HamCom 2008 - Plano, TX

[blugu64]

June 13-14
@ The Plano Centre

Anyone else planning on going? I'm definitely going to be there; barring any car trouble that is...

[motorola_otaku]

Yeah, I s'pose so.

Are we gonna do Saturday-night dinner again?

[Victor Xray]

Already have my tables purchased. Y'all come buy my sh!t.

I'm game for dinner on Sat.

[blugu64]

Yeah, I s'pose so.

Are we gonna do Saturday-night dinner again?

If I don't have a catastrophic car failure again count me in.

[motorola_otaku]

Couple of weeks to go. I will definitely be there, since work is going to put me there for the entire week following.

8:00 PM Saturday at Bone Daddy's sound good?

[kd5wyu]

Not going to HC, little spare $ and have to work, but 2000 sounds good, I'll be off and in search of a cold one by then.

-b-

[Victor Xray]

I'm tied up Saturday eve.
How about Friday dinner instead?

[motorola_otaku]

I'm tied up Saturday eve.
How about Friday dinner instead?

I will be on the highway Friday night.. gotta work in Houston that day. I'll try to see if I can wheedle an excuse out to bail early that day, but circumstances may not permit.

[Victor Xray]

Eh no worries, let's keep the Saturday night plan. If I can make it I'll be late and probably won't make dinner but I can still throw down a cold one before you take off.

Hopefully there will be a decent turnout of Moto & commercial gear this year. I know my table will be full. Last year's showing was pathetic.

[n0xmz]

I'll be there. Any time for dinner is good for me.

[motorola_otaku]

Last year's showing was pathetic.

If that dude with the Decibel dipole arrays comes back with more, I will consider it a worthwhile trip.

[motorola_otaku]

You talking 'bout the dude that hauls a good couple dozen or so of used DBs/Station Masters and sells em for $25?

Man I wish I jumped on a VHF one but no way was I fitting that shit in my car.

No, not quite that cheap, and this dude is a local that works for Dailey-Wells IIRC.

And I drug home a 2-bay VHF Decibel hanging out the window of my Wimpala. USE THE FORCE, MAN.

[ka8ypy]

You talking 'bout the dude that hauls a good couple dozen or so of used DBs/Station Masters and sells em for $25?

Man I wish I jumped on a VHF one but no way was I fitting that shit in my car.

Do like a friend of mine did, sling it under the car and tied it to the bottom of the front and rear bumper.

[Wowbagger]

I'd have said "Get your towel (you DO know where your towel is, don't you?), place it between the antenna and the car, and strap it on the side of the car, running from hood to trunk, tied through the passenger side windows and at the hood and trunk.

Bonus points for using it as a lance <sfx from 'Joust'>"

[smokeybehr]

I'd have said "Get your towel (you DO know where your towel is, don't you?),

He's a hoopy frood. Of course he knows where his towel is.

[Victor Xray]

OK got the truck loaded up. What's in my boxes? You'll have to come inside to see.



I'm not brining in that huge spool of Andrew 7/8" hardline. That will stay outside on my tailgate.

Oh, and I'll be monitoring BW1 (146.495 67.0/$293)

[blugu64]

So we're back on for Saturday right guys?

[kd5wyu]

The thread has been pretty quiet. I still plan on being at Bone Daddy's a bit before 2000, unless work screws me over again.

Will monitor the thread.

-b-

[kd5wyu]

fake edit: 442.400+ PL 110.9 for coordination like always, too, I suppose.

[Victor Xray]

I'm headed out the door now. If you can't find me inside, holler at me on 146.495 67.0/$293



I'm still in for dinner Saturday but my arrival may be later, around 9:15, assuming y'all are still there.

May I suggest my machine 443.325+ PL110.9 for off-site communications instead? Located in the heart of Richardson, it has perfect coverage for where we'll be. After testing it on his way home last year, Mark (mam1081) said that's the machine we needed to use.

[motorola_otaku]

I'm heading up this evening. I'll be on 443.325, plus the TI 900 machine if anyone else has that capability (gots mah MCS in the car yo) and BW1/BW2 analog/digital.

Can I say 5 heads as a safe number for dinner on Saturday (me, Scott, KD5WYU, blugu64, and Jon late?) And in case anyone forgot how to get there, here's the map. I can also put it off until, say 20:30, to give the family man time to get there.

[motorola_otaku]

fake edit: Also, an acquaintance of mine has a temp repeater up at the hamfest on 442.95 (123.0).

[blugu64]

443.325 is the nortel repeater isn't it? Either way I'll troll it this weekend, I'm not going to make it out to hamcom till saturday however.

[Victor Xray]

Not much to report today.

If anyone has a boat they need sunk, there's plenty to get that accomplished with in the tailgate area.

Had plenty of OMs ask me what band my XTL O5 control head transmitted on.

Met some new Hamsexy lurkers (you know who you are), as well as got hassled by old skool hamsexuals (mam1081, John Wayne, Curran)

One of the highlights was learning that wackers have no age limit. Saw a guy, had to be at least 65 or older, talking about all of Whelen's newer line of LED products that are sweet and he wants to deck out in his vehicle so he can block a lane on the highway. All amber of course.

