NEW SARC MEETING TIME AND PLACE Second Monday of the month At the Historic USO Building, 230 W. Ridgecrest Blvd

Transcription

1 NEW SARC MEETING TIME AND PLACE Second Monday of the month At the Historic USO Building, 230 W. Ridgecrest Blvd THE AIRWAVES February 2013 SIERRA AMATEUR RADIO CLUB An ARRL Special Service Club RACES ARES P O Box 1442 Ridgecrest California BOARD President Hal Hazel N6HAL n6hal.ae@gmail.com First VP Paula Herr N6VGW n6vgw1@gmail.com OF Second VP Dave Aubin KJ6VRV aubindav@verizon.net Secretary Bill Burns WA6QYR bburns@mediacombb.net OFFICERS Treasurer Julie Stephens KI6YRA KI6YRA@webstephens.com SARC OWNED AND MAINTAINED REPEATERS Randsburg WA6YBN MHz (-), PL Hz, Wide Area, Emergency Power Ridgecrest WA6YBN MHz (-), Translator, No Squelch Tail, Emergency Power Ridgecrest WA6YBN MHz (+), PL Hz, Local, Emergency Power SARC Committees Technical Assistance: Mike, WA6ARA Public Relations: Paula, N6VGW Program: Dave, KJ6VRV Airwaves Editor: Mike, WA6ARA RF Interference: Bill, WA6QYR Emergency: Hal, N6HAL Every Monday Night IWV Emergency Net 730pm WA6YBN Translator MHz Visitors Welcomed! CW Practice MHz meter AM rag Chew Net 815pm 3905 Kcs AM 11 Feb 7pm SARC Officers Meeting 11 Feb 7:30pm SARC General Meeting THE AIRWAVES CALENDAR 23 Feb 20 Mule Team Ride Contact Ed, KI6SPS for info ki6psp@gmail.com Every Even Month, Second Saturday 09 Feb Volunteer License Exam Session Location: Guns 4 Us, basement classroom 417 East Ridgecrest Blvd, Ridgecrest CA No handicapped access Pre-reg by 04 Feb. Limited to 9 applicants. All must register at 9 AM Contact Elvy Hopkins NØLV <lvrh7589@iwvisp.com>

2 2013 SARC Dues are DUE! Yep, it's that time once again. Your 2013 SARC dues are due. Your dues support numerous repeaters, some future repeater expansion, insurance, meeting site, licensing classes, the newsletter and a host of other items. If you were a member in 2012, thank you. If you haven't been a member before or for a long time, then please consider joining. At the start of each year we send out the newsletter to all hams in the Ridgecrest, Inyokern, Rand, Death Valley, California City, Olancha and associated areas. Please use the application at the end of the newsletter and join or re-join! Or better, bring it to the SARC meeting on the 11 th of February at the Historic USO Building. Please remember SARC will only be publishing an , PDF version of the newsletter. From the Editor... If this month's Airwaves seems a bit anemic, my apologies. Paula and I were out of the country for a couple of weeks and got back just prior to the publication of the Airwaves. President's Shack Hi. This is my first input as your club president for this year. I'd like to again thank Harry/K6HLS, Linda/KF6CMW and Mike/WA6ARA for the outstanding job they've done. I'd also like to thank Bill/WA6QYR and Julie/KI6YRA for sticking around for another year. And finally, I'd like to thank Paula/N6VGW and Dave/KJ6VRV for stepping up to fill the vacant positions. We all had a great time at the SARC Installation Dinner last month. Lots of great tasting food which included Tri-tip and chicken prepared by Gene/W5DG. Great prizes were handed out to many of the attendees. Nifty guides, 2M, 2M/440 antennas and more. The Grand Prize, won by Dan Leveille/KK6AEM, was a West Mountain Radio CLRspkr. I've been busy for the past couple of weeks. I installed a new Diamond X200 VHF/UHF antenna and a Cushcraft 124WB 4-element beam. I have the beam permanently pointed at the Randsburg repeater and I can now use that repeater with a mostly clear signal. I have the beam connected to a 2M rig that can monitor 2 VHF frequencies at the same time. I have the second VFO set for the Ridgecrest Translator. Although the beam is not pointed towards the Translator, the radiation pattern is wide enough that the Translator can hear me. I was recently contacted about providing communications support to an event that will be held at Leroy Jackson Park on 3/30. This will be an excellent opportunity to get outdoors and refresh (or learn) your skills at passing tactical traffic on a simplex net. Please see the Egg Hunt article elsewhere in this newsletter for more information. I hope everyone survived the major rain storm that blew through here the end of January. My weather station recorded a whopping.27" of rain. Wow. If this keeps up, we might start checking to see how many inches are in a cubit. At the very least, get some flood insurance. Hey, stay safe out there de Hal/N6HAL

