[Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] FW: ALEXANDRIA RADIO CLUB - ARC SHORTS JUNE 2015 - MEETING NOTICE AND NEWS LETTER

[Rick Bunn]

ARC-SHORTS

 

June 2015

 

 

Club Repeaters: 147.315 (PL 107.2), 444.6 (PL107.2), 224.82 (PL107.2), 53.13
(PL107.2) 927.6 (-25Mhz, PL107.2), and 1282.600 (PL 107.2), DSTAR 145.38Mhz,
442.060, and 1284.600 ALL AR UP AND RUNNING - HAM IT UP! Get on the air!

 

NEXT CLUB MEETING

 

Our next meeting is June 12th at our normal location, 3600 Wheeler Ave, just
off of Duke Street about half a block west of Quaker Lane.   The program is
FIELD DAY planning.  See the run down in this issue.

 

 

MAY MEETING MINUTES.

 

Our May meeting program was provided by Ian, N8IK, who provided some insight
into working on modern surface mount technology.  While the target project
was a battery replacement in a Kenwood TM-D700A,  it was interesting to see
what kind of disassembly had to be done to gain access and the techniques
needed to remove the old battery and replace it without damaging the radio.


 

Lots of members have been working on kits and this should have been a great
help.

 

Rick KA4GFY brought up the need to replace the receive side of the 23cm
repeater and suggested we use an ID-1.  We have an interference problem with
that repeater and need to find a way to filter out the unwanted signal.  The
easiest way is to put a PL tone on the repeater.

This will be brought up at the June meeting as well.

 

 

President's Corner -

 

June brings us the very important event of Field Day.  It is a great
opportunity for all Hams, even those with antenna community housing
restrictions to operate in several HF bands.  This event includes the newest
and oldest members.  (If you get to Field Day early, you may be able to also
participate in antenna siting, orientation, and tuning).  

We are indebted again this year to the great team that pulled off last
year's Field Day.  Jack, K5OTZ as lead planner and worrier; Rick, N4ASX as
the Technical guru; and Rich, KA4GFY who does his magic with the trailer and
all its contents.  It would be remiss not to mention Steve, W8RJH who has
once again stepped up to providing meals for the whole lot of us.  So you
have food, antennas, radios, and other contestants eager to talk with you.
It's all there!  Come out and help the club have a record Field Day

As an additional (unrelated) note, it is great news to hear that one of our
newest members has constructed a radio.  Others have also completed kits
during the past month.  Keep up the construction projects and be sure to
bring them to our club meeting so we can all profit from your experiences.

73 Larry, KK4CBL

QRP CONTEST INFO

From: "w2lj at verizon.net [skeeterhunt]" <skeeterhunt at yahoogroups.com>

Date: June 1, 2015 at 10:34:12 PM EDT

To: skeeterhunt at yahoogroups.com

Subject: [skeeterhunt] Skeeter Numbers to be issued on June 21st - 1st Day
of Sumer!

Reply-To: skeeterhunt at yahoogroups.com

Some rule changes for this year!

W2LJ's Blog - QRP - Do More With Less.: NJQRP Skeeter Hunt
http://www.qsl.net/w2lj/

Announcing the 4th Annual NJQRP Skeeter Hunt: "Skeeter Hunt ...Stay Thirsty
my Friends" To see the 2015 Skeeter Hunt Roster - click here.           

View on w2lj.blogspot.com 

The NJQRP Club is announcing the Fourth Annual " Skeeter Hunt".  The
objective is to get QRPers out of their shacks for the day;       

>From John Hocke.

Hamfests -

 

There are two hamfests this month within a short drive.  The first is the
Manassas hamfest on June 14, sponsored by the Olde Virginia Hams ARC.  Its
located at the Prince William fairgrounds on Dumfries Road (also known as
route 234) just outside the Manassas city limits.  The Manassas hamfest is
also the location for distributing awards for the VA QSO Party.  The
Sterling Park ARC always does a great job with the awards.  The club will
have a tailgate spot and if you have gear you want to sell or just a place
to gather, call N4ASX on 147.315 SIMPLEX with the 107.2 PL Tone.  Rich,
KA4GFY has suggested that if you have 900Mhz then listen for us on 927.5
Simplex.

