West Texas Connection Newsletter MAY-JUNE 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. Permian Basin Repeater Association The PBRA's 146.880 repeater is back up at Penwell. Dave Pinnell, WA5ZPP and Bill Hopkins, N5HLL placed the repeater back in service on March 24th. It's near its original location on the Caprock and coverage will likely be similar to what it was in the "good old days". As many of you know, the Sunday Morning Net was started by the PBRA and was conducted for several years by Mr. Potts, WA5IBE. When Mr. Potts' wanted to retire from the job, N5KOA agreed to temporarily act as net control and has done so for the past couple of years. At this time we don't know if the PBRA will conduct a seperate net. I will work with the PBRA to find a solution. Midland Hamfest We certainly enjoyed meeting everyone that stopped by at the Midland Hamfest. Some of you have been familiar voices without a face but are now etched into memory with visible features. The older you get the more you appreciate meeting all the good people in amateur radio. Thanks to all of you helping to support the WTC. Congratulations to the following prize winners: FT840 HT - Harold, WD5FAN, Lamesa FT5100 Mobile - Larry, NA5Q, Keller PK96 TNC - John, KF5NI, Odessa MFJ Antenna Analyzer - Suzette, KC5NJR, Seymour KPC3 TNC - Weldon, K5POK, Parker Ten-Tec 240kw Dummy Load - Les, W5HJE, Midland WTC News The system went down at net-time on Sunday, March 24th due to the failure of a PA at the Odessa Hub. A quick response by Rod (N5XXO) had everything back up by noon even though we missed the net that day. That's one reason we have the net - just to find the problem areas before the system is really needed. The 147.58 simplex dump went up at Colorado City on the weekend of 03/31/96 and was changed to 147.50 on 04/06/96 thanks to Mark (N5SOR), Fred (KC5BNS) and B.John (KE5PL). Thanks to the cable TV company in C-City for supporting the WTC with a tower site. Dark Canyon was without power for a few days after the Spring Blizzard of '96 on 04/05/96. Those were the biggest snow flakes seen in West Texas in a lo-o-o-o-o-ng time. A net check-in from Sweetwater reported 20 inches of snow. Midland NWS reported 2 inches of snow - a new record for April. A new antenna was placed on Mt. Livermore on April 20th by N5SOR and N5HYD. The batteries were also allowed to recharge a few days. UPPER RIO SOCIETY The 147.000 (minus offset - 162.2 PL) repeater at Notrees (owned by Mark, N5SOR) is now linked to the New Mexico linked system known as the Upper Rio Society. This system conducts a swapnet on Thursday evenings at 9:30 pm (Texas time). Much of the West Texas Connection coverage area can hear the 147.000 machine. Make a reminder to listen in to this well-run net. The History of the West Texas Connection Part 3 Jim (WA5QMJ) and Nancy (N5HCD) were driving back from El Paso one day when they (probably at the insistence of Nancy) decided the system needed a name. Among the possibilities were West Texas System, West Texas Link and West Texas Connection. Nancy and Jim both liked the name West Texas Connection and when Gareth (W5CDM) agreed, the system was so named. With or without a name, the system continued to grow quickly. It was about 1984 that John McDaniel, KE5PL, came on the scene. John, or B.John, as he is called (His first name is Boyd and I'm sure he doesn't mind me telling that... anyway, back to the story...) B.John was working for CECO, a commercial radio company when he talked to Jim, WA5QMJ on the radio for the first time. Shortly thereafter, Jim came into the shop where B.John was working, looking for a part when they struck up a conversation about the new linked system. B.John and a ham named Roger Meurer, WA5BTC, were in the process of building their own linked system to the east from Midland at the time. They went so far as to link a couple of local repeaters. The 146.610 repeater south of Midland was a 1/4KW radio (it eventually became a digi but B.John says he had to take it down a notch because of the brownouts it caused when transmitting). And there wer plans to add a site at Big Spring. After talking to Jim, and taking an immediate liking to him and his project, B.John and Roger decided to drop their project to join Jim's. B.John's first