ATN WINTER NEWSLETTER 2001

Now Serving Arizona, California & Nevada

ATN WINTER MEETINGS:

  1. Arizona: Sunday January 28 at 12 noon at Louis W7LMW QTH in Tempe. Address: 227 West Caroline Lane Tempe. Phone # (480) 456-6585 Talk in 146.43 MHz FM
  1. California: Saturday February 17 at 12:30 PM following the Cal Poly Swap Meet and ATN Breakfast at Bakers Square, Indian Hill exit on I-10. Address: 250 Turner Avenue Guasti. Haven off ramp near I 15-I 10 intersection. Phone (909) 390-8483 Talk in 146.43 MHz FM

ATN NEWS:

  1. A ATV demo was given last November in Thousand Palm to the Desert Rats ARC and two of the Coachella Valley’s other ARC clubs attended the demo as well. Live on the air contacts were exchanged as well as a talk by Moody WQ6I and Mike WA6SVT. Several amateurs were interested and stayed afterward asking questions. We were invited to help provide video for the Palm Springs Parade of Lights in December. Moody WQ6I, Norma W6MMF, Dave KA6DPS, Gene K6BNN & Mike WA6SVT participated.
  1. ATN has a group in Arizona: Arizona Amateur Television Network. Their president is Tom KE7QK. Secretary-Treasurer is Beth KB7WPJ. The Arizona group has their own annual meeting and dues collection to support their repeater W7ATN on Usery Mountain just east of the city of Mesa and serves the East Valley. Brian WB7UBB is the trustee. This group is picking up member fast and now has about 20 paid members. They are building two new repeaters, one in Tucson and the other for White Tanks Mountain, 25 miles west of Pheonix to serve the West Valley and Tonopah Valley.
  1. Thank you for sending in your responses to the ATN questionnaire handed out at last summer’s social. Some had concern about the lack of a newsletter. Well we have one this year before the meeting, however it would be very helpful to receive articles from the members to publish and repeater reports from the repeater custodians. I am had to finish this newsletter without most of the reports! Most members were happy with the repeaters and nets.

REPEATER NEWS:

Santiago Peak:

We have a new call W6ATN, this is the club’s call for use in California and after 20 plus years I am retiring my personal call WA6SVT from Santiago Peak. We have a tower camera with night vision capability. The camera is located to maximize the view of all of are antennas as well as we are able to see the surrounding area. We have been busy upgrading the link equipment for a second audio channel for command channel use (interconnects the ATN controllers at different sites). Mt. Palomar link is working.

Oat Mountain:

The ID generator is not working and a trip to the hill is expected soon. A better 2441.5 MHz receiver will be installed at the same time. We upgraded the power supply to 35 amps to allow for adding an extra power amplifier to double the output power. Ted K6TED donated a VSB modulator and its is being fitted with an upconverter for 919.25 MHz. Thanks for the donation Ted!

Usery Mountain:

ATN has a new call W7ATN this is the clubs call for use in Arizona. Brian WB7UBB is building an ATN controller and it should be ready soon to replace the scanner type ATV controller. Brian added an S meter overlay to aid stations aiming their 2.4 GHz antennas. Link equipment is being built to link up two new ATV repeaters in Arizona.

White Tanks:

Yes those Arizona folks are a busy bunch! ATN is in process of a major re-build of Ward WB7VVD’s repeater currently coordinated 434MHz in and 1253.25 MHz out at a low -level site in Phoenix. Ward is moving the repeater to White Tanks Mountain about 4,000 foot level 25 miles west of Phoenix. Ward moved to Tonopah from Phoenix last year. Moving the repeater will allow him to access a repeater again and he plans to link it to Usery Mountain. This site will also give outstanding coverage to the west valley of Phoenix and surrounding areas. The repeater will also add a 2.4 GHz input.

Tucson:

Brian WB7UBB was asked to take over finishing the Tucson ATV repeater project and link it to Phoenix. The repeater is 75% finished and a site is in the works.

Eventually Arizona hopes to link with other repeaters in the area and to ATN’s repeater KB7BY in Las Vegas to connect to the system.

2.4 GHz EQUIPMENT:

Andy KC7KW and Brian WB7UBB have a 4-watt amplifier kit at a discount for ATN members. See Brian at either of the ATN winter meetings for details. Brian also has discounts on Wavecom frequency chips and transmitter modules for club members.