By Dan Bowen , KB2UVE

The Amateur Radio Club at the University of Tennessee was initiated in 1947 by a group of student and faculty Ham radio operators. Since that time, the club has gone through many changes, and various levels of activity . As of September 2000, the UT Amateur Radio Club began a campaign of vigorous reinstatement, with all new, active members working to establish a strong and worthwhile presence on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville campus.
In the fall of 1999, after the club had been inactive for several years, three student Amateur Radio operators, Mike Swiatkowski, Daniel Bowen, and Past Club President Chris Brown, began actions that would lead to the complete reinstatement of the UTA RC. Access was obtained to the old radio room, and the location was deemed unusable for permanently operating radios any longer. This was due to the changes in the environment around the location of 401 East Stadium Hall. After the recent completion (Summ er 2000) of the East Neyland Stadium Skybox, the location of antennas would be very problematic if at all possible. Prior to the East Skybox construction, there was an antenna tower mounted on the northeasternmost stadium lighting array that supported a t ri-bander beam and a 2m yagi. This setup was featured in the photo section of the March 2000 issue of QST magazine, as seen here on this page. In spite of repeated UTARC efforts to remove and preserve the antenna equipment, along with ~150 of feed and con trol lines, they were destroyed without UTARC consent during construction.

They are visible in this picture taken in front of Estabrook Hall after they were removed from the stadium. As a result of unwavering determination of the club vice president, the Club was promised a full replacement in kind through the cooperation of the Office of Facilities Planning and the Athletics Department upon locating a suitable space for placement of the antennas.

The search for a room continued in Fall 2000, and to support and assist the club's cause, a membership recruitment campaign was initiated. Having a stong membership of 20 in February of 2001, the club has been growing at a healthy rate with students, f aculty, staff and community members. The membership is very positive news for the future of the UTARC, and soon the officers of the club anticipate that the club may have a new home on campus in Spring of 2001.

In February of 2001, members of the club completed a temporary installation of the club's TenTec Paragon 585 HF radio in the existing radio room. This consisted of clearing a space in the room (no small task!), setting up the radio and borrowed antenna tuner (courtesy Mike Coffey, KJ4Z), and erecting an antenna. The first reinstated UTARC HF Contact was made on February 3, 2001 by KJ4Z. While the location of the antenna is very poor, limited operations are now possible on HF, and many contacts have alr eady been made.

The club owns a large library of QST, Ham Radio Magazine, and 73 dating back to the 1920's, and we continue to preserve many historic club documents.

By Mike Coffey, KJ4Z

On Saturday, February 3, three student operators met in the cold outside Neyland Stadium, intent on defeating seemingly insurmountable odds to

achieve their noble goal: to return W4EAL to the air, after a decade of silence. The crack group of station builders included Arun, KG4LKK; Dan, KB2UVE; and Mike, KJ4Z. At the appointed hour (4 PM), they

assembled and immediately set to work determining the best possible location for an HF antenna. It was decided to commandeer a local tree for use as an antenna support, and a slingshot was quickly produced and used to launch a line into it. Then, 70 fe et of copper line was lowered out the window of the "shack" in the stadium, connected to an insulator on the line in the tree, and the whole apparatus was hoisted aloft.

Next, the antenna was connected to the antenna tuner with a short run of wire salvaged from a Stadium trash can. At 6:40, the Ten-Tec Paragon was fired up, and the tuner was adjusted for 20-meter operation. It was

decided by consensus to tune 20-meter SSB for a station calling CQ. Finally, at 6:45, contact was established with EA8BA in the Canary Islands. W4EAL was back!

Over the next few days, about 30 QSOs were made with stations on five continents (all except Oceania and Antarctica). Highlights included

QSOs with LX1NJ (Luxembourg), V51AS (Namibia), 4X4FC (Israel), and YO3ND (Romania). Guest operators included KB2UVE, AA9VI, KB3GAN, and KJ4Z.

QSOs were completed on 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters, on both SSB and CW. A great time was had by all, and some operators indicated a renewed

interest in upgrading for HF privileges.

This success was especially encouraging because of the extremely poor quality of the operating location. The antenna is mostly underneath the

stadium, it is located in a depression, next to a hill, and there is a loud noise source nearby. Nevertheless, each of these hams showed their ability to operate under less-than-ideal conditions. Just imagine the

potential if UTARC is able to secure a room at Aconda Court!

Amateur Radio Newsline #1225, Roy Neal, K6DUE

There has been a lot of discussion as to how Russia will bring down its aging Mir space station next month. Actually the process is not very complex, but as Roy Neal K6DUE tells us, timing will be everything:

Timing is everything, now that the Russians are writing the last chapter in the 15 year history of Space Station MIR. They have sent an unmanned cargo ship called Progress up to MIR. It docked successfully. Now, loaded with more than 2 tons of fuel, Pr ogress will fire its thrusters to send the 140 ton space station hurtling back through earth's atmosphere to break up and die in the open sea over the South Pacific..

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the start of the operation to bring Mir down will begin between the 20th and 25th of February. The space ship will be maneuvered into position. The gyrodines that control its attitude will be turned off. On or about th e fifth of March the Progress engines will be fired to begin slowing down the huge assembly. Unless the schedule is changed, on March 6th the thrusters will be fired again to deliver the killer pulse to be fired to slow the space station enough to drop do wn out of orbit and plunge into the atmosphere. The timing of this last pulse is very important. It must be precise if the entry is to be made safely.

