• Station Setup

    • Updated for December 2000

    ARRIVAL IN THE PROMISED LAND

    As we were promised we have been given space in Furnas way off the ground. This allows us to be closer to our antennas, makes work easier, and will give us better reception. In addition we have more space. We are still setting up and plan to be back on the air in early February.

    OUR BIGGEST MISSION YET: Moving back into Furnas hall

    Furnas, one of the tallest buildings on UB's campus and in the area is PRIME space for an amateur radio station. It has a great unubstructed transmission range with no other tall buildings or trees that tall. Currently to get into our building (where the radios are, not just the antennas) we run around 150 feet of coax, we get good reception, but I bet we can get much better .

    The current situation on 04.02.00

    The communications with Eileen Hasset are being kept up. We have learned that during and after Spring Break things have been tagged to move through the Engineering office. We are currently waiting for it to be moved. After that we will have space to set up and plug in. The next step will be having more stuff moved out of the room in general. The final step will be reconnected our antennas and splicing the feed line and then yanking the remaining 150 feet out of the lower three floors of Furnas and the bridge to the Jarvis third floor. We continue wait.



  • Setting up a second HF antenna on the roof of Furnas.

    • The club has a nice 5-element beam antenna and a rotor, both aren't being used. We plan on adding them to the club's list of working gear.

  • Getting the TS-820S a new "final" or power tube.

    • We were only getting about 10 Watts out of 100 and can't find out why. After much work by Greg, the society's engineer and vice president, he found the reason as being the power tube. After purchasing a hand-matched pair of radio tubes, military grade, we have gotten the rig working with full power! See below:

  • HF IS ONLINE!! It has taken a while, but the HF rig is now operational. The TS-820S, our HF rig, is now working. Our first contact was made to a station in North Carolina, W2LKS, on February 8th,1999. This contact may not be very worldwide, but it does mean that we can do it. Further work on the station is disussed below.


  • Installing an HF antenna on the tower on Furnas Hall

    The HF antenna is up! Our beautiful G5RV-E antenna can be seen going across the roof of Furnas. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED on December 8th, 1998


  • Getting some other the older tube-based rigs working
  • Getting ethernet and telephone connections in the shack

    The idea of adding a phone, paying for monthly service, and making a small amount of calls is being put aside for now. Most of our calls are local and can be made from the SA office. They usually are to Domino's. When calling regional hams the officers usually do that from their phones anyway.

  • A pipedream for now, but setting up a webcam on the top of Furnas to oversee our antennas, the beautiful Buffalo skyline, surrounding area, and Canada (Oh Canada!)

    We are looking for sponsers. IBM, UB Micro, CEDAR, Connectix, IEEE, any and all are welcome and would receive recognition and links to their pages and information


  • Setting up a packet (radio communication with a computer) station
  • The purchase of a Morse Code Key (straight). We've got an electic keyer.

    If you can help out with any of the above activities, please contact us.

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