3 NEW SARC MEETING TIME AND PLACE Second Monday of the month At the Historic USO Building, 230 W. Ridgecrest Blvd Treasure's Report Beg Balance $5,367 Income $481 Expense to date (900) End Bal $4,948 Expenses included banquet, annual mailing, and room fee for upcoming class Julie Stephens SARC Treasurer KI6YRA Minutes from SARC January 14, 2013 meeting This was the installation pot luck dinner meeting at the historic USO Building where everyone brought a dish and SARC provided the tri-tip beef and chicken meats. Some 52 people were in attendance. There plenty of food left over after everyone filled their plates. Bill Willis AG6QU had to back out of being first vice president and Paula Herr volunteered to fill the job. This was voted upon with approval. The 2012 officers were thanked for their work. The door prizes were drawn for by ticket number with Dan Leveille wining the grand prize of a Clear Speech DSP Speaker. President Hal, N6HAL thanked everyone for coming and the meeting was over Submitted by Bill WA6QYR SARC Secretary Change in SARC meeting location and night SARC is now meeting at the Historic USO Building, 230 W. Ridgecrest Blvd and on the second Monday of the month. Why? Basically we outgrew the Heritage Inn, standing room only. The price will be approximately the same as Heritage with substantially more room. We are moving back to Mondays due to unavailability of the USO building on Wednesdays. Silent Key Cass Roquemore, WA6IMN We have lost another fine ham in the valley. Cass, WA6IMN. Cass was one of the first hams I met when I came to the valley, with the both of us sharing interest in both ham radio and model airplanes. Cass had held several of the SARC offices, including president. Later in life it became difficult for him to operate but he still checked into the Monday night net when he could. Other times he could be found doing wood working or playing the harmonica. Cass, you will be missed 73 es sk Mike WA6ARA

4 NEW SARC MEETING TIME AND PLACE Second Monday of the month At the Historic USO Building, 230 W. Ridgecrest Blvd SARC T- Hunt One picture says it all The next T-Hunt will be held on 16 March. The time will start at the normal 0900 at Crest Donut. Hope to see you all there! Fire Mountain Horse Ride 19 / 20 Jan 2013 The Fire Mountain 50 horse ride had a few minor issues on January 19th and 20th. The day started a little chilly as the riders left base camp. It was quickly discovered that some riders started on a different loop than what I had originally planned for. Due to a few extra volunteers on hand, I was able to deploy them where I need them to compensate for the error.

5 I wanted to try something new for this event. Before I was tracking everything on a large whiteboard, with a grid of collected times for each horse. This time, I created the board in an Excel file, and added some complex formulas to automate time calculations, giving speed and ETA for each horse. This was also used to estimate the required times for each water stop, as well as calculating which sections the last riders would need glow sticks activated on the trail. I plan on refining this electronic board to make it easier to use, and find ways of making it more useful. In addition to a digital board, we also tried something new on the radios. I linked the 147 repeater to on El Paso Peak. This allowed for easy communications from all locations using handhelds with minimal power. The success of this easy link is encouraging me to get the link to 147 operational again. Overall, we had 120 horses over the two days on the course. We had a total of 14 radio operators that participated in this event in some way. I want to thank everyone for volunteering and assisting with a successful event. KI6PSP K6HLS KB6TJE WA6QYR WI6RE WB6NVD KI6PTA KJ6VSA KI6PSX KG6VYA N6JR AI6S N6CGM K6GOH Upcoming Community Support Opportunities Mule Team Horse Ride Ed, KI6PSP, is looking for help on the 20 Mule Team Ride. The date is 23 February. The ride details is located near the end of this newsletter. Please contact Ed for scheduling, ki6psp@gmail.com

