[MAMS] Central States VHF conference

[Zack Widup]

Interesting. I like that graph of the elevations for RAGBRAI that show
it is generally trending downhill over the duration. That must've
taken a lot of planning.

I suppose I can take the direct route to get there late Thursday
afternoon and then take the scenic route home on Sunday morning after
the "parting shots." It appears Saturday is the last day for RAGBRAI.

I wasn't quite ready for a presentation this year. Maybe next time.
Brian WA1ZMS wanted to do sort of a joint presentation with me at MUD
this year, with me covering my construction project for 47 GHz and him
covering 78 GHz. I think as things stand now that I'll be unable to
attend MUD. I wish they had it closer to this part of the country.

I haven't received My Softrock Ensemble VHF receiver yet. I'm curious
if the kit involves soldering SMT packages with more than 16 pins at
very close spacing. I don't have a problem with that; I've soldered
EPM3064 chips with 44 pins before. But most of my surface-mount
construction projects only use 1206 or 0804 chips and a few 3-pin
SOT-23 transistors plus a few SMT trimmer capacitors and resistors
that are fairly easy to solder.

I think K3SIW and K9PW have 3-foot dishes that they used in the 10 GHz
contest last year. They are mounted on tripods so they are fairly easy
to set up but not mounted on the car itself like W9SNR has done.

I'm hoping to pick up more tips in Rover Row and the Dish Bowl. It's
always great to see how others have assembled their microwave
stations.

73, Zack W9SZ

On 7/22/12, Dr. Gerald N. Johnson <geraldj at weather.net> wrote:
> Strictly speaking the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa is
> not a race. Its just a full week bike outing with about 15,000
> participants from pre teens to the occasional octogenarian. Lance
> Armstrong may participate. Basically its a 7 day bicycle extended party.
> Towns and individuals along the way set up lemonade, water, and food
> stands and there are floating bars with lots of drinks. The only benefit
> from early arrival at the end of the day is a better pick of a camping
> spot. Most of the camp gear travels in the support vehicles, no town or
> city can house that many in established hotels/motels/ and private
> bedrooms. But most towns chosen plan on making a mint for that passage
> in refreshments sold. One or two counties have ordinances that don't
> allow passage of such a bicycle mob because they have lost lawsuits over
> road cracks that wrecked bicycles and riders. There are web pages
> dedicated to RAGBRAI that search engines easily find.
>
> Looks like in the road atlas that the least interesting but fastest
> route for you will be I74 to Davenport, I80 to Iowa City, and I380 to
> Cedar Rapids. The conference hotel in in the southern part of the town
> that they call the SW. Probably because its the south part west of the
> Cedar River that runs diagonally through town. US 30 to Clinton is a lot
> more interesting drive but RAGBRAI is going to Clinton on Saturday and
> that will make that road a mess of traffic.
>
> I worked in Cedar Rapids for 13 months in 1963-64.
>
> I have a DTN dish with their 11 GHz feed converted to coax and tuned for
> 10368. Its a 30" dish, probably awkward for roving, but I'd like to
> check its performance. I have ideas for a lower system gain feed to make
> it easier to aim, but may not get around to building that feed this week
> as I finish up my presentations. We are having problems with loading a
> video and getting it to be found after moving the files to another
> computer. And right now I have 5 .ppt for 6 papers that might be handier
> to be all in one.
>
> I need to get busy with a 10 GHz PA for 10G+ this year. The eyes aren't
> roaring ready for SMT though. Maybe I'll get a SoftRock assembled to
> practice at surface mount today. Or maybe I could borrow or buy a PA but
> so far there's been no response to my feeler put out on NLRS and MW.
>
> 73, Jerry, K0CQ
>
> On 7/22/2012 11:25 AM, Zack Widup wrote:
>> Thanks for the tips on driving. I've never been to Cedar Rapids
>> before. I heard some talk about the bicycle race but didn't know the
>> details.
>>
>> I had my 10 GHz antenna tested at the conference in St. Louis a couple
>> years ago but I'm curious about my 24 GHz antenna and the little Yagi
>> I use for portable operation on 144 MHz. I don't know if I'll bother
>> with any preamps for testing. I'm curious about the WD5AGO/W5LUA
>> preamp I have been using on 902 MHz but I have to tear the transverter
>> all apart to get it out of the transverter. I might bring my rather
>> ugly but functional 24 GHz transverter for the homebrew display.
>>
>> 73, Zack W9SZ
>>
>>
>>
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