“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” is what Michael said in The Godfather: Part III. I am not a Mafioso, but I think that I know a little about how he felt. After four years as CCC President and a smooth transition to a new President, I was looking forward to kicking back, playing on the radio, and generally enjoying myself. That didn’t work out at the CCC Annual Meeting at Dayton last month, when I was elected CCC Treasurer. Just when I thought I was out…
Last March, Gene Shea, KB7Q, and his XYL Joyce participated in an experiment with caretaking of the station. They stayed on site after I left and hosted contests and took care of the QTH and worked on several station projects. They of course paid no rent, and were reimbursed 50% of the metered utility usage and 33.3% of the cost of their rental vehicle. This is advantageous on both sides. This enabled them to have some time on the tropics and access to the big station inexpensively compared to the full costs of a rental home elsewhere in a warm place, yet it enabled PJ2T to continue to operate, provided the fun of remote operating PJ2T for those of us who do that, and made for great security for our house and equipment when teams visited. The experiment was a success, and they have indicated that they will probably do it again in 2019. The advantage for me is that I was able to leave about a month earlier than every before and get back to a happy non-solitary life at home with Dorothy. If any one else in CCC is interested in being caretaker at some other time of the calendar year, let’s talk…!
Not an allusion to perpetual island attire, here is a grouping of short newsworthy items for this month, which may become a regular newsletter column. So much to keep up with!
Most of you know Howard and Mary Gay Stone, the seniors who have owned the house next door since 1971. Recently they sold it to their daughter Lynne and her husband Mike Maley. As you probably saw, Lynne finally retired this January at age 61 after much urging from Mike. She went back to Chicago in mid-February to be with her daughter for the birth of a child.
Soon after, Lynne was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic and liver cancer. Neither Lynne nor Mike had any idea she was even ill. Lynne passed away within a few weeks, so all of the family next door can use our sympathy when we see them at the island house.
There is time. There is talent. Then there is money. Each one requires the other two in order for goals and dreams to get accomplished. Thanks to the diligent, nose-to-the-grindstone dedication of largely unspoken guys who get this better than most, the Caribbean Contest Consortium’s treasury is in better shape than ever.
With bigger goals and greater requirements than ever before, although we still have to go the whole distance, we can report we are on track to meet the goals, thanks to the support of our dedicated and passionate membership.
Our immediate past-president Jim Galm, W8WTS, took up the non-glamorous reins of shepherding the club’s digits and decimals so all members can see the state of club finances from 30,000 feet. In the interest of transparency and disclosure worthy of any well-running non-profit organization, here are Jim’s reports detailing the state of our club’s finances.
Pete Gladysz, K8PGJ, recently joined the CCC after enjoying successful contest operations at Signal Point, and stunned the club by making a $5000 donation to the Europe tower project. This foundational support at our time of great need is in addition to other donations of equipment and cash since Pete began coming to PJ2T. Pete’s gift appears to be what brought us to critical mass, putting is over the threshold and prompting the decision at our annual Dayton meeting to go ahead with the tower project. We’re also grateful to Marty, K2PLF and Bill, W9VA for their large donations to the tower fund, as well as several other members who have made four-figure donations each. It’s VERY important that everyone realize that while donations of any amount add up, we all remember other members may not be able to donate this kind of cash. PJ2T is a team, and everyone supports what we do in their own way. Thanks Pete!
It’s on! The quorum present at the Dayton meeting voted to authorize W0CG to proceed with this project. We don’t have all the needed funds yet, but thanks to several very generous donations we are about two thirds there, so it was decided to proceed, counting on the balance of the needed funds to come along when the time comes. The plan is to arrange for the tower and lots of associated hardware and equipment to arrive at the QTH in mid-October. We’ll immediately begin painting and assembling the sections. First will be a coat of epoxy primer, which is light tan. Over that there will be a coat of epoxy white finish paint. Using white will make it extremely easy to assure that we don’t miss even the smallest spot. The third coat will be epoxy machine grey, also very easy to manage on top of a white coat. We’ll assemble the tower with all stainless steel hardware (not the galvanized stuff provided by Rohn). It will be laid in the back yard on wood blocks in place for the crane to pick it up and into position on the tower base in early 2019 once all the other needed prep is complete.
We’re hoping to be able to take advantage of DX Engineering’s very competitive domestic freight rates and piggy-back shipment of many of our own packed boxes (such as the newest AL-1200 and lots of tower parts) onto the shipment of the 10 tower sections to Miami. DX Engineering specializes in domestic freight prep and shipping, and I’m friends with most of the guys who work there. More on that as it develops. Once we get the stuff to Miami, the ocean freight portion is easy and less costly than the domestic freight. We have considerable experience doing this.
Concurrent with the tower prep we’ll assemble our new 40 meter yagi and reinforce it on the island for the Curacao harsh conditions. We have bought that XM-240 and it’s presently in the shipment staging pile at W0CG in Ohio. We’ll also do considerable prep work on the guy wires. See the comprehensive plan for the tower replacement for full details.
We learned from experience, and this tower will be done in a way that eliminates as many of the salt and corrosion vulnerabilities of our location as possible. There will, for example, be NO ELECTRICAL TAPE on the legs, as that is the number one source of corrosion. Many other lessons we have learned will be applied in the new installation.
Much of this Phase I work will be done by the CQWW SSB and CW crews. We’re hoping some ops will be able to come a bit early and stay over to help. We’ll also have professional climbers involved. Again, all the detail is in the plan that you already have in hand.
Our hope is that everything will be ready to raise the new tower in early 2019.
The Rough Numbers
We presently have about $15K in the tower fund and about $5K (after membership renewals) in the general PJ2T operating fund. That tower money will be spent VERY quickly in the coming weeks, but we’re at least not in the financial crisis mode that has characterized so much of our PJ2T operations in the past.