6 Egg Hunt SARC has been asked to provide communications assistance to the annual Egg Hunt conducted at the Leroy Jackson Park baseball fields. This year, the event will take place on Saturday, March 30th. Last year, an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people attended. This year, they are expecting upwards of 5,000 attendees. This is the first year that SARC will be participating in this event. We are estimating that 8-12 Amateurs will be needed. We should have the Ridgecrest Police Mobile Command Center (MCC) at our disposal. Among other items, the MCC contains a work area, a 2M Amateur radio and Police radios. In addition to the Amateur assigned to the MCC, there may be a PACT member working the Police radios. Amateurs will be located strategically around the egg hunt area, at a Lost&Found tent, First Aide tent, MCC and maybe a shadow or two for the event Organizers. To sign up, please call or me at or n6hal@arrl.net. Let's show our community that we can be a great asset to them. 73 es de Hal/N6HAL Visalia DX Convention April 19 DXers! Contesters! Don't miss our 64 th annual International DX Convention April , 2013 in Visalia, California. Now at a new, larger venue with more vendors, more presentations and more fun! Enjoy DXpedition presentations - Technical sessions - Over 60 Vendor exhibits - DX Academy - Contest Academy - Ladies Tour - Golf Tournament - Saturday Banquet - Over $45,000 in raffle prizes - and meet DXers who travel from around the world to this premier DX event. Early registration closes on April 10 th. Register today, and see who else is coming at dxconvention.org SARC Technician Class The 2013 SARC Technician class is set to start on Thursday, February 21, at the Historic USO Building on Ridgecrest Blvd. The class will run 8 weeks and will prepare the students to pass the Technician Class license. Cost is $30, which includes the latest ARRL Tech License book. Please pass this information to anyone who might be interested. Contact Mike, WA6ARA (760) for more details. SARC Extra Class License SARC is sponsoring a class for preparing for the Extra Class License The class will be slightly different than those held in the past for the Technician and General. It will be self study intensive, with a minimum of lecture and a lot of Q and A. The class will be on Wednesdays, starting March 6, at WA6ARA's home. The price of the class will be $30, which will include the cost of the ARRL Extra Class License Manual. Sign up and book pickup will be Thursday, February 21, 6:30pm at the Historic USO Building on Ridgecrest Blvd. If interested, please contact Mike, WA6ARA, at wa6ara@gmail.com or Kern County ARES / RACES News February 2013: The Kern County ARES groups have completed several exercises in the past 2 months. The Western Kern County ARES had a very successful drill involving several hospitals and the Houchin Community Blood Bank. A communications drill was held on 1/16 and 1/23 to determine

7 whether or not the San Joaquin Valley Southern District Emergency Coordinator could communicate via VHF/UHF with all Emergency Coordinators in his jurisdiction. The drill started off operating on simplex. After a few checkins, the net shifted to a repeater that can be all up and down the San Joaquin Valley. Eventually, I was able to check in via a relay using the Randsburg repeater. Overall, the test was considered a success. However, we all recognize that some sort of linked VHF/UHF system is needed in order to provide direction communications. A third drill involved Lake Isabella ARES/RACES, Bakersfield ARES/RACES, Kern County Fire Department, Health Department and Human Services in the Bakersfield area. The drill involved the collapse of the Lake Isabella dam, with the resulting flood waters going down the Kern River Valley area and eventually flooding parts of Bakersfield. This drill was the first of it's kind and provided valuable information to all organizations that participated. Some of the lessons learned are: ARES/RACES personnel need to be located outside of the main Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Using our radios inside EOCs can disrupt ongoing briefings and discussions. Logs and record keeping is essential before, during and after events. Earphones/buds should be mandatory whenever operating around other radios to prevent feedback when transmitting. And as always, continued training is essential. Why should you join the Eastern Kern County ARES/RACES? There are many reasons. I'll try to provide at least one reason each month. Many well-meaning Ham operators have been turned away from disaster sites. Why? Because the Disaster Services people do not know them, do not know their capabilities, and are suspicious of volunteers in general. The Hams may be well-meaning and perhaps even talented individuals, but no one has time to check them out. More often than not, their services are politely declined. An even worse scenario is when an Amateur Radio volunteer is admitted to a disaster site, but has no idea what to do. The professionals assume that he knows what he s doing, but he doesn t seem to be able to contact the right agencies. The messages he does deliver are short on details and don t say who originated them. After a few hours he says that his battery is dead and no one sees him again after that. In other words, he appears to be just another ineffective, untrained volunteer. Becoming a registered ARES/RACES member indicates that you are willing to obtain training and participate in drills and exercises, and learn the Served Agency's requirements. It shows the Served Agencies that you know how to do you job, you know the requirements, processes, procedures and needs of the Served Agency you are supporting. It shows that you will be well prepared to provide communications support. It shows that you have the commitment to support your community. If you are interested in joining the Eastern Kern County ARES/RACES organizations, please contact me at n6hal@arrl.net. 73 de Hal/N6HAL Ask Elmer... I have an MFJ 259b and it says my 2 meter antenna SWR is 2.0. I have an inline SWR meter and it says SWR is 5+. Which should I believe? Should I retune the antenna to the inline meter? Should I remove the inline meter? Same antenna, with the 259B when I scan it I find an SWR of 1.2 at 151 MHz. Again do I need to lengthen the antenna a few inches? To try and get the best SWR at Ham frequencies? And Elmer says... Sounds like your the guy with two watches that don't agree so you don't know what time it is. It is reasonable that two SWR meters will not agree exactly. Often my built in SWR meter does not agree

8 exactly with the outboard one, BUT a difference of an SWR of either 2 or 5+ is a bit extreme. So let's see what we can do. My first question is the SWR meter rated for the 2 meter band? Most common SWR meters are not. You must use one that is rated for the VHF region. Another thing to check real fast is do you get the same SWR reading at all power ranges? You should, if not, that might indicate either a bad SWR meter or a bad coax / fitting. Let's check everything out. You need a small 50 ohm dummy load rated at 2 meters. A lot of the dummy loads for HF can have considerable mismatch at the VHF region. I like to use a small commercial 50 termination. Often they are rated up to 1 GHz, but usually at only a couple of watts. Never the less, they will do the job. I would start with the MFJ analyzer. Put the analyzer in place of the rig, using the same coax. Plug in the dummy load and sweep across the 2 meter band. It should show 1:1 SWR, or nearly so. If it happens to read 1.2:1, don't worry, close enough. If not, the MFJ is at fault and don' trust it. Assuming all is good now plug the rig back in, crank down the power, plug the dummy load on the antenna side of the SWR meter. Check the SWR. Again, should be 1:1 or nearly so. If we do not get agreement, it is time to check all the coax and the fittings. More than once I have chased a problem that ended up being a bad commercial coax fitting. If you cannot get agreement or determine what is wrong, then the best bet is to borrow another SWR meter or analyzer and see who agrees with it. Always remember to use as much as possible the same coax and fittings each time you test it. Ok, we determine which SWR measurement is wrong and which is good. The antenna is a tad out of where we would want it to be. Using the MFJ measurement that says the resonante point is about 5 MHz too high, yes, you can lengthen it a tad. Not knowing what kind of antenna it is it is difficult to say how to do this. If this is a whip style antenna, try cleaning it up at the tip, wrapping some bright copper wire on it and leave a tail an inch or two long as to extend the antenna. Sweep it again to find the point. You can add or snip the wire to find out how long it should be. This is only a temporary solution and is only used to find out how long to make it. If the antenna is a copper pipe J-pole then the feed point can be adjusted. Looking for Work I am looking for some odd jobs or yard work to earn some money. If you have any work you would like done please contact Ryan Richard, KJ6HBY, at 1 (760) For Sale For Free: coils and a spool of 3 stranded number 12 copper plated steel cable good for tower guy wire. Some of it has insulators installed in lenghts of guy wire. Spool has several hundred feet of wire. It could be used for heavy duty antenna wire also. Portable chain link dog kennel 3 ft by 4 ft by 9 ft in new condition. $25. Contact Bill WA6QYR at bburns@mediacombb.net or

9

10 SARC OWNED AND MAINTAINED REPEATERS Click the Freqs for Coverage Map of Repeater Status Location Call Freq in MHz Tone Notes Distance Up Randsburg WA6YBN (-) CT Wide Area, Emergency Power S 18.6 Mi Up Ridgecrest WA6YBN (-) - Translator, No Squelch Tail, Emergency Power S 2.5 Mi Up Ridgecrest WA6YBN (+) CT W 2.5 Mi Up Ridgecrest YBNBBS WA6YBN Bulletin Board, 1200 Baud Open Area Repeaters Click the Freqs for Coverage Map of Repeater Contact WA6ARA@GMAIL.COM if any data is invalid, or Status Location Call Freq in MHz Tone Notes Distance Up Ridgecrest W6DWF WinLink 1200 Baud (Available ) NW 2.7 Mi Up El Paso Pk WI6RE Packet Digi S 10 Mi Up El Paso Pk WI6RE APRS W1 Digi, iwvaprs.net KI6PSP@gmail.com S 10 Mi Up Trona K6YYJ (-) PL RF Linked to TX Audio is low E 15.9 Mi Up Little Lake W6TD (+) - RF Linked to Mazourka Peak NW 24.9 Mi Up Mazourka Peak W6TD (-) PL RF Linked to Little Lake N 96.5 Mi Up Ridgecrest W5HMV (-) CT RF Linked to Input is about -4 KHz off. SE 2.6 Mi Up Ridgecrest WI6RE CT IRLP-3741, contact tiplerek@iwvisp.com for codes W 2.8 Mi Up El Paso Pk WI6RE (-) CT IRLP-3877 S 10 Mi