The LARG Radio News

The Loudoun Amateur Radio Group, P.O. Box 1004, Purcellville, VA 20134

	President	Norm Styer - AI2C	(540)338-2584
	Vice-President	Ray Houff - K4AJA	(540)338-7297
	Secretary	Nancy Dluehosh KE4RTP	(703)771-9284
	Treasurer	Dale Cabaniss -KD4LSL	(540)338-3521
	Editor	John Unger -W4AU	(540)338-4620
	Training	Paul Dluehosh -N4PD	(703)771-9284

NOTE: October Meeting Place

The LARG will meet in the Conference-Training Room at the Leesburg Police Station on Plaza Street at 8:30a.m., Saturday, October 16, 1999. The facility is located on Plaza Street between East Market Street and Edwards Ferry Road. Talk-In is on 147.480 MHz. You can join other LARG members for breakfast before the meeting at the Bob Evans Restaurant located Leesburg Corner Shopping Center (new Outlet Mall).

September Meeting News

The main activity of the September meeting was a Fox Hunt to help hone our skills at locating the instrument package from our next balloon launch. We set up three tracking stations, a mission control, and tried tracking a "fox" in motion through ascent and descent phases and finally at a fixed landing zone. It was an extremely useful exercise and all of us who participated learned a lot. Our skills are improving but we still have to practice and develop familiarity with our equipment and work on our techniques.

October LARG Meeting Plans

The feature event for this meeting will be showing the video of the ZL9CI Dxpedition to Campbell Island that took place last year. These operators set a record for the number of QSOs for an operation like this. You will get to see the operating conditions they had to endure and how they managed a multi-transceiver, multi-antenna station in a Field Day like situation.

Club News

The October 2 launch date for LARG balloon 99/2 had to be scrubbed and the launch rescheduled. In lieu of an actual balloon launch the balloon committee decided to have another Fox Hunt on October 2. We were able to assemble three tracking teams, a mission control station, and a "fox". This time we were looking for a balloon instrument package in western Loudoun. We did manage to find the "fox", but comments on the functioning and operation of the RDF equipment ranged from "great" to "stinko"; we still have a lot to learn about this business... The first two sessions of the LARG General License class went well. The students' skills in Morse code are definitely improving and the teachers are trying to keep from confusing the students with too many ham radio "stories". The Leesburg Police station is proving to be an excellent facility for teaching our classes.

Calendar of Events:
Every Sunday 8:00PM	Club Radio Net, 147.480 MHz simplex
Every Third Saturday 8:30AM	Club Meeting, 10/16//99 - Leesburg Police Station
Weekday Mornings and Evenings	Commuter Net, 147.480 MHz Simplex