See y'all tomorrow
VX

[kd5wyu]

Alrighty, I'll wander my way up 75 once I get off work. Hope its not too plugged up that time of day.
(Don't have my on the truck quite yet to clear things out )

-b-

[rdwilson]

OK, OK. So I lurk.

I guess I'm a closet Motosexual.

--
Rick
W5TUX

[Wowbagger]

I might have liked to go, but unfortunately I was ministering to an ailing repeater.

That was a weird one: the machine had gone deaf. I got to the site, plugged the RX into my service monitor, and did a quick check: -120dBm for 12dB SINAD. OK, so maybe the antenna is bad. It's a bit of a trick to check an antenna that's 1300 feet of 75 ohm hardline and 2 quarter-wave transformers away, but a simple RX test with a known level distant signal showed ... good RX.

WTF?

Much checking, probing, and cussing later, and I just *happened* to notice a weird signal down a megahertz from the repeater: it looked like impulse noise on the spectrum analyzer, with a constant signal at about 143MHz. Looking closer showed it was extending up into the repeater's RX passband and desensing it.

OK, so where was it coming from? The world? No, disconnect the antennas and its still there. The preamp? No, that's off. The receiver? Nope. The TX? Nope. It turns out the old GE Mastr had developed an oscillation in the *audio input* boards. At 143MHz. That wasn't a harmonic - that was the fundamental of the signal.

So, my plans to try to replace that repeater with something a bit newer just got moved up.

Does anybody have a line on any Maxtrac 450MHz radios? I need some for link frequencies.

[Victor Xray]

Ah, mad troubleshooting skillz... when you're done up there, come down and fix my repeater. I discovered the receiver on my Mastr Exec II has suddenly become deaf --- just as we were gathering for the HS dinner; made the talk-in coordination sound like a typical skywarn net (boost your power or change locations and try again).

We had a great turnout at the hamsexy dinner, so good in fact that we had to wait for a larger table than originally reserved. Josh should be posting some pictures soon.

"And a good time was had by all" ... Hamsexy.com definitely got lots of props at Bone Daddys, thanks to a very cool manager and a hot waitress who was astounded to talk to New Zealand on a Motorola DTR and another who joyfully told us about listening to friends getting arrested on a scanner.

4in6inv if you're lurking over here, how come you didn't stop by my table? Glad to read you got a good deal on the spectra suitcase repeater for $200 - we all saw that at its original asking prices ($300-400) but its Gov't bandsplit made it the leper of the fleamarket.

[motorola_otaku]

So yeah, apparently I fail at HTML-embedding pictures on Wordpress, so no front-page update yet. But I can sure post 'em here!


This took the cake for me. An obsolesced electric service meter. Seriously, WTF possible legitimate use could someone have for an obsolesced electric service meter?


Not much whackerism to be had, but there was some guy next to Jonathan's table selling amber...


and this little gem: an Opticom traffic-device tester. I still say some idiot needs to use it on a bicycle and post video on Youtube.


I don't know who this idiot was, but Decibel dipoles hanging out the window of an Impala qualifies as massive Hamsexy for me. I hope he wasn't, like, planning on driving to Houston like that or anything.


Some guy in a Ford truck paid a visit to the Houston GMRS encampment. Sitting l-r are Bob N., KE5UIP (a newly-licensed hamfest virgin), Gary H. (behind the black-shirt guy.. forgot his name/call, d'oh), Mark G., Tracy S., N5LUY.


The dinner group. Seated counter-clockwise: Nathaniel, KE5OMF (blugu64), me, Scott, (N0XMZ), Curran, KD5UXO, Brent (kd5wyu), Leah (mam1081's g/f), Mark, AE5DN (mam1081), Rick, W5TUX (aka "the lurker"), Jonathan, K5VX (Victor Xray), Chris (blugu64's friend).


Scott tries to Close-Call a DTR550. The result: FAIL.


Waitress from another table wants in on the action...


and tries again with the scanner. Still nothing.

In all seriousness, that was probably the most fun I've ever had at a hamfest. I look forward to doing it again next year. Maybe then we'll have HSdC business cards and stickers for the curious public and restaurant staff.

[sklnd]

I'm Chris, of "blugu64's friend" fame

[Mong]

I'm Chris, of "blugu64's friend" fame

Welcome, pull up a chair and if you see any midgets, send them my way





P.S. fat chicks too

[Victor Xray]

Welcome to the madness Chris! Glad you made it.

[spareparts]

Seriously, WTF possible legitimate use could someone have for an obsolesced electric service meter?

Submeter to see just how much power your radio repeater actually uses at a site. Several of the tennants at my site have them. We offered flat rate to 2 of them. Turns out their utility costs are higher then flat rate.

[motorola_otaku]

I'm Chris, of "blugu64's friend" fame

It's the "hey, what's up guys" guy! Post often and have a good time.

[n0xmz]

I went ahead and posted the pics on the front page. If anyone has a list of all the names/callsigns, either edit it yourself or let me know and I'll be happy to add it.