site linked to the Connection was Big Spring. It was in the summer and probably 1984 that B.John, Jim, Larry Brown, N5GYF, and Mike Jennings, WB5UKA, went to the site on South Mountain and erected the repeater there. (If you've been following along in the series, Mike (WB5UKA) has been the familiar tower climber at pretty much every site. Like Bear The Wonder Dog, Mike was always present. Mike and Bear even shared a meal at Rankin.) The original frequency was 146.640 but because of interference from a nearby low-band radio, was changed after couple of months to the present 147.04 frequency. The commercial tower is 350 feet and Big Spring links back to Pleasant Farms via UHF. B.John's involvement brought several other early sites into the system and all of them were (are) "back east". The Rankin repeater, on 146.560 simplex, was located on Nolke Hill. It was there that Mike and Bear shared the meal. (At the risk of making everyone ill, I'll relate the story anyway. It seems Mike had stopped at the golden arches for a couple of sausage bisquits on the way to the tower site that morning. It takes alot of energy to climb those tall towers, you know. Anyway, as the story goes, the sausage bisquits had a disagreement with Mike's stomache after he started climbing. He parted with them in a most natural process from an unnatural position above the ground while clinging to the tower. Bear found himself in a convenient spot below and apparently found them to be quite tasty.) woof! B.John also put up repeaters at Lamesa and Sterling City. The Lamesa machine, on a county-owned tower was removed from the system in about 1992 while the Sterling City remains in the "downtown" area of Sterling City where Dow, N5FTL, can keep an eye on it and remove any gang graffiti. A video tape shows the activity took place on a typical windy day with a noticeably thinner-than-now B.John. Jim cooked fajitas while the always-hungry Bear, chewed on heliax and ropes and Tom Earnest, W5UFO handled the camera. Also noted on the tape were Coy (WB5WYI), and Paul Gilbert (KE5ZW). B.John and his various motley crews have since erected sites at Sweetwater (04/30/1988), Dark Canyon, and Hobbs (abt. 1992). The Sweetwater project was also captured on video tape and involved B.John, Coy, Jim, Paul, Mike, Mark Gerdes (WO0B - prev. N5KVT) and Bob Payne (N5KUC) who helped Mike on the tower. It was a cool overcast and windy day but the tape shows that a good time was had by all and the day was topped off with steaks cooked by QMJ. Jim's cooking at tower projects had become a tradition (recently prompting B.John to long for those "good ole days"). The Dark Canyon site was originally a tower located by Ken and now at Caprock. The coverage there is substantial and significant and the site is now maintained by Mark, N5SOR. The Hobbs site was a joint venture of B.John and Floyd Baker, KI5PJ. They recall the date must have been in early to mid 1991 and was B.John's last project on the Connection to date. B.John is responsible for a major portion of the West Texas Connection and his contributions would be difficult to match. He also contributed to the addition of "wireline" sites that eventually separated from the Connection and became the SouthWest Lynx system. That system, began by B.John and Aubrey Price (WB5RXA) in 1988-1989 included the remote sites of Lubbock, Amarillo, San Antonio, Bryan/College Station, Alpine, Sheffield and Austin. The Midland repeater (145.130) was initially on the Connection but became the hub for the Lynx system. The 147.22 repeater in Midland is the present Connection site there. The system by this time had become a major one and remains a tribute to the guys that spent alot of time and money on it. The more I learn about the system the more impressed I am with the dedication and committment of the guys that built it and keep it all together. Remember, the Connection has always been a privately owned and maintained system. There are still many parts to document and stories to tell about the early days of the Connection and I hope to detail them in more detail during the follow-up research upon the conclusion of this series. In the meantime, we'll move on in the next issue of the WTC Newsletter as the Connection nears full growth. To be continued...