14 December 1998

Chairman's Chatter

At the end of the year which for several personal reasons could have been considerably better, I'd like to take this opportunity to bring you up to date on the progress of the North London ATV Repeater project.

It was back in March when a group of North London ATV regulars agreed that a resurrection of the project to provide an ATV repeater serving North London, dormant for some 4 years, was overdue.

Meetings were held with Cheshunt and District ARC, which had initiated the original proposal: it was agreed to form a separate group (NLTG) utilising the considerable good work done by the club but driven by a small independent committee with the ability to concentrate on the demands of such a project. It should be said that the CADARC has already invested a considerable amount of money in repeater hardware so those who, like me, made donations to the project at the Picketts Lock show years ago should see them eventually put to good use.

During the summer effort went into completing the proposal together with experiments to ensure we could meet the specification. The proposal was sent to the RSGB for vetting at the end of September.

As many of you know, I had hoped to perform some site coverage tests from Enfield Civic Centre during November or December but unfortunately, due to personal commitments this has not been possible, for this I apologise, however, I hope to get some tests arranged for early in the new year. It is proposed to do initial tests around 1245MHz with an omnidirectional antenna which would enable 'simplex' users to use current set-ups. Following this, we would hope to carry out further tests using, say, 1312MHz with an antenna resembling that set out in our proposal. I would like to hear from members if they have any comments or other ideas.

I think that brings things up to date but we hope to see the 'licence' arrive before mid '99 - fingers crossed.

Finally, the committee, myself included, would like to wish all members of the NLTG a healthy and rewarding 1999.

Regards,

The Secretary's Stuff

Group Organisation:

Chairman/Site Manager	Roger G8IUC
Secretary/Treasurer	John G4DVG (me!)
Technical Representative	Adrian GOOGY
Clubs Liaison	Les G4GYP