The foundation is nearly complete as an unidentified student supervises Gary Stouder and Gary Wynn.
 

09/28/00:
We had 6 to 8 kids show up at various times that seem interested in our school Ham station.  Bob and I invited them all to our classes starting next week.  We had 3 YLs show up that all seem interested!  One of them already helps with the WRGF radio station.

We plan to set the Rohn 25 tower base in cement starting at 8 AM Saturday if it doesn't rain.

09/30/00:
Saturday morning Greg N9MOX, Gary K9SG, and Gary Wynn the Tech teacher finished the hole and put the base in for the Rohn 25 tower.  We had a little cement mixer and used 20 bags of concrete (1800 pounds without the
 water).  N9MOX was a great cement mixer and pourer. 

Next project is to put the tower sections up next week and drill holes in concrete for the side mounting bracket for the tower.  This tower will be about 35 ft tall and will have the satellite tracking array on it.  We hope to have everything
up by frost time.  We would also like to install the other 48 ft tower this fall if possible.  I will let you know when we need extra help

10/03/00 :
The 2nd section of the tower was installed at the high school today.  We hope to put another section up this weekend if it doesn't snow!!! 
Remember 7 PM  Thurs Oct. 5 Classes If you would like to come.  We might even put a section up on Thursday if we could arrive early.  I won't be there until about 6 pm though.

Gary, K9SG

Thanks Central Indiana Power and Thanks to Bob Perry for a tip on his
 company helping us.

 K9SG

10/12/00:
HI EVERYBODY,
I was able to get the tower bracket secured today.  It wasn't easy.  I had to drill thru 15 inches of limestone and some kind of block that must have had tungstun carbide in it for fun.  My heart rate was up to about 170 and I had a pretty good case of BO when I was done.  The bracket was secured with all thread and on the back side we had a large stainless steel plate that  was custom made and donated.

 This Saturday is the day for finishing the tower, starting the antenna, and running the coax.   If anybody can help or is willing to be coaxed into helping please email me or give me a call at 462-1232.   If we could have 4 or 5 people that could work we would get alot done in 4 to 5 hours. Otherwise it will probably take several weeks, and we would like to get the satellite station working again soon.

Good turnout for the ham class tonight also.

 Tnx  73  Gary K9SG
 

10/22/00:
Hi all,

We have made good progress on the school project.  Thanks to all who have  helped - particularly N9LFU, and N9MOX, and Gary Wynn for all of their help.

 Here is what is going on at present.

The satellite antennas are up and working.  I worked a Wyoming station on a FO20 pass that was only up 8 degrees with no preamp on receive.  This afternoon I installed the preamp for 70 cm at the  top of the tower in a waterproof enclosure donated by N9MOX and it works well and has about 15db gain.  The 7/8 inch hard line works great - we have 125 ft of it and about 35 ft total of 9913 at the tower and rig end.  The 135 ft of 1/2 inch hardline goes clear to the tip top of the tower and only has about 25 ft of 9913 on both ends and feeds the circularly polarized satellite antenna for 2 meters.  We could hit repeaters all the way out to Richmond, Lebanon, and
 Bloomington with good signals.  All of the coax is terminated into ICE  lighteneing arresters connected to structural steel in the building.

 Steve Wrightsman helped us by donating his 56 ft Rohn tower and it was  transported to the school today, thanks to Gary Wynn and his son's truck. We washed the tower off and the hole should be dug this Thursday and the first section erected shortly.  We plan on putting a triband beam, possibly a 6 meter beam, and the diamond 50 at the top of this tower.  We will probably have a 40, 17, 12 meter multielement diapole also.

 The Ham shack is getting some drapes supplied by Gary Wynn so that there won't be interference to the classrooms.

 At present here is what we have:

Full analogue satellite capability on 2 meters and 70 cm , including computerized satellite tracking. This also works very well for simplex and repeaters.
20 meter dipole for 20 meter HF operation.
 RTTY, SSTV, PSK31 via computer soundcard programs.

 Things to come:
 packetcluster
 APRS
 48 ft tower with beams and dipoles
 ATV

 I have had lots of time to work since I have 2 new office partners and my wife is taking 21 hours in college right now.  I have other esponsibilities and will not be able to spend as much time starting 1 week from now.  If you are teaching class please drop by and see the station.

 Thanks to all  Gary  K9SG
 
 

10/27/00:

 Hello everybody,
 
 The satellite system is working extremely well.  The downlink on 70 cm is considerably better than that at K9SG's satellite station at home.  AA9XJ and K9SG had armchair copy on FO29 for most of a pass on Thursday and during ham class we made several QSO's on UO14.  The coax is all grounded to ICE lightening arresters and the ground buss is connected to the rigs and
 computers and surge suppressor for AC.
 
 I received word today that our school is one of the first 20 schools that will be in line to talk to the space station.  The astronauts could be ready to begin school QSOs by mid November.  I am not allowed to say where we are in line, and a date hasen't been set.  This will be a 6 to 8 min contact
during a pass of the ISS and we will certainly have a lot of fanfare to go with it.  WRGF and our TV station will cover it and we will likely try to have some of the big Indianapolis  TV stations come out and cover it. Mr. Wynn and myself will try to determine which kids will be able to talk to
the ISS during the pass.  This will include high school and perhaps Jr. High kids.  Anyone who gets their ham license will be first in line.
 
 K9SG  Gary
 

Here is picture of Chrissy using W9ATG working a JA pileup on 15 meters speaking Japanese as a YL from my QTH.   W9ATG heard around the World!!!

Gary