THE AIRWAVES April 2018

Transcription

1 THE AIRWAVES April 2018 SIERRA AMATEUR RADIO CLUB An ARES ARRL Special Service Club P O Box President Steve Hendricks First VP Mark Rosenthal Second VPJeff Potter Secretary Bill Burns Treasurer Keith Middleton California BOARD OF OFFICERS KK6JTB (760) kk6jtb@gmail.com W6BST (760) w6bst@arrl.net N6LIP (562) kg6dkj@gmail.com WA6QYR (760) bburns@mediacombb.net N6WZZ (760) kk6lkn@gmail.com SARC OWNED AND MAINTAINED REPEATERS Randsburg WA6YBN MHz (-), PL Hz, Wide Area, Emergency Power WA6YBN MHz (+), PL Hz, Local, Emergency Power SARC Committees Technical Assistance: Mike, WA6ARA Public Relations: Mark, W6BST Program: Jeff, N6LIP, (562) Airwaves Editor: Mike, WA6ARA RF Interference: Bill, WA6QYR (760) Emergency: Dennis, W6DQ, (562) THE AIRWAVES CALENDAR Every Monday Night 8pm IWV Emergency Net 730pm WA6YBN Repeater MHz +600KHz offset, tone Visitors Welcomed! IWV 10 Meter Rag Chew Net MHz. Right after the IWV Emergency net Every Night Chat on MHz (except Monday night) 09 Apr SARC Board Meeting 6:30pm 09 Apr SARC General Meeting 7pm Apr DX Convention Visilia TBD Apr Fire Up! Horse Ride 28 Apr SARC and BARC at the Park Jun FIELD DAY! 14 April Amateur Radio License Exam Every Even Month, Second Saturday Location: Old Fire House, located behind the Historical USO Building, 231 W. Station St., CA Pr-reg by 09 April. Space is limited! All must register at 9 AM Contact Mike Herr, WA6ARA WA6ARA@GMAIL.COM

2 SARC 12 March Board Minutes The SARC Board met at 6:30 pm and discussed the need to change from getting volunteers to bring in snacks to the Board buying the snacks using club funds. It was agreed to do that. The remainder of the board meeting was taken up discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the various digital equipment available to put up a repeater. Submitted by Bill WA6QYR SARC secretary SARC 12 March General Meeting Minutes President Steve KK6JTB opened the meeting at 7:05 and thanked Lorilyn KG6LEW for bringing in the snacks. Tammy KG6VYA was giving out 20 Mule Team horse ride coffee cups to those who had participated in the ride communications. The ride organization had given SARC a $250 check for the support. The repeater committee didn t have any thing to report. Dennis W6DQ, now the new ARES leader, spoke about needing more volunteers to make ARES work better and that ARES meeting are on the 4 th Thursday at the hospital in the big conference room in the rear of the administration building at 6:30 pm. Bob AD6HF indicated that there were a number of DXpeditions and foreign stations on the air and it takes a little work to make it through the pile-ups. Upcoming events included the Fire Up horse ride starting at 05:00 am on Saturday April 21 st and running through Sunday morning. Contact Tammy KG6VYA for information and to sign up. 28 April will be the SARC and BARC in the Lone Pine park with food and swap meet. Steve N6MVX brought in some rig mobile mounts to show and tell about. There was a break for snacks, until Bob AD6HF began the program on Using Logbooks. Bob had a picture of an older paper logbook page where you could manually fill in date, time (UTC), contact information, your station power output and antenna data for future use and possible proof that you were on the air at a certain time when there might be an issue of local interference. Then Bob presented screen shots of N3FJP s software logbook (v 5.8) where working through a computer you could easily enter similar data. This software is available on-line for about $24. It supports collecting contacts for awards issued by various organizations. You can also down load the data into the ARRL Logbook of the World and bypass the money expenditure for QSL card postage and the cards themselves. Both amateurs in the contact must sign-in and report the contact for it to count. The 50/50 prize of $10 went to Alex KM6DLI. The door prize went to Steve KK6JTB. Submitted by Bill WA6QYR SARC secretary.

3 Treasure Report 01-Mar-18 Checking Deposits Debits $2, $ $ Mar-18 Checking Balance $2, Mar-18 Checking Balance $2, Mar-18 Saving Balance $9, Reserve $(1,000.00) Cash Available $11, Notes: Income primarily memberships and $250 from Reeves Ranch (20 Mule Team) Keith Middleton N6WZZ SARC Treasurer Upcoming - Fire Up! Horse Ride The Fire Up! Horse ride is a new one for us, starting on 21 April and is a 24 hour event so it end when the last rider goes through or 530 am Sunday which ever happens first. It is a flat course that travels East from Valley Rider property along poleline road, along BLM mustang burro facility and crosses Randsburg wash and Trona roads. 100 and 75 mile courses start at 530, while the 50 and 25 mile courses start 630 and 730. Tentatively there will be 5 water stops plus the start / finish. Two of the water stops may be shut down by mid day Saturday. We hope to have the maps and GPS locations soon. To volunteer contact Tammy, KG6VYA, at kg6vya@verizon.net SARC and BARC at the Park SARC and BARC at the Park is where we, the Sierra amateur Radio Club, meet up with BARC (Bishop Amateur Radio Club) at the park at the north end of Lone Pine. The date is April 28, starting at 11am. There will be a swap table set up and you are encouraged to bring something to sell, trade or give away. Bring a lunch and perhaps something to share. We have done this for the last few years and it has been very enjoyable. We get a chance to talk and swap radios. Hope to see you all there. Also, some will be camping at Lake Diaz on Friday night, so join them if interested.

