Steel City ARC Clubhouse

The Steel City ARC is one of the few clubs here in Western Pennsylvania that has their our property and building.  The clubhouse is located just west of Carnegie, PA high on top of a hill at 1247 feet.  Which gives us an 360 degree RF radiation pattern.  On the property is six metal towers and a couple of wooden phone poles.  On those towers we have a couple Tri-Banders covering 10~40 meters. A High tower vertical antenna covering 10 ~ 160 meters. A repeater tower that has both VHF and UHF vertical antennas.  On other towers we have beam antennas that cover 6m, 2m, 70cm, 23cm bands.

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As you can see if the above pictures the club house has two radio rooms. The one in the front of the building is the “HF Room” and the one in the back is the “VHF Room”. The HF room contains our HD radio and the main antenna switching panel.  Each radio has a computer that can be use for logging or can be use for programs like PSK31, JT-65, or SSTV.  The “VHF Room contains the ECOM position which is a fully battery back up station that currently has the ICOM IC-9100 radio covering HF, 6m, 2m, and 70cm.   Also in the VHF room is Remote 1 station which is currently an Kenwood TS-2000 that covers HF, 6m, 2m, 70cm, 23cm.

Also in the clubhouse is a fully functioning kitchen.   The kitchen is big enough that you can cook complete meals in it.  Also on that side is a newly remodel bathroom.  The clubhouse come complete with an independent water  and propane supplies.  If we lose power the clubhouse has an propane powered 15 kilowatt emergency generator, which has enough power to power all the radio and even the air conditioner.  During field day we run everything off the generator no external power at all.   For the short period between external power lost and generator start up the ECOMstation and the repeaters run off of battery backup. The network, file server, and echolink machines all have UPS hooked to them.

Building access is grants though a keycard system.  Members in good standing are given a keycard that will let them access the building 24/7. Full members are allowed to access the building at any time.  So if you want to come up and operate at 2:00 AM be our guest.  For security the building is alarmed and we have inside and outside video surveillance.  There are automatic flood lights that will light up the grounds.