[HATS] HATS Meeting Notice

[Ed Manuel]

Gang,

Several important announcements so please read.

1.  Tony is going to be out of town this week on business.  The regular 
meeting night for the HATS meeting is this coming Wednesday evening.  Do 
you, as a group, want to meet at Bennigan's to get the room for a quiet 
discussion instead of the Chili's?  Any other recommendations?

To be discussed at the meeting is the next important item.

2.  Repeater installation party - Saturday, December 14th from 9am until 
3pm.  Yep.  Time to make put it on the air.  Or, at least get the outside 
stuff as much accomplished as the weather will permit.  We will be 
discussing logistics Wednesday night.  On this note - -

I need as soon as you can possibly say a head count of the participants who 
will be available on Saturday.  We will do what we can with what we have 
but the more the better.  We have 4 or 5 heliax feedlines, two antennas and 
the repeater cabinet to transport from the loading dock to the roof.  That 
includes two flights of stairs :-(  We have to run the feedlines and change 
out one antenna on the roof.  We are that close, gang.  If we have adequate 
help and cooperative weather, the repeater may well be back on the air 
Saturday afternoon.

For those out there in repeater land who can't help with the repeater work 
session, if you are operational on the ATV repeater, it would be handy to 
have you on the air and on the 146.700 repeater in the afternoon for 
testing IF WE GET THAT FAR.  We just won't know until the day unfolds just 
how much we can accomplish but the first priority is to get the repeater on 
the air.

3.  Phase 2.  After the repeater is back on the air and running, we are 
ready to start working on the second phase.  I would like for our local 
members to consider a proposal.  We have, through the gracious donation of 
one of our members, acquired a wireless Ethernet Bridge (thanks, 
Fred).  This device will allow us to have Ethernet in the repeater cabinet, 
connected to the LAN at my QTH, less than 2 miles away.  This means that we 
can have a computer in the repeater cabinet that we can access from my home 
in the short term, and on the Internet in the long term.

So, what do to with the computer.  Ron and I have talked and believe that a 
Linux box would be the best all around platform for the repeater 
site.  What I would like to see from interested persons is a proposal of 
HOW to utilize the repeater computer.  Assume that the computer is a server 
class machine, rack mounted, including a video output card or converter to 
provide an NTSC source of composite video to the repeater video 
controller.  What applications would you like to run?  Your proposal should 
be well thought out, complete, including any special hardware/software 
requirments (how its obtained, how much it costs, etc) and a description of 
what it would do and how it would be maintained.  If you feel that Linux 
isn't the right operating system, make your case for another one.

No particular hurry, we are just beginning this phase of the project.

We will be putting the 2.4 ghz. transmitter in this new cabinet, along with 
the computer, the Ethernet Bridge, and potentially a half-duplex 918 mhz. 
system for linking.  We have thoughtfully provided video outputs from the 
existing repeater for these transmitters.

The ultimate system will be our primary user input of 1255 mhz. (no change 
from the past), the 421.25 mhz. output (horizontally polarized as in the 
past), the 2423.25 mhz. output (phase 2), vertically polarized, and an 
input-output on 918 mhz. to allow alternative input sources and an output 
to link to other systems as required (phase 2).

Phase 2 is still in the planning stage.  What do YOU want to do with the 
system as we go forward.

See you on Wednesday night or Saturday morning.

Ed, N5EM