Somewhere around 50 miles above earth, the ship should burn and break up. The Ministry says no more than 30 minutes will pass from the moment Mir enters the dense layers of the atmosphere until the fragments that do not burn up hit the sea.

The ministry went on to say any Mir remnants will splash down in the open sea, in the southern Pacific and removed from routes used by ships and airplanes. A large piece of debris might crash into the sea less than 300 miles southwest of Australia's so uthern Tasmania island.

**Feb 12-16^th - School Club Roundup

** Feb 17-18th (CW) and Mar 3-4^th (SSB) - ARRL International DX -.Contest Period: 48 hours each mode (separate contests). Starts 0000 UTC Saturday; ends 2400 UTC Sunday.

By Mike Swiatkowski, AA9VI

A week ago we met with the person in charge of assigning rooms on campus, Bestsey Creekmore and Dean of Student affairs Vincent Carilli. UTARC represented by Dan Bowen, Mike Coffey and myself presented a convincing argument on why we need a new locatio n for out club shack. I feel it was warmly received. It appeared that Ms. Creekmore understood much about why this was important to us since her father and brother had both been hams. Ms. Creekmore had raised the possibility of assigning us a room on the 4^th floor of Aconda Court. This would be a GREAT location. Not only is it a fairly central location on campus, it is also visible to the general public and close to our meeting place, the University Center.

We have not received any word yet letting us know that the room is available. So, donât get your hopes up too high·just yet. I think we have better than 50/50 odds on getting this new location, however.

Before the meeting I was reminded that our membership grew from 2 to 20 members this year and I would just like to say thanks! Thanks for the time you have given to the club. Itâs great to see something arise from the rubbles of nothingness. That says a lot about the character of this club and its members.

ARS004, February 6, 2001

The key to a successful AO-40 recovery effort continues to be a matter of reducing the satellite's spin and regaining the ability to adjust its attitude from the ground. ''The current problem is the lack of accurate AO-40 attitude data,'' AMSAT News Se rvice said. Accurate data are not available because AO-40's sun sensor is not seeing the sun because of the satellite's attitude.

Only when ground controllers can accurately determine the satellite's attitude will it be possible to change it and correctly aim AO-40's high-gain antennas for optimal reception on Earth--and that's assuming the transmitters are functioning on bands o ther than 2.4 GHz. Ground controllers have had no luck hearing AO-40's transmitters on the omnidirectional antennas on 2 meters, 70 cm or 1.2 GHz. Since the satellite's computer was reset and telemetry resumed December 25, the AO-40 ground team has been a nalyzing telemetry sent via the 2.4 GHz beacon--the only transmitter now operating.

AMSAT-Germany described AO-40 as ''in the fog'' because its high angle with respect to the sun temporarily prevents the sun sensors from providing attitude data.

Ground controllers have been pinning their hopes on a previously announced ''de-spinner'' programming routine that would permit AO-40 spin control without having to rely on the sun sensors. The satellite's current spin rate is reported to be 17.7 RPM. But even if the programming fix fails, ''it's no cause for panic,'' AMSAT-DL said. By April, controllers reason, the satellites sensors will again see the sun and ''thanks to magnetorquing, spin and attitude can be actively improved upon the rising tide.' ' Once the spin is reduced, sun angle improved, and antennas pointed, testing can resume. Still outstanding are tests of the VHF and UHF transmitters, the arc-jet motor, and the reaction wheels, among others.

Both AMSAT-DL President and AO-40 Project Leader Karl Meinzer, DJ4ZC, and AMSAT-NA President Robin Haighton, VE3FRH, have continued to be optimistic that AO-40 will have a useful life of Amateur Radio service. Command stations James Miller, G3RUH, Stac ey Mills, W4SM, made a long-term prediction of AO-40's new orbit. They say that even after last year's incident--which silenced the satellite for nearly two weeks--and the resulting decrease of perigee, AO-40's orbit will be stable, although perigee will oscillate by several hundred kilometers.

AMSAT-DL says the recovery effort has been slowed somewhat because of limited access time on the part of the command team, due to AO-40's current orbital parameters.

Feb 22^nd- General Meeting, 8pm University Center Room 217

Feb 24^th- UTARC Exam Session 9am University Center, Rooms 217-8

Mar 8^th- General Meeting 8pm, university Center Room 220

Mar 10^th- Kerbela Swap in Knoxville, Contact Paul Baird (865) 986-9652 for more info.

BE SURE YOU ARE SUBSCRIBED TO THE CLUB EMAIL

LIST!!! Go to our members link on the UTARC webpage and subscribe yourself ASAP if you havenât already.

The Volunteer DX is the official newsletter of the Amateur Radio Club at the University of Tennessee and is published 5 times or more each academic semester. The newsletter is free to all UTARC club members.

UTARC Officers 2000-2001 Academic Year

President ö Mike Swiatkowski, AA9VI 637-8707

VP/Treasurer- Dan Bowen, KB2UVE 595-6879

Secretary- Arun Srikantaiah, KF4LKK 946-5166

Newsletter Editor: Mike Swiatkowski, swiat@utk.edu

Club Monitored Frequencies: 145.43 MHz Knoxville repeater and 146.58 simplex

Webpage: web.utk.edu/~utarc Email:utarc@utk.edu

QSL Correspondence:

Amateur Radio Club of UT/W4EAL

Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept.

University of Tennessee

Knoxville, TN 37996-2100