4 Field Day June Time again for the ARRL Field Day. The dates are June 23 and 24. At press time there are no definite SARC plans for Field Day, so bring your ideas to the SARC meeting for discussion. Also, the ARRL is now selling 2018 Field Day gear, including t-shirts, mugs, pins, etc. Get yours now! HF Mode Trends?

5 The above is from Clublog.org. It is an analysis of the modes beining used that are reported via clublog for contacts on HF for the last year. It shows a decline in most modes such as phone, CW, RTTY but a tremendous upswing in contacts using FT8. What does this mean? Are hams simply switching over to FT8 or is it due to the poor HF propagation as we head to solar minimum and FT8 gives that extra weak signal capability? Also, this is only those contacts reported via clublog, most likely those of contests and DX QSOs. Just general QSOs, rag chews, likely not reported. Also, bare in mind, FT8 is not a conversational mode, it is hello, made contact, good bye style. No Excuses Radio 5 watts and a wire I've always been a QRPer and a proponent of any antenna is better than no antenna. Here is a recent QSL card from the Fuji Islands. The rig was a KX2 at 5 watts, and the antenna was a 50 foot length of wire about 20 feet in the air. Mode was CW and the band 17 meters. This is not to say you can do this every day but it can be done. There are no excuses for not getting on the air and making contacts.

6 QSL Card of the Month Who remembers 6 turning and 4 burning? QSL cards were the way hams would confirm a contact (QSO). Cards were exchanged and formed the confirmation of various awards. More recently the various on line log systems have reduced the habit of trading QSL cards. This is unfortunate, as often these cards had something to do with the personality of the ham at the other end. But a few of us still get them from time to time. Please take a photo of a QSL card you might have and share with us. It can be domestic or DX, recent or a while back, doesn't matter. Just send it to the Newsletter editor. IWV 10 Meter Rag Chew Net The 10 meter Rag chew net is starting up again in earnest. We meet on Monday night, after the IWV ARES net, on MHz, USB. Hope to see you on HF.

7 2 Meter Evening Chat A group of us get on the local repeater, , for a chat just about every evening about 8pm (except Mondays). Sometimes it is technical, sometimes social, always low key and fun. Come join us at 8 on 147. For Sale/ Free ICOM IC HM7 mobile microphone, 8 pin connectors; ICOM IC-HM8 mobile microphone 8 pin connector FREE 4-foot aluminum dish- $30 RF Concepts MHz amplifier 200mw-15w input 100w output 12v $20 Lambda modular regulated power supplies: 0-7vdc 0.8a; 15vdc 1.4a; 0-32vdc 0.4a; 36vdc 3a. FREE Standard Power Supplies: 5vdc 35a; dual 12-15vdc 8a; 8vdc 12a; FREE Eico 1030 Regulated Supply 0-150vdc 2ma, 0-400vdc 150ma, 6/12 vac 3a; FREE PowerTec power supply 18-26vdc 1a; FREE Trimag power supply 350vdc 0.26a Free Type CRR Heterodyne Frequency meter 125kHz-20 MHz with manual Free 19-inch equipment rack 26 inches tall FREE Heat sinks, many sizes free Lots of RG-58 coax- some RG-141 small coax free Lots of shielded two wire cable- free Reels of surface mount resistors and capacitors. A strip a foot long will give you enough parts for a year. These are 1206 and 606 size parts. Free Bill WA6QYR 247 Rebel Road bburns@mediacombb.net

8 Got a ham radio related story, news flash, or just something that happen of interest, please let the editor know for a future Airwaves Newsletter! Visit WA6YBN.COM

9 Open Area Repeaters Status Down Standby Down Location Randsburg El Paso Pk El Paso Pk El Paso Pk Trona Bird Springs Mazourka Pk Hauser Pk Keller Pk Lake Isabella El Paso Pk Call WA6YBN WA6YBN WA6YBN WA6YBN WI6RE-2 WI6RE WI6RE K5GFM KF6FM W6TD K6OX KE6RYZ N6SR WI6RE WI6RE NC9RS Freq in MHz (-) (-) (+) (+) (-) (-) (+) (-) (-) (+) (-) (-) (-) Tone Notes Wide Area, Emergency Power Translator, No Squelch Tail, Emergency Power Allstar #27178, Echolink #518309, Info *510 Net 7:30 PM IWV Club Emergency Portable Repeater, used only for events Packet Node (ELPASO) APRS W1 Digi, iwvaprs.net Allstar Node (27167) usually on WINSYSTEM Trona low level repeater Wide coverage of Indian Wells Valley - swrrc.org RF Linked to Silver Peak in Bishop Near Palmdale, Wide coverage of Antelope Valley kpra.net - Near Big Bear, Wide SoCal Coverage Lake Isabella area IRLP-3741, contact tiplerek@iwvisp.com for codes IRLP WinSystem.org 88.5 Input: Linked to others - NC9RS to wa6ybn@gmail.com to report invalid data. Last Update: Feb 06, 2018