K2GXT: Henry 2K-3 Linear Amplifier Restoration

After almost selling the clubs Henry 2K-3 legal limit (1.5 KW), we have decided to fix it up at use it. The Henry is from the late 60's to 70's and is a floor amplifier. It uses two 3-500Z tubes to produce 1,500 watts in the HF bands easily.

We know that there are a few problems.

• Panel Meter (right) is missing.
• High Voltage is low @ 2,100 volts (should be between 2,800 and 3,100 volts)
• Possibly an uncalibrated meter, or a mix of both

I will post pictures and other info as we get more information! Stay tuned for more updates about the project!

Beginning of Spring Quarter, Sprint Season, RIT Solar

Last week was spring break for RIT and I went to Cocoa Beach, FL with RIT Crew to train. It was amazing! I had never been more south than Pennsylvania, making the trip that much better! We did a lot of rowing and land practice. I never knew that I could get up at 6am and be tired enough to practically fall unconscious at 9pm.

I was rowing in a "four" which was a nice change from the eight. We rowed in the ocean and had many new experiences from that. On the first day of practice, the novice eight I was rowing in (didn't practice in the four until Tuesday or Wednesday) was going down a channel we used because it was nice and straight for about 3 Km. During this morning practice, we got to row alongside a dolphin! Some people might not find that cool but it was only 15 or so feet away and was really cool to me.

I got to try surfing, go to a Ron Jon's surf shop, see palm tree's (only saw them in movies before that!), and other fun activities. We were not the only crew down their either, alongside us was WPI, Fairfield University, Holy Cross, and Northeastern University. We left Cocoa beach Friday morning to head to Aiken South Carolina for SERCS (South East Rowing Collegiats) which took 10 hours! We got lost in the middle of Georgia for about four hours.

We didn't get to row in Aiken, SC because we got their too late on Friday and the race was canceled due to high winds on Saturday March 8, 2008. I did get to see family that lives in Georgia that I have not seen in a few years so it was very worthwhile and fun even though I was really bummed that we didn't get to race.

Spring Quarter

Spring quarter is definitely going to be tough, I am already very busy and it's only week one. We are having more demanding practices due to Spring season being the sprint racing season for RIT Crew. With the demanding EE curriculum, RIT Crew, clubs like K2GXT, and Imagine RIT, this quarter is going to fly by and I'm holding on so far. I managed to do pretty well Winter quarter and really surprised myself with my grades on final! Those were some well earned grades, no matter what they were!

RIT Solar

We are working on our Imagine RIT project now. I found out that even though I will be helping with designing, finding funds, and building the project, I will most likely not be able to go present at Imagine RIT. This is due to the NYS Championships in Whitney Point, NY on the same day of May 3, 2008. As enthusiastic and devoted to the project as I am, I will NOT let RIT Crew and myself down by skipping the race for the show. The team and I have trained hard enough, gone through our share of pain with winter training on the ergs, and will be going through much more in the coming months to back down.

We are currently designing a prototype "proof-of-concept" open loop solar hot water system. We will build it and display it with other materials. We are almost done determining our costs and will be actively searching for some sort of funding. This project is not just a science fair exhibit, we want to raise awareness of this technology and influence the institute to implement solar hot water on campus. Keep watching this blog for the link to our website that will document the progress and updates to the solar hot water project!

That is about as much time as I want to devote to the blog, unfortunately I would love to add more but must get more work done. Thanks for reading my blog, I hope it is interesting and informative about what is happening at RIT!

RIT Solar Hot Water

I am on Spring break finally! The last two weeks were two of the most stressful and sleep deprived weeks I have ever been through. Now that I am done I want to share our progress on the RIT Solar Hot Water project.

Our group presented on Friday February 15, 2008 to our FYE (First Year Experience) class. The presentation went very well and we were congratulated on all our hard work. The FYE instructor said that it was one of the best presentations that she had seen in FYE! She also suggested that we continue on to Imagine RIT!



We did just that! We are officially going to be presenting at Imagine RIT on May 3, 2008. We will be choosing our location on campus soon. The event is free and open to the public; RIT is expecting roughly 30,000 people to attend. The bad part is that I may not be there to present the project at the festival. New York State Championships for rowing is being held that day in Whitney Point, NY and if I am in a boat for that race I will be there. While I would love to attend Imagine, I have been training with RIT Crew for those championship races and do not want to let the team down. Again, I might not be in a boat for that particular day and therefore could attend the festival.

At Imagine RIT we plan on having a visual presentation explaining our concept with more detail and data for an actual installation of a solar hot water system. We also want to build a small solar collector and circulation tank system to show the process of heating water with solar energy. This will only be a proof-of-concept system, if we installed a system on campus it would be professionally built and installed.

We will be starting as soon as possible to raise funding for our project. The solar collector system will cost a good amount of money (at least to college students!) so we want to find sponsors to help with the costs. If anyone reading the blog knows of a company or someone that is willing to help a school project please contact me (my email should be in my profile) and we can talk more about what needs to be done.

The goal of this project is to research the best possible initial installation of a solar hot water project on the RIT campus, present it to the campus, community, and administration, and get a system installed on campus. We are really striving to get this project installed and are working to obtain that goal.

Any support we get will and has motivated us to continue our project. Fitting in the time to do this project is a challenge to all of us. However, we are all passionate about seeing results on campus. Thank you for reading my blog, watching the presentation slide show, and your support for our project.

Finals Week

It's finals week, that explains it all... Studying... well until then feel free to contact me on AIM with the Digsby widget on the left sidebar of the blog. Digsby is an instant message client developed by an RIT alumni company, its in beta testing with RIT students!

Survived Week 10

Wow, I survived week 10. This week was the most insane week I have ever been through here at RIT. I studied like crazy for my physics and calculus tests, I also had an evironmental studies finals and a crew 2k test. From Sunday morning through Thursday morning (3am?) I slept about 7 hours, watched the sun rise twice from the college of science! Onto finals week, lots of studying this weekend after some well needed sleep. After that, spring break in Florida with RIT Crew! Tons of rowing and maybe I will get a chance to visit the Kennedy Space Center... my tech side showing on that comment. I'll post about the solar project when I get a chance to write up a story, I'm still writing up physics labs at the moment!

Week 10 at RIT

Well it's week 10 here at RIT and that means it's the LAST week of classes, exams are week 11. I will try and update the blog when I can, I have some great news about the RIT Solar project! Unfortunately if I tried to write something now I wouldn't be able to put much effort into it so I will wait until more time is available.

Thanks

School Club Roundup 2008 - Day 1

School Club Roundup is an annual contest that is aimed for school amateur radio clubs. I started participating in it when my brother Brent and I founded the Chelmsford High School Amateur Radio Club KB1NAY in 2005. Click on the name of this post to find out more info about the contest.

RIT Amateur Radio Club K2GXT Daily Dispatch:

SCHOOL CLUB ROUNDUP DAILY DISPATCH
11:46 PM, Monday, February 11, 2008

Operating Hours: 4.34
Voice Contacts: 1
Digital Contacts: 1
Current Score: 9

1 State Contacted:
FLORIDA

1 Radio Club Contacted:
W4LX

So we didn't have much luck. We are pretty sure that our G5RV is "dead" we are in the process of building an Off Center Fed Dipole to replace it (I will post my power point presentation on a later post). Our beam is only made for 20 meters (14 MHz) and higher, it will tune on 40 but we haven't had much luck with that.

The best option we have might be to get on 20 meters during the day and operate, we will see how that works out! Good luck to all those who are participating!