College Station, Texas, U.S.A. • Brazos County • EM10to
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The W5AC ham shack is located in Room 350 in the Memorial Student Center on the Texas A&M Main Campus. Click here to see pictures of the shack.
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Address (updated Summer 2004): Texas A&M Amateur Radio Club Attn #951420 (W5AC) P.O. Box 5688 College Station, TX 77844-5688 Phone: (979) 845-7245 We are in Brazos County, Texas. |
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The repeater is the club's primary means of on-the-air communication, and is located at Rudder Tower (the next building over from the shack). VHF equipment in the shack includes a Kenwood model TS-711A 2 meter all-mode base station (donated by Donald Foster, Class of '36, KA5OGA) and a Kenwood TS-600 6 meter all-mode base station.
To work satellites, we use a Yaesu FT-726R VHF/UHF all-mode satellite station.
Our UHF (70 cm) radio is a Kenwood TM-441A. We are in the process of building a club UHF packet radio network, for fun and emergency uses. The latest information is posted here - dataradio.php
The shack has an AEA PK-232MBX for RTTY, AMTOR, and CW encode/decode (to be used on VHF/UHF). It can run up to 1200 baud, and the MBX designation indicates it has a mailbox feature. It is on loan from Kurt Freiberger WB5BBW. We also have a KAM (Kantronics All-Mode) Terminal Node Controller (TNC). The VHF desk has three different amplifiers, each capable of FM or SSB operation, as well as a Realistic Pro-2005 scanner.
HF gear includes a Kenwood model TS-930S with automatic antenna tuner, a Kenwood TS-940S (donated by Donald Foster, Class of '36, KA5OGA) with automatic antenna tuner, and an Icom IC-751.
For HF we also have Drake and Henry amplifiers, and 2 external antenna tuners. For digital modes (including RTTY and packet), we have a software solution running on a PC on the HF side of the shack.
We now have a NOAA Weather Radio receiver (with alarm) in addition to numerous maps of the area, which may prove useful for Skywarn storm-spotting (or TAMMSSDA stormchasing) in the future. Mike KZ5M has also donated an old television to the shack, so we can keep up with local news broadcasts - just in case. The W5AC shack can be used as a backup communications center if there is an emergency in our area (note from our history that "our area" is pretty big). NOAA Weather Radio also broadcasts Amber Alerts.
The shack has ample desk space, a comfortable couch and an old AM/FM radio for those times when one just can't get good studying done anywhere else.
A 350 Mhz K6-2 running Linux handles e-mail accounts for club members as well as our web server, while other machines handle satellite tracking, RTTY, logging, etc. Our Pentium announcing DX spots on 145.590 MHz, "EGOR," has been dismantled after a nearby lightning strike damaged it.
W5AC has several types of antennas on the roof. Height of the antennas ranges from around 40 feet Above Ground Level (AGL) for the TVRO satellite dish to about 100 feet AGL for the top of the HF tower.
The VHF tower array is pointed in the horizontal plane with a remote rotor.
This array is pointed anywhere in the sky with a Kansas City Tracker, or "KCT", to follow satellites (especially Orbital Satellites Carrying Amateur Radio) automatically.
This array is pointed in the horizontal plane with a remote rotor.
* With this, we can receive and thus rebroadcast NASA Select TV Audio on 2 meters during shuttle missions. However, NASA Select rebroadcasting on 147.540 MHz is inactive for the forseeable future as NASA TV has changed its schedule format. Also, the lightning strike that disabled "EGOR" also damaged the TVRO equipment.