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Everyone,

This morning a tower crew was on the tower at the Clearfield EMA building and, while doing other maintenance,?they took a peak at the non-functional HF dipole? inverted V antenna.? What they found was a center balun that was in really rough?shape.? Clearly it's not going to work.? As a result they brought the dipole down awaiting further instructions.

This antenna is owned by the Clearfield?County EMA.? ?Back in 2019 a MFJ G5RV antenna was purchased as a replacement by the county.? The selection of a G5RV antenna was made by the then CCARC President Gary W3CUB. For those not familiar with the G5RV antenna, it is a non-resonant antenna and requires the use of an antenna tuner.? The staff at the time from Centre Communications felt this antenna was the wrong type for the tower installation.? As a result this antenna was never installed and has since been lost.??

To facilitate?operations?at the EMA Allen K3HOC is leaving a coax on the ground near the tower fence line that we can temporarily?connect to the antenna of our choice.? Rich N3RBJ has a multi-band vertical stick antenna which he plans to bring on Thursday so we can use the HF radios for Radio?Night.? That gets us on the air for the moment.

At this point our choices are as follows:

1. Inform the county of the need for a new antenna and see if they have funding to replace it.??

2. The club could purchase a new antenna and donate it to the county.

3. Build a home brew antenna for use at the EMA building.

If we want the county to purchase one, or if we decide to purchase it ourselves, we will need to know what we want.? So we need to come up with a decision on this rather quickly.? The alternative is to build one home-brew style.? I have a home-brewed 20 meter dipole which I can bring on Thursday as a show and tell.? Building one like this as a multi-band fan dipole would be an easy project and would cost us about $20 to $30.?

So lots to think?about.? The Radio Night is this week, Thursday the 13th at 7 PM.? Last month we had a lot of fun getting acquainted with the digital mode FT8 on HF.? I'd expect that this month we can actually make some contacts with the mode.? Hoping to see a good crew there again.? The business meeting will be on Thursday March 27th and we'll need to come to a decision?at that point.??

Thank you to Allen K3HOC who made sure the?tower crew inspected the antenna while on the tower.? And thank you to Rich N3RBJ who has offered the temporary use of his vertical multi-band antenna.??

John N3SPW