West Texas Connection Newsletter NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 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. WTC News You should be reading this just days before the Odessa Hamfest so count your pennies, dig up the cans and get ready to buy some stuff. Please note the expiration date on your mailing label. We are at the end of the first full year of the WTC Newsletter so it's time to send another donation if you wish to continue supporting the WTC. Your support is appreciated and it's a way we can all contribute. On October 9th, Fred, KC5BNS, placed the new Colorado City repeater in service. The frequency is 444.850 (plus offset, 16.2 tone). Fred spent alot of hours working on the machine and Mark, N5SOR helped put the finishing touches on it along with A.B., WB5NTI. Thanks for the effort Fred. I know it will be enjoyed back east. Last word from Mark, N5SOR, was that the Kent/Balmorhea machine (145.43) took a lightning hit and was at Mark's home undergoing repairs. At press time Mark planned to return the machine to service on October 11th. Finally, on behalf of the owners and shakers of the Connection, let me wish you all a safe and happy holiday season. See you next year! Miscellany Do you know why the H is capitalized in the abbreviation for megahertz? The unit of frequency (cycles per second) was named after Heinrich Rudolph Hertz and the proper name is signified by capitalizing the "H". That's why you often see the abbreviation written "mHz". The History of the West Texas Connection Conclusion As we wrap up the history of the West Texas Connection I'll try to explain how the Connection works. This may not be easy, so drag up a chair and listen closely. Actually, the Connection can be thought of as three mini-Connections. There is a primary "hub" at Odessa and secondary hubs at Notrees and Big Spring. Each hub and it's locally-linked sites can operate independently - and sometimes do when something goes haywire. That's one reason it's important to understand how the Connection works... To avoid the potential QRM that often results when one hub gets separated from the rest of the system. This is especially important if the system is in use for any kind of emergency communications. If the Big Spring hub, for example, loses it's link receiver (447.100), persons on 147.04 and 146.64 can be heard all up and down the system while they hear nothing outside their local area. We can hear them but they can't hear the rest of us. What if a Skywarn net is in progress? Unless you understand what's going on, the most likely scenario is the two stations working into the Big Spring hub will immediately start a QSO that goes something like this: Station 1: "Do you copy me W5QGG?" (no response from W5QGG) Station 2: "I hear you just fine, the radio at the weather service must have broke." Station 1: "Yea, maybe so. How does it look over in your area?" Station 2: "The storm has moved out of here. How about where you are?" Anyway, you get the picture. These two stations are being heard all over the Connection but they can hear only the sites linked into Big Spring (Rankin, Sterling City and Colorado City). They unknowingly are keeping the NWS net control from using the rest of the system. They also may be making it difficult for the repeater trustees to fix the problem. This obviously applies at all locations in the Connection. Big Spring and Sterling City were just used for the example. So Please!, if you lose contact with another station or net because the system seems to be down OR only partially working, stand-by unless you have emergency communications to conduct. Here are the hubs and their associated local sites: Odessa (main hub) local links: South Odessa North Odessa Midland Fort Stockton Livermore Kent/Balmorhea Notrees (secondary hub) local links: Dark Canyon Hobbs Tarzan Andrews Big Spring local links: Rankin Sterling City Any one of these three hubs could be separated and become a mini-system on its own but, when everything is working as it should, they communicate with each other, linking all sites. The way the Connection works seems rather simple at first glance but it's one those things that seems to become more complicated the more you know about it. Consider the details of a station transmitting to the Sterling City repeater, in communication with a station at Roswell. The radio is tuned to 146.640 (minus offset, 88.5 tone). It transmits at 146.040 (minus 600) to the VHF repeater at Sterling City, which repeats at 146.640. At the same time, a UHF radio a Sterling City transmits on 447.100 and is heard by the Big Spring secondary hub. The Big Spring secondary hub retransmitts on 442.100 and on 449.100 which is heard by the main hub at Odessa. Okay, we made it back to the hub. Now what? Well the Odessa hub transmits on 447.500 to the Notrees secondary hub which, in turn, transmits the signal on 442.500 where it is heard at Dark Canyon and passed on 147.460, finally arriving in the receiver of the Roswell station. Confused? (I am!) Now what about all those other sites? Midland? Andrews? Fort Stockton? Do you know how the same transmission is heard simultaneously in Ft. Stockton on 146.83? (Actually, Albert WB5FWR is always listening and repeats the traffic verbatum into his microphone using the impersonation skills held by all repeater trustees to exactly duplicate the voice of the original transmitting operator, leading us to believe there is a repeater doing it.) Well, maybe not... Although I find it much easier to believe Albert does that, than understand how it really works. West Texas Connection P.O. Box 7033 Odessa, Texas 79760 I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving and Christmas. 1996 is almost gone. See you next year!