West Texas Connection Newsletter JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1996 The WTC Newsletter is available on a bi-monthly basis for a subscription/donation of $12 per year. Subscribers also receive new maps of the system twice a year. Send $12 to: WTC, P.O. Box 7033, Odessa, TX 79760 After postage, all money goes toward maintenance of the West Texas Connection. Editor - Les Blalock, N5KOA WTC Sunday Morning Net The WTC Sunday Morning Net meets at 0900 (Central) every Sunday morning. The net is informal and open to all. Check in for local ham news and events. (The WTC net also supports the Permian Basin Repeater Association while their 146.880 machine looks for a new home.) WTC News The 147.220 machine in Midland is back on-line. The Mt. Livermore repeater (147.080) is back up, thanks to Doug (N5HYD). The Monahans repeater (147.500) remains down at press time. The "roaming" 147.120 machine is currently running stand-alone at Colorado City. It is still hoped that the repeater will be linked back in to the WTC in the future. The Dark Canyon 147.46 repeater was down for a short period of time but was returned to service quickly by Mark, (N5SOR). ANOTHER CONNECTION ??? The Caprock Repeater Club, up yonder in the Panhandle, announces The Hub Connection. The new linked system ties together the area surrounding Lubbock covering from the Clovis/Portales, NM area back to around Guthrie, TX and from south of the Post/Brownfield area up to around Plainview and Kress according to the map. Repeaters on The Hub Connection are located at: Lubbock 147.00 146.94 444.00 444.50 Abernathy 146.76 444.40 Crosbyton 147.16 Post 147.06 Sundown 146.78 Littlefield 146.64 Brownfield - PROPOSED SITE All HUB Connection VHF repeaters are toned 179.9 and all UHF repeaters are toned 118.8 For more information about The Hub Connection, contact Don (WB5BRY) or Jerry (KB5ARQ). The History of the West Texas Connection The West Texas Connection has been used for eleven years now and has grown to more than 15 linked sites. It continues to serve the skywarn network and is maintained by a talented and dedicated group of volunteers. For awhile there were several remote links connected via wireline but the Connection has returned to its roots - West Texas. (The wireline sites became the origin of the SouthWest Lynx system.) Coverage is continuous along Interstate 20 (and part of Interstate 10) from Big Spring to the Ft. Davis area and from Andrews to Crane along State Highway 385. A portion of southeastern New Mexico is covered, as is the city of El Paso. Gareth Pollard (W5CDM) had played around with linking his Ft. Davis repeater back into the PBRA repeater on 146.88 and was working on it one evening when David Pinnell (WA5ZPP) heard the transmissions. Dave broke in and asked Gareth what he was doing. Gareth said he was experimenting and Dave announced that if there was some experimenting going on, he ought to be a part of it. The idea of linking the repeaters had the interest of Dave. Jim Jeffrey (WA5QMJ) was a traveling salesman and the idea of linking repeaters back into Odessa so he could communicate with the locals while on the road sounded good to him also. Together, Jim, Gareth and Dave discussed the possibilities and continued to experiment. Dave was asked to build a controller to fit their needs. At the time, Dave was kinda Jim's protege and was learning a lot about radio from Jim. Jim's knowledge of radios and Dave's design and construction expertise were the keys to success. The design of the controller was considered by some to be impractical. Jim often repeated that many radio people told him his planned method of linking repeaters was impossible. At the time, the Permian Basin Repeater Association was active and made up of some of the most knowledgeable hams in the area. Formed in 1974, the PBRA was a source of expertise and many of the members became partners in, or contributed to, the building of the Connection. Gareth, Jim, and Dave were members of the PBRA and others included: Vernon Qualls (the first President), Mike Jennings (WB5UKA), Coy Pearson (WB5FYI), Damon Foster (W5YLT), Duard Potts (WA5IBE), Albert Bean (WB5FWR), and Jim Reid (K5KUX), all of whom have contributed to building and maintaining the West Texas Connection. Jim and Gareth bought a few acres south of Odessa near the community of Pleasant Farms for a tower site and they acquired 300 feet of Rohn 45 tower. The tower sections were placed in Jim's backyard where they encouraged the vegetation to reach new heights. It was difficult to mow with thirty sections of Rohn 45 tower lying around. Jim's YL, Nancy (N5HCD) soon insisted that the backyard be cleaned up and spurred the project by working on the tower to get it ready. To comply with FAA regulations the tower would have to be painted seven alternate stripes of orange and white so Nancy carefully sketched the tower and paint scheme on a yellow legal pad. As each section was painted, Nancy numbered each painted section to show the order it was to be assembled. She worked on the tower through the Spring of 1983 avoiding the hot sun by getting up at 5 a.m. many days. Unfortunately, Nancy was not at the site when Jim decided to erect the tower and a couple of sections were mounted in the wrong order. The mistake is not easily noticeable but the decision to work without Nancy's supervision was risky. (Nancy's organization and planning definitely contributed to the success of the project and, although she is currently not active in radio, her support for the Connection is still strong. Her foresight to collect and document information is greatly appreciated.) Jim and Gareth acquired the services of a driller to drill the guy-wire anchors at the price of a case of whiskey and the base was poured, using cement hauled in a U-Cart trailer. The callsigns of WA5QMJ, W5CDM, WB5UKA, and WA5ZPP were carved into the corners of the wet cement. The tower started going up at the rate of about 75 feet a week, every Saturday, with the help of several local hams. Mike Jennings (WB5UKA) and Larry Brown (N5GYF) helped Jim, Gareth and Dave with the tower construction with Mike doing most of the climbing. Several other local hams stopped by from time to time, some helping, some just watching. Bill Hopkins, (N5HLL), Otis Brasfield (N5LEV - KA5REM at the time), Jesse Moore (KA5REL), Coy Pearson (WB5WYI) of Crane, Dean Slack (WB5YHC) of Ft. Stockton, and others dropped by during construction to offer help. Photo albums document the scene, and the people present, during construction and some interesting stories were remembered from the time. During at least one work session a local of the bovine species came by to check out the work and the workers. Coy's bull- fighting skills were called upon and the bull was encouraged to move on. Also, a standoff of sorts occurred when electric service was requested. The local electric utility company was reluctant to run service to the site, which was somewhat remote, until they could be assured that it was not just another temporary project. They wanted to see the project finished before running electric lines but the tower could go no higher than 200 feet without beacon lights. So, at about 200 feet, construction was stopped while waiting on electric service. Jim and Gareth eventually convinced the electric company to run the service and, after about a two-week delay, construction of the tower resumed and was completed. The South Forty, as the Odessa tower site was known, became the hub of the linked system, using UHF link radios to connect VHF sites. The hub is at 3033' ASL and was operated locally on 146.70 for several years. (The 2 meter frequency was changed to 145.41 a couple of years ago because of local interference and a remote using 146.10/146.70 was moved to NW Odessa to cover the north end of the county.) The early hub, though, was looking south; looking for signals from the radios that were to become the first links of the system. To be continued...