bad SWR. So then we swap out some jumper and found the bad one. It wasn’t one of the ones that we got from that vendor it was an older cable. Once we swap the jumper out we found the folded dipole had a good SWR so we decided to leave it hooked up. With the new repeater the DR-2X seem to have fixed the signal issues. It is definitely hearing a lot better now.
So What Next:
Special Thanks:
Big thanks goes out to Karl, WA3VXJ and Joe, WB3AGB for coming out in the cold to lift repeaters and change out jumpers and to bounce suggestions back a forth. Also Bobby, N3LL and Doug, W3HH for helping me track down a new Echolink issue and helping me set the levels. Finally thanks for all that gave us signal reports.
Your IT Gal,
Christine, N3LRG
UPDATE: 11/17/2017 Some noise started to leak though to the amp will be intermittent while we track the noise issue down…
11/15/2017
All Steel City members are request to test out our two meter repeater and give signal report back via the clubs email reflector. This past Wednesday Karl and myself hooked the 2 meter amplifier back up to the clubs repeater. We would like to get some signal report on how it is get out in our previous weak areas. Also please give feedback on any noise reports that you might hear on the repeater. So lets see how far we can get out now!
WE NEED A WORK PARTY THIS SATURDAY AT 0900 FOR PLACING CONDUIT IN THE TRENCHES FROM THE CLUB HOUSE TO THE TOWERS. SINCE WE HAD SO MUCH FUN LAST SATURDAY, I THOUGHT YOU ALL WOULD WANT TO GET TOGETHER AGAIN. THIS WILL COMPLETE THE CONDUIT JOB WHICH I’M SURE EVERYONE WOULD LIKE TO SEE.Today’s work party was very successful and a lot of future infrastructure was put in place. We placed conduit buried to the driveway for a near future camera so members can check out the drive way condition. Also conduit was run to the telephone pole to move the inverted L over to the wooden telephone pole. And finally a conduit was put in place to that empty far tower so we can put an antenna on top of it.
Thanks go out to:
Chuck, Art, Karl, Nate, Tim, Dave, Joe
Click on image to see the full size picture. The next button is on the top right size:
COME TO THE W3KWH PIZZA PARTY ON SATURDAY SEPT 16TH AT 0900. THERE WILL BE PIZZA FOR ALL THAT ARE WILLING TO COME AND HELP WITH THE WORK BEING DONE ON CONDUIT TRENCHING.
HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE; DON’T FORGET IT IS YOUR CLUB.
73’S
N3UUZ
CHUCK