 

The following Sunday, June 21, is the Baltimore ARC's Father's Day hamfest
at the Arcadia Carnival Grounds. It's the Arcadia Volunteer Fire Company
grounds in Uperco, MD.  Talk in will be on BARC's 146.670 (PL 107.2 Hz)
repeater.

 

For those of you who went to the Frostfest in Richmond, you may remember
trying out 900 MHz for communications.  AK4CM, N8IK, N4CWP, W9TCE and I
tried out 900 MHz at the Dayton Hamvention and it worked very well.  Its
nice to know we have another band to use.  

 

Speaking of the Dayton Hamvention, we had our largest rookie class ever.
AK4CM, KM4GML (and XYL, Nancy), KM4GMP and KM4GMQ all made trip for the
first time.

   

Training - 

 

We finished our latest class on May 5 and there are 15 new hams and 2
upgrades. Congratulations to everybody who got their license and to those
who upgraded.  The new hams are:

 

Charles Twist                     KC3EZM               Tech

Nancy Twist                        KC3EZN                Tech

Karl Peters                          KC3EZO                General

Mark Bristow                     KM4KLA               Tech

Jose Ohe                             KM4KLB               Tech

John Ludwig                       KM4KLC               Tech

Ian Bellamy                         KM4KLD               Tech

Belinda Morin                    KM4KLE                Tech

David Chapman                KM4KLF                Tech

Lisa Cureton                       KM4KLG               Tech

Caryl Dawson                     KM4KLH               Tech

Char Silberstein                KM4KLI Tech

Huibert DeMeester        KM4KLJ                General

William Wilson   KM4KLK               General

Angela Dougherty           KE0ELH Tech

 

The upgrades are:

 

Thomas Merrill  W8DOL General

Arthur Lederle                  KI4YNF  General

 

Contests -

 

June 6 and 7 - Alabama QSO Party - Exchange is RST and your State.  Note,
you can only work a station ONCE per mode.

 

June 13 through 15 - ARRL June VHF Contest.  VHF and UHF bands 50 MHz and
up.  Exchange is your grid square.  Most of us are in FM18.  This is a great
opportunity to check out the CW and SSB on your HF through UHF transceiver.

 

June 20 and 21 - West Virginia QSO Party.  Exchange is RST and State.

 

June 21 - ARRL Kid's Day.  Not a contest, but an opportunity to introduce
kids to the world of amateur radio.  We give kids a chance to talk to other
kids and even hams on the radio. 

 

June 27 and 28 - ARRL Field Day.  Not really a contest, but an emergency
preparedness exercise.  But, we put a little competition into it with an
exchange and keeping score.  It ham radio from A to Z in one weekend.  Come
on out and operate.

 

  

Club Repeaters - 

 

The Alexandria Radio Club owns more repeaters than other club in the area.
We have repeaters on every ham radio band between 6 meters and 23 cm.  Here
is a great opportunity to try a new band.  With the exception of the 23 cm
repeater, all our repeaters are commercial grade equipment which should run
for many years with minimal work.  The 23 cm repeater is constructed from 2
Yaesu 23 cm mobile radios with a controller in between.  All the repeaters
provide good coverage in Alexandria and the surrounding area.

 

If you are active on 23 cm, you may notice something continually keying up
the repeater from time to time.  The signal doesn't appear to be that
strong, but it is annoying.  The solution is to require CTCSS (also known as
PL) to open the receiver.  When the equipment for our repeater was made, PL
transmit was standard, but PL decode for the receiver was an option and our
receiver does not have it.  We are starting to look at options to make this
happen.  If you haven't already programmed in the club's standard PL tone
(107.2 Hz) to your 23 cm transceiver, now would be a good time to do it. 

 

The annoying noise on the 23 cm repeater is still there, but only appears
occasionally.  When it does come on, the repeater is unusable.  So, I am
looking around for a solution to keep unwanted signals from accessing the
repeater.  

 

We share the 23 cm band with airport radars and a whole of other services,
so its hard to pin down exactly what is causing the problem.  We will keep
working on it.

 

We also now have a 6 meter net on the club's 53.13 repeater starting at 7:30
PM on Thursday nights, right before the weekly 2 meter net.  If you 6 meter
FM equipment, be sure to join the group.

 

73, 

Rich, KA4GFY

 

FIELD DAY

 

Field Day is one part emergency test, one part contest and one part fun club
activity.  It is also the biggest event for the club (a close second is the
December party!)

