January Newsletter


This is the Lowndes County Amateur Radio Club’s monthly news letter. The newsletter contains important dates, topics of interest, scheduled testing dates for the year, a list of the members of the VE team, and a list of Net Controller assignments.

This month we had one person to take the Technician Exam and become a new ham.

We had 4 Net Calls with a total of 55 check-ins during the month of January. Connie did a wonderful job of calling the Net all 4 times.

During the meeting on January 6th:
We voted two members in.

Discussed the Capital City Hamfest in Jackson, MS.

Doug mentioned the MagARC Awards and the ARRL Awards and QRZ Awards were also mentioned.

John suggested joining ARRL for the multitude of information that the ARRL offers.

On January 8, we gathered at the clubhouse and put PL-259 connecters on cables, worked on using Winlink and discussed multiple topics in 1 to 3 groups.

Important Dates:
3-Feb-22 7pm: Club Meeting – Nominations for new club officers will be taken.
3-Mar-22 7pm: Club Meeting – Elections for the new club officers will be held at the club meeting.

Topics of interest:


JS8Call Grocery supply tracking
Winlink
Winlink Wednesday


If you come across any topics of interest please send them to K5TCO and I’ll see if I can get it in the next news letter.

73 to Y’all!

Testing Dates for the GTVET, times, and locations below.

Feb 036:00 pmLoCoARC
Feb 199:00 amMFJ
Mar 036:00 pmLoCoARC
Apr 076:00 pmLoCoARC
May 0510:00 amLoCoARC
May 289:00 amMFJ
Jun 0210:00 amLoCoARC
Jul 076:00 pmLoCoARC
Aug 046:00 pmLoCoARC
Aug 2710:00 amMFJ
Sep 016:00 pmLoCoARC
Oct 066:00 pmLoCoARC
Nov 036:00 pmLoCoARC
Nov 0910:00 amMFJ


Tower’s up at N5OMK shack

It was a busy weekend at the N5OMK residence. There were a lot of different hams that lent a hand in some way to bring this project to its finish. Steve is enjoying it and putting it to good use.

This is one more testament to the great ham radio community we have here. Thank each of you for everything you do to make ham radio great for our area. Check out the pictures below and let us know what you’ve got coming up.

73, K5RFL

US Signal Corps Collins R388

This is from Josh Brothers, KF4KQS.  He’s a local MARC club member living in Eupora.
So, part of my fun while here in Cartersville, GA for the holiday weekend was to get an old US Signal Corps Collins R388 receiver going to give to another Ham friend in town. This old radio was in pretty good shape other than the dial drum cord being broken.

GA10

That was my job… to figure out how to re-string it so you could tell what band and frequency you were listening to. Well, someone in the past had taken the band switch apart for some reason and didn’t put it back together correctly and got it out of time.

GA2

This is where the pulley on the band switch is SUPPOSED to be when the band switch is all the way clockwise to re-string the drum:

GA3

So, having set the band switch clockwise and loosening the pulley, I had to figure out what to use for new dial cord. I went to the local WalMart and got some 65lb test, braided fishing line to use.
Then I had to remove the pulley from the radio to thread the new line through. The manual says you have to remove the front panel in order to do this, well, I know different. I removed the right three screws holding the front faceplate on and gently twisted a large flat head screwdriver between the faceplate and the radio chassis. Just enough to slide the pulley off the shaft of the switch.

GA4

With the pulley out and the old cord remnants removed I proceeded to feed the new cord into the pulley and tie a large-ish knot into it as to keep the cord from pulling through the hole.

With the cord in the pulley I then had to feed the cord up through the front of the radio between the faceplate and chassis to the dial drum pulley.

GA6

Then I attached the dial cord to the drum pulley and tied it off. I also took off the spring from the drum pulley so I could pull the cord tight from the bottom of the radio and wind the bottom pulley.

I had to wrap the dial cord around the pulley about 1 1/2 times to get the system back in time. The original instructions say the 1 1/2 turns goes on the dial drum pulley, but since the band switch mechanism had been disassembled and incorrectly reassembled I had to reverse the turns on the pulleys to compensate. I had tried to do it per the instructions the first time and about halfway through the bands the switching mechanism seized up. I bet that’s what killed the original dial cord.
With the new cord in place it was time to tighten everything back up and put some power to the ol radio.

GA10

She came to life and sounded wonderful. My friend Frank, WA8VRS and I probably sat there and enjoyed listening to some 75 meter AM for well over two hours.

I love boat anchors.

Josh Brothers, KF4KQS