[K4RY] moving the K4RY shack -- again

[Kris Kirby]

On Thu, 7 Jun 2012, John Klingelhoeffer wrote:
> Good morning ; Yes, I can understand that, but the University (or 
> School) is saying 'get out' without providing a list of possible 
> alternative sites.  Blue-skying the possibilities is a terrible waste 
> of time if you are +20 dB above what the administration is willing to 
> give.  

We just went through this at UAB. We gave up the room, but since the 
tower is attached to the building and is standing on a parking deck, 
relocation to another site wasn't necessary. Basically, a department 
bought remote-controllable equipment to replace the original stuff, and 
hardline to reach the antennas, so we could put two HF rigs on the air 
and our VHF radio. 
 
> In a perfect world, I'd put the tower(s), antennas, and multiple 
> transceivers out in a field up at Auburn Lakes Road (high and quiet 
> ground and owned by the University already) and remote control them 
> via high speed FO intranet (a full-time T1 circuit, at least) back to 
> campus.  That way, members could operate HF and VHF/UHF wherever they 
> wanted to, campus room, dorms, or off-campus apartments, via laptops / 
> desktops remotely controlling the equipment.  

WiFi cards are cheap, and antennas easy to buy for a Part 15 2.4GHz WiFi 
hop back. Unfortunately, as a land-grant school, the land is there for 
whatever exploitation can benefit the school best, so a field tower 
site, while quiet, presents a few problems: attractive nuisance, 
expensive gear in the middle of nowhere, power connection costs, 
security costs (since the city PD does the work of the university PD, 
that means there isn't dedicated patrols to certain areas). 
 
> The Club can always meet for multi-person meetings at the Student 
> Union, which is built and operated for such things, rather than 
> maintaining its own 'office' space.  We need to focus on getting 
> student hams on the air and not just meeting weekly to talk among 
> ourselves.  The repeaters on Haley should be an intercom for all 
> members and all members should have the ability to use them whether 
> through Club-provided handy-talkies or via Echolink.  

^ That. Get more hams in, because hams graduate and move on. Make 
contact with the university EMA group.

--
Kris Kirby, KE4AHR
Disinformation Analyst