 

We have a great deal of new members this year, so for those who miss the
meeting, I will run down the basics.

 

Field Day is a nation wide event with points for working other ARRL
sections.  We compete against other stations with the same number of HF
stations and in the same class of operation.  We are "4A" or 4 HF stations
and on emergency power.  So we don't have to compete against the 27A
stations or the 1D (home stations).  The idea is that your working under
emergency conditions with temporary antennas, in a make shift location
without the aid of commercial power.

 

Our four stations will be managed by team leaders who are responsible for
having all the needed hardware.  We will be using club owned radios, which
is good training for a time when you may have to operate one of these radios
in an EOC or other club station.  Within the next year the city will have
its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) will be up and we will have a station
in the EOC.  We also need to work up the station in the Hospital.  

 

The following outlines our Field Day set up.

Band      Radio     Antennas            Team Lead

75/80 meters     Ten Tec Jupiter Dipole and Vertical          KA4GFY, Rich

40 meters            ICOM IC-746       Vertical and Dipole          N8IK,
Ian

20 meters            FT-920   Water Pipe vertical and dipole   N4CWP, Harry

10 and 15 meters             Kenwood TS-450S            dipoles NW3V, Jay

 

Steve W8RJH is again our chief cook, your welcome to bring a side dish to
Saturday dinner.  If you plan to join us for dinner or other meals, let Jack
or Rick know so we have a count for the food.  There is a donation for the
food and your family and friends are also welcome.

 

WHERE: Joseph Hensley Park on Eisenhower Ave, on the south side, just east
of the metro overpass.  We have the pavilion and the adjoining baseball
field (antenna farm).

 

SCHEDULE:  Saturday June 27th 10 AM to 2 PM - arrival and setup

2 PM Saturday to 2 PM Sunday operate!!!!

2PM Sunday June 28th, turn in logs to Rich and clean up and close down.

 

POWER:  We have 4 Honda 2KW generators.

 

RULES:  Primary radios will be the club radios.

If you want to operate CW or another mode, you need to bring your own key,
keyer, bug interface and when you're done, you need to put the station back
into SSB mode.

The goal is to get all of our members to operate.

If you would please log for a while for someone else.

If you want to use your own rig, you must REPLACE one of the club radios and
put the club radio back in operating state when you're finished.  Under NO
conditions can we allow an independent station to operate as part of the
Field Day, as there will be a station on each major band.  An independent
station will cause interference to one of the club stations and we would
have to change our class from 4A.  

If you want to try a different antenna you are welcome to set it up.

Please be considerate of our operators, if you want to carry on a
conversation please try not to distract those on the radios.

Please share the stations and encourage other members to operate. 

More experienced operators are asked to mentor our new operators.

Have FUN!!!

 

LOGGING

Our score depends on logging. We will all use the N3FJP Field Day logging
program, this allows us to combine our logs for our submission to ARRL.  

 

SAFETY

There will be vertical antennas and they will all have radials laid out.  Be
careful.  

Stations will be running 100 watts, so watch out for being too close to the
antennas.

We are using generators that will need refueling,  This can be dangerous as
the generators will be hot.  We will shut down a generator to refuel, so
radios using that generator will have to be shut down so as not to cause
damage.  

Watch for wires.

 

Future Programs

 

June - Field Day

July - Terry Hines - Antenna modeling.

August - Show and Tell - GO KITS!  Field Day lessons learned

September - Members share their insights on LOGGING and RADIO CONTROL
programs.

October - Digital / Mobile HF

October - Mobile HF

November - Club Elections

DECEMBER  - Holiday party and club awards 

 

We hope to have an update on use of some of the newest solar technology, use
of the new microcomputers and I am trying to find someone to talk about
converting our old XP laptops to use a version of Lenex.

 

If you have an idea for a program, please let Rick know and he will try to
find someone to provide the program.

 

 

Social Events

 

Monday Night Half Price Burgers - There is a group that gets together at
Shooter McGee's (Duke and Paxton Streets) on Monday evenings at 6:15 PM. A
good burger and soft drink runs about $11.00.

 

A few years ago,  a bunch of us went to the Air and Space Museum at Dullas,
is there an interest in another trip (Yes, I know it's not radio).  We c

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