Hi Joel,
It is great to hear you on the BB. I hope to work you on the birds when I get my antennas back in the air. We moved south of the Tennessee River near I-65.
Our daughter is now 3 years old (my classmates have grandchildren) and giving me a little more time to play radio.
We managed to earn Field Day bonus points using an Arrow antenna the last 2 years. Alan, WB5RMG, brought his equipment out to the Field Day site this year and it worked great, but boy was it HOT outside under a canopy tent.
As soon as the honey-do list is completed at the new house, my antennas will be back in the air, but it is 'Arm Strong' pointing at the moment.
73's,
Tim - N8DEU
----- Original Message ----- From: jbblack68@gmail.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Friday, July 03, 2009 5:48 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Been A While
It's been quite a while since I have been on this BB. I got out of the hobby for about four years but I am working my way back in. I used to be KS4AW then K2SAT. Now I'm W4JBB. I don't even know if some of the folks who were involved in AMSAT are even still around. I do searches on their webpages and either get nothing or no updates in years - I don't dive past the first search results page. These are a few I remember:
K5OE K6YK KF4FDJ N7SFI N8DEU WB6LLO
There were many others too.
I am getting my equipment slowly out of storage (I have it stored all over the house apparently). I had a FODtrack interface and found a partial build of the G6LVB tracker. I cannot remember if I finished the LVB tracker or not. I have a cutout for and LCD display, but no display in it. My dad has my '847, but he's not using it and I'll get it back in the next week. I left my tower up with my 2m/70cm antennas and the G5400 rotor. Feedline is still there too... partially. I guess my only question about gear is what should I use for auto-tracking with a Vista box? Like I said, I *had* a FODtrack interface, but I cannot find it. I also have a partially built LVB tracker. I have a parallel PCI card I can install in the Vista machine but I wonder if anyone has had any luck with that setup... I'm not opposed to booting up into Linux either.
I have looked at the AMSAT homepage and there is only a small fraction of satellites still available. I have renewed my membership and am really looking forward to getting back on the birds. I think I have rambled enough.
73, Joel, W4JBB _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb