September QUA CVARC 2014

Transcription

1 September QUA CVARC 2014 A Monthly Publication for the Members of the Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club Inside this Issue: President s Message 1 Trivia Corner..1 Meeting Discussion..2 CVARC VE Session Report 2 Estate Sale..2 For Sale 3 Calling All YL s.3 Fall UHF/VHF Sprint Contests.3-4 KWM-2 For Sale.4 Mini Field Day Scheduled 4 Make Your Own Dipole 4-8 Amateur Radio Study Guides.9 Guide to non-taxable donations 9 Application to Join CVARC..10 Ventura County ACS/Repeaters.11 CVARC List of Officers.11 The CVARC club meeting is held at 7:30 PM on the third Thursday of the month (except for December) at: The East County Sheriff s Station 2101 East Olsen Road Thousand Oaks, CA The East County Sheriff s Station ( ECSS ) facility is just off the 23 freeway from the Olsen Road off-ramp, north, between Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley. Trivia Corner Elecraft elected to design its new power amplifier around a solid state RF deck to enable automatic tuning using 120 VAC (because that s what most people have readily available), at 500 watts as that output adds the greatest incremental value (about 6.75 db) to the signal. For this month, what company designed the ZG PA vacuum tube? Presidents Message by Zak Cohen, N6PK We have just finished the Camarillo Air Show where many of our members participated. We also are participating in the Ventura Marathon and Bike event. We will soon have our quarterly field day. CVARC operates! We had a wonderful CVARC speaker in August Ken Larson. Jaap will be giving a talk on Software Defined Radio in September. In October we may have a swap meet. Eric from HRO will be showing the latest equipment in time for the holidays in November. CVARC keeps us current! Tim has started the next class for Technician Licensing. The course covers all the information needed to pass the exam. CVARC trains! CVARC has loaner equipment including additional equipment for our various field days, CVARC has Elmer s to help members, CVARC has a library, an operating 2-meter newbie net and 40 meter net, and CVARC is a full service club including emergency communications through ACS and ARES. We have about 45 to 55 members attending each of our meetings - CVARC has enthusiasm. Plans for the future include a bigger training program including operational and equipment training. We are looking to have more trips and social events. Need your help to keep it going. Keep Operating! Zak, N6PK

2 CVARC Meeting and Discussion September 18 th. The Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club will conduct its monthly meeting at 7:30 P.M. on September 18 th, 2014 at the ECSS. We will have a presentation on Software Defined Radio by Jaap de Goede, KK6LMJ. Software Defined Radio is applied Digital Signaling Processing. SDR is widely used in the industry to simplify building, maintaining and upgrading radios by software instead of hardware. The topic of the presentation is on Soldering with Software. Instead of using analog circuits, with modern technology, radio signals can be digitized and digitally processed. Everyone with a personal computer running Linux or MS Windows can experiment with SDR. A simple USB dongle for less than US $ 20 together with freeware can be turned into a (simple) 26 to 1200 MHz all mode receiver. This presentation will focus on the basics of an object oriented development tool for SDR: GNURadio. SDR basics will be explained as well as live demonstrations of developing your own SDR receiver without soldering. Jaap de Goede has been interested in radio technology since he can remember. Yet, it took until he became 50 to become a licensed ham. He realized combining radio technology with his extensive computer experience is a great challenge. Jaap's callsign is KK6LMJ. I hope you can attend. CVARC VE Session Report The results of the August session were previously reported in last month s newsletter. The achievements of those who attend the October 12, 2014 session will be published in the October newsletter. Estate Sale Lowered Prices Astron RS-20A Power Supply, SN $35 Astron RS-20A Power Supply, no SN $35 Startech 2500 freq. counter, power supply and antennas $35 MFJ-207 HF SWR Analyzer with whip antenna $25 Kenwood MC-50 Microphone and base unit SOLD Siltronix FS-301 HF Wattmeter $40 Kenwood TS-440S HF Transceiver 100 watts Kenwood TS-711A 144MHz Transceiver 25 watts SOLD SOLD Kenwood SP-940 External Speaker $65 Larsen 2M/440 Antenna with Diamond Mag-Mount $25 AEA LPF-30, 30MHz Low Pass Filter, 1500 watts $30 Swan VM-1500 Watt meter $50 Mirage B23A VHF Linear Amp boost your HT to 25 watts $25 KLM 170 VHF Linear Amp 10 watts in/170 watts out $50 MFJ-948 Deluxe Versa Tuner II $40 RCA WV-120A Vintage Power Line Voltage Meter $30 Amp Supply LA-1000 HF Linear Amp 500 watts (currently 300 watts - older tubes) $100 These items will be on display at the next meeting on Thursday, Sept 18 th. Zak Cohen N6PK Page 2

3 FOR SALE BY A MEMBER: I have the following APRS system in a GO BOX for sale: Icom IC-28A VHF Transceiver Icom IC-HM-14 Microphone 1/8 " muting plug Byonics GPS receiver GPS2 Power adaptor for Byonics GPS2 Power cord, lighter to power pole Magnetic or lip antenna mount with cable Byonics TinyTrak 2 tracking controller Comet B-10 antenna for 2 meters 1.5, 2.0, 4.0 mm allen wrenches & spare fuses Programming cable, programming battery Tracker information/programming CD All for $ or best offer Ray, WB6L (805) CQ-CQ-CQ ---- All YL's If you're a YL (a "young lady", that is, a female ham operator), and would like to get acquainted with some other YLs, we'll be meeting at Topper's Pizza on Moorpark Rd. (the Ralph's shopping center on the corner of Janss Rd. and Moorpark Rd.) at 5:30 Thursday, Sept. 18, just before the CVARC meeting. If you can come, let me know either by e- mail (KJ6JEJ@ yahoo.com) or phone ( ), just so we have an approximate count. If you don't have a chance to RSVP, come anyhow!! Hope to see all you YLs there! Diane, KJ6JEJ Fall 2014 VHF/UHF Sprint Contests During September & October, there will again be opportunities for ALL hams to participate in an Amateur Radio Contest, to hone their Emergency Communications skills, and to have fun. Each Spring & Fall season brings the VHF/UHF SPRINTS, a series of short contests held for a few hours each week. This year's Fall VHF/UHF SPRINTS are sponsored by the Southeast VHF Society. The Fall SPRINTS encompass 5 distinct operating periods: one in August, but with the remaining four during September & October. The 50 MHz (6 meter) Sprint was already held during August so as to be able to take advantage of possible Sporadic E Propagation. During the 6 meter SPRINT, I was on vacation in the Pacific Northwest and communicated with 42 stations from Vancouver, B.C., Canada to as far away as Tucson, AZ during the four hour event. The 144 MHz (2 meter) SPRINT will be held from 7PM - 11PM on Monday, 22 September. Commonly used frequencies will be MHz +/- on USB/CW, while FM Operators typically use or MHz FM Simplex. (Note: Repeaters and MHz FM Simplex, the National Calling Frequency shall NOT be utilized) The 223 MHz (135 cm) SPRINT will be held from 7PM - 11PM on Tuesday, 30 September. Most, if not all activity, will be MHz +/- on USB/CW, while FM Operators use MHz FM Simplex. Most activity will be noted from about 7PM - 9PM. The 420 MHz (70 cm) SPRINT will be held from 7PM - 11PM on Wednesday, 08 October. Most, if not all activity, will be MHz +/- on USB/CW, while FM Operators use MHz FM Simplex. Most Activity will be noted from about 7PM - 9PM. The Microwave 902 MHz & up (33 cm & up) SPRINT will be held from 6AM - 1PM on Saturday, 18 October. Page 3

4 (Anyone planning to participate in this one should send an to for ideas & coordination!) For further info, including logging & entry submission, please refer to: >>>> t_rules_rev01.pdf<<<< PLEASE submit an entry, even if you make only 1 or 2 QSOs. This helps provide data on OUR use of Amateur Radio Allocations. Pete Heins, N6ZE A Classic For Sale Collins KWM-2 transceiver, 516F2 power supply, 312B4 station controller, manuals--$1600. Clean and functional, not banged up, non-smoking. Could use readily available new tube set, capacitors, and interconnecting cables to be 100%. Norm-AB6ET, (805) Ham Homebrew 101: Make Your Own $10 PVC Dipole By KK6FUT, Benjamin Kuo (kk6fut@verizon.net) As a new ham (first ticket in July of 2013), I've been surprised at how few hams in CVARC are building their own equipment today, whether it's because of the "intimidation factor", a "it's easier to buy" attitude, or just lack of mentors and help to get things up and running. However, building your own ham gear doesn't need to be complex or expensive! In this article, I describe one of the easiest things to build yourself, and something which even the newest or most inexperience ham can build to gain some confidence in building other ham radio projects: the dipole antenna. What's A Dipole? The dipole antenna is the simplest ham radio antenna you can build, and is typically used on the HF frequencies (although you can build a dipole for any band, even 2m and 70cm!). Basically, a dipole is a half wave long (remember those Ham Radio questions?), and consists of two pieces of wire, insulators on either end and in the middle, and a connector for securing to your feed line. An example of a simple homebrew dipole is shown below: Mini Field Day Scheduled In keeping with CVARC s practice to conduct some form of Field Day every quarter, a mini Field Day is scheduled for October 11, 2014, from local time, at the Thousand Oaks High School picnic tables under the roof where we had one previously. Please make plans to get your gear and antennas coordinated with Adrian Jarrett to ensure we have another successful outing. Adrian, K6KY Figure 1: A simple homebrew 40 meter dipole Page 4

5 Typically, you string up a dipole between two trees, or suspended from a pole. In my case, I install my dipoles between a pole on my hillside and my house, so that I can get approximately 20 feet off the ground (not ideal, but it works). Ideally, you would have a dipole installed about one half wavelength off the ground. Figure 2: Diagram of a typical installation of a dipole Why Build It, When You Can Buy It? First of all, why build a dipole when you can go out and buy one at any Ham Radio supply shop or catalog, or even ebay? Simple: a commercial dipole will perform no better than your own homebrew antenna--and often will perform worse. Due to the simplicity of the dipole, what really matters is how well tuned that dipole is to your specific feed line and location -- not any magic setting that can be set in the factory. That tuning of your SWR -- which is best done with an antenna tuner, but can also be done just using a simple SWR meter -- is dependent on how far off the ground your antenna is installed; what metal objects are nearby your antenna; what type of feed line you are using; and how far away your radio is from your antenna. All of those factors are entirely dependent on installation, and none of those are dependent on manufacturing. A dipole antenna is just a piece of wire - - there is no magic or "secret formula" which makes a commercial antenna any better or worse than a homebrew dipole. Really, Can A Homebrew Dipole Antenna Work? You might think -- in a day and age where people are bragging about their log periodic, yagi arrays 150 feet in the air, 1 KW linear amp, and $2500 rig -- can a homebrew dipole actually get you out there? Yes it can- -and in fact, does quite well. My very first HF contact, ever -- using a homebrew, 20meter dipole -- was to British Columbia (VE7TUB - through a special event pileup, no less), and my next contacts on 20 meters in the next few days as a new ham were to Mexico (XE2JS), Lithuania (LY5A), Croatia (9A289A), and Russia (UA3KW)! I then build a 15 meter dipole -- and instantly piled up around 25 contacts in Japan on a weekend contest, and ran across an island in the South Pacific I had never heard of, Ratatonga (E51AND) -- all running a mere 100 watts on an ancient Kenwood TS-520 I bought for $120 the weekend before. How To Build Your Own Dipole, Step By Step So how do you build a dipole? It's so simple, I've outlined it in an eight step process. Step 1: Build your insulators (two end insulators and one center insulator) Using your PVC pipe, you first need to build insulators for either end of the antenna, and one for the center. For the end insulators, I cut off two, 2 inch segments of PVC pipe, and drill four holes using a drill and a 1/4 inch bit. Two holes on each side are for securing the antenna wire, the other two holes for your paracord. (cont d. on next page) Page 5

6 want the dipole to work on. For example, if you only use 20 meters phone and you are a General License, you will want coverage from MHz. I tend to work voice between (down in DX land) up to around , so I'll center my example dipole at Calculation: feet Length (in feet) = 468/ = approx. Step 3: Cut your wire to length, adding a little extra Figure 3: End insulator, with wire running through Next, build your center insulator. In addition to holes on either end for the wire, I also drill a large hole (3/4 inch) which matches the inside end of my SO- 239 connector, so I can nest it inside. Next, now we know how long our antenna should be, we'll cut our antenna. Because that calculation is a rough estimate (dependent on the dielectric constant of the wire we are using), I always add about 5 to 10 percent more and trim it to the best SWR (easier to remove wire than add it!!), so let's cut 35 feet for our antenna here. Step 4: Divide your wire in half. Since we need to install our wire in two parts on the antenna (the signal and return halves of the dipole), we cut our wire exactly in half. For this example, we make each side 17.5 feet. Step 5: Install your connector in your center insulator and solder wires. Figure 4: Center insulator, with wires and connector installed. Step 2: Calculate the length of your dipole Here's the hard part, the math. As all Hams should know--even if they've never applied the theory, it's on the test! A dipole s length is calculated by dividing 468 by the frequency. Typically, you use the middle of the frequency range you Now that we have our wire, we will install our feed line connector (I use a SO-239 chassis connector, so that you can connect any feed line to the antenna) in the center insulator, and solder the wires for the antenna -- one to the center connector, and the other to a ground lug/screw. Step 6: Secure your wire to your end insulators. Now that we're all set with our center insulator, we now connect our wires to our end insulators. That involves feeding the wire through the insulator, looping it back on itself, and making sure it doesn't come loose. You can also attach your paracord now to the insulators, if you want -- or wait until you pull up your dipole to its install location. Step 7: Install your dipole in final location, temporarily. Page 6

7 Next, you install your dipole in its final location -- however, we're not done yet! This is temporary, because you will be taking the antenna down a few times to adjust the SWR of the antenna. Make sure you use the same feed line as you will use to connect to your radio permanently, because the SWR is dependent on the length and type of feedline! Step 8: Check SWR, trim or add, check again, repeat Now, here's the part that takes the longest -- you will now have to adjust your antenna to minimize your SWR. You want to get as close to 1:1 SWR (or 1.0) as possible. It's easiest to do this with an antenna analyzer, however, you can also do this by running low power on your radio, connecting it through an SWR meter, to the antenna, and putting it into tune mode or keying CW. Usually, you'll find your SWR even at this point is probably already less than 1.5, because we've cut our antenna to fit. What I do typically is: 1. Tune your radio to the high, middle, and low end of your desired range. In our case for 20meters, check , , and at each point, note the SWR reading you are getting when keying down on low power. You might also check other spots, looking for the lowest SWR reading. Determine if your antenna's tuning is high or low. For example, if you check your SWR and see that you are getting a SWR of 1.0 at , 1.4 at , and 1.8 at your antenna is too long. I would trim a little evenly from both sides of the dipole (usually, an inch at a time), and check the SWR at those same locations again. If you are seeing an SWR of 1.5 at , 1.3 at , and 1.0 at , your antenna is too short. In this case (and hopefully it's not because we cut the antenna long) you have to add wire to your antenna. To add wire, you need to add the same amount of wire on either end, by twisting additional wire and attaching that additional wire to your end insulators. 1. Repeat this process until the SWR at your center range is the lowest across the band. Usually, it takes me two or three tried to get the SWR to where I want it using an SWR meter. We won't cover it here, but using an antenna analyzer, you can find the center frequency and adjust your antenna faster (with some math and an analyzer, you can actually determine exactly how short or long you are). Typically, with a dipole installed high enough, you are going to get about as close to 1:1 SWR as any antenna will get -- meaning all of the energy in your radio will be going out of the antenna, rather than being reflected back into your radio! That also means you will NOT need an antenna tuner on that band. The last step, is to get on the air! Once you have your dipole up and installed, and trimmed to the lower SWR, you are now ready to get on the air! Conclusion So, as you can see, it's not too difficult to build your own dipole antenna, which -- despite the low cost -- is very simple, performs extremely well, and can be custom tuned and optimized for your install location. Although this is a short article which doesn't go into lots of detail, hopefully I've provided enough here for you to get your own start at building your own, dipole antenna on your favorite band! (cont d. on page below) Page 7

8 Parts list for the dipole: 1/2 inch PVC pipe (free if you have scrap, otherwise it's approximately $5 for 10 feet -- enough for a lifetime of dipole antennas) SO-239 Chassis Connector ($2.50 at American Radio Supply) Wire (14 AWG), Black Thing rope (ideally, paracord) By KK6FUT, Benjamin Kuo Page 8

9 Amateur Radio Exam and Study Guide Websites On the right column under Ham Study, go to Practice Tests On the left column under Resources, go to Ham Exams Log in is required Practice Exams Tax Deductible Donations to CVARC CVARC is an IRS-certified 501(c)3 charitable organization and donations are deductible pursuant to the IRS rules. If you have working radio equipment and ancillary equipment that you can and wish to donate to the club, please contact one of the board members and we will be happy to talk to you about the process. Many companies will either grant or match employee s gifts to nonprofit organizations like CVARC. Please determine if your company is among these and contact a board member so we may help fund and grow CVARC. We cannot accept certain donations, and have to place some restrictions around them (no hazardous materials, nothing we could not sell, etc.). If you are interested, look me up, or any other board member, at one of the meetings or contact us via (our addresses are on page 11 of the newsletter). CVARC is recognized by the ARRL as a Special Service Club (SSC). To be a part of the ARRL s Special Service Club program, the club must regularly show that it is actively involved in certain areas, including: New Ham Development and Training Public Relations Emergency Communications Technical Advancement Operating Activities Page 9

10 QUA CVARC, AA6CV, AUGUST, 2014 Name: Call Sign: Class: Address: City, State, ZIP: Telephone: ( ) - ARRL Member expiration date (on QST label): ACS#: ARES# Date: Update Roster Only? Family Membership $30: Names/Calls You will automatically receive the newsletter via . If you wish to receive a paper copy by mail, check here: New or Renewal: Single Membership $25 Family Membership $30 Multi-year $20/year = New Ham (licensed in last 12 months) $10 Single Membership & full-time student $10 ARRL Membership Renewal (incl. ARRL form) $ Ad Space (2x3) One Year member $35 Ad Space (2x3) One Year non-member $75 Total enclosed $: Cash Check Number Interested in: License Upgrades: Joining ARES/ACS: Disaster Action Team: Earning a ham license

11 QUA CVARC, AA6CV, AUGUST, 2014 Ventura County ACS/ARES Times and Frequencies: Area 2 ACS/ARES members are encouraged to check in every Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. on the Area 2 check-in nets. Please note that the detailed list of ACS/ARES frequencies, repeaters, off-sets, etc. is available on the Internet. The official frequency list was updated 9/20/2013 and is available at: [Please note that these frequency charts are notoriously difficult to edit. If you see an error, please bring it to the Editor s attention. Thank you.] For quick reference, you may wish to pick a local repeater, shown courtesy of Zak Cohen, with their offsets/pl from the abbreviated list below: Simi Valley AD6SV Thousand Oaks - BOZO N6JMI Camarillo WB6ZTQ Oxnard WB6YQN NIL Ojai Valley N6FL Ventura N6VUY Santa Paula & County Wide SOUTH MOUNTAIN WB6ZSN Moorpark K6ERN Red Mt / County / SMRA County Wide WA6ZTT Thousand Oaks - Grissom N6EVC Thousand Oaks Grissom K6HB Thousand Oaks - Rasnow Peak N6CFC Simi Valley K6ERN Thousand Oaks (AMGEN) W6AMG Camarillo Springs K6ERN For questions concerning ACS/ARES, please call Zak Cohen or go to the ACS/ARES section of the CVARC website at Net Control operations for the weekly ACS/ARES Area 2 check-in are run from the ACS/ARES communications center at East County Sheriff Station (on Olsen Road) every Tuesday starting at 7:00 p.m. Visitors are welcome and have the opportunity to operate the station. Please contact Zak Cohen, whose info is listed below, to arrange it CVARC Officers President... Zak Cohen...N6PK... (818) zcohen@ieee.org Vice President... (currently vacant). Secretary... Jim Feldman... W6CWM.(530) jdfeld@verizon.net Treasurer... Christian Ylagan... KD6DWT... (202) kd6dwt@verizon.net Public Relations... Linda Parker (805) rose.lady@sbcglobal.net Technical.. Avi Carmi.K6AVI (805) avi@carmi.us Operations... Adrian Jarrett... K6KY... (805) g4frz@hotmail.com Newsletter Editor... Mike Slate (acting)...n6tea... (818) n6tea@arrl.net Education... Tim Wheeler... K6POI... (818) k6poi@arrl.net Social... (currently vacant).. Member at Large... Todd Kleopfer... KD6RCM... (805) kd6rcm@arrl.net Member at Large... Andy Ludlum... KI6NON... (818) ki6non@arrl.net Member at Large.Charles Pember KG6CLT.(805) crpember@aol.com - Page 11 -

12 QUA CVARC, AA6CV, AUGUST, 2014 Address Correction Requested Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club PO Box 2093 Thousand Oaks, CA FIRST CLASS MAIL CVARC Online For up-to-date information and back issues of newsletters, please visit the CVARC website at In addition to visiting the website, you may like to join the CVARC Yahoo Group at The Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club is an ARRL affiliated Special Service Club. Meetings are held on the third Thursday of every month, except December. The meeting location is the Community Room at The East County Sheriff Station, 2101 E. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks. Meetings start at 7:30pm with a pre-meeting social and technical assistance session from 6:30 to 7:30pm. Meetings are open to the public, and members are encouraged to bring their friends. QUA CVARC is published monthly (on the Monday preceding the CVARC club meeting) by the Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club, AA6CV, PO Box 2093, Thousand Oaks, CA It is ed free of charge to all members. Opinions expressed in articles in this newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the club, its board, or its members. CVARC Membership Rates Visitors are always welcome at our monthly meetings, and we do not pressure newcomers to join. If, however, you would like to support the club and its activities by becoming a member then we will be very pleased. The simplest way to join (or to renew) is to write us a check bearing your address, and give or send it to our Treasurer. Make the check payable to CVARC and please put your call sign and/or address, if you have one, on the memo line of your check. Name, call sign, or address changes may be ed to the Treasurer. Current annual rates are: Regular Membership $25. Family Membership $30. Special discounts are available for new members (licensed in the last 12 months) $10. Full-time Students: $10. Regular members renewing for multiple years: $20/year. Family members renewing for multiple years $25/year.