An ARRL Special Service Club RACES ARES. P O Box 1442 Ridgecrest California

Transcription

1 THE AIRWAVES September 2012 SIERRA AMATEUR RADIO CLUB An ARRL Special Service Club RACES ARES P O Box 1442 Ridgecrest California BOARD President Harry Stephens K6HLS K6HLS@webstephens.com First VP Linda Finco KF6CMW fincolj@aol.com OF Second VP Mike Herr WA6ARA wa6ara@gmail.com Secretary Bill Burns WA6QYR bburns@ridgenet.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: Linda, KF6CMW Program: Mike, WA6ARA, Airwaves Editor: Mike, WA6ARA RF Interference: Bill, WA6QYR Emergency and Public Service: Every Monday IWV Emergency Net 1930 (730pm) WA6YBN Translator MHz Visitors Welcomed! THE AIRWAVES CALENDAR 15 Sept T-Hunt 8am Crest Donuts 29 Sept Kiwanis Walk-a-thon Night CW Practice MHz 1945 (745pm) (Restarts 17 Sep) 75 meter AM rag Chew Net 2015 (815pm) 3905 Kcs AM (restarts 17 Sep) 12 Sept SARC Bored Meeting 7:00pm 12 Sept SARC General Meeting 7:30pm Heritage Inn Program Radio in Uganda - Eric, KJ6NYS 13 Sept SARC General License Class starts 12, 13, 14 October Pacificon! 20, 21 October Jamboree on the Air! Every Even Month, Second Saturday 13 October Volunteer License Exam Session Location: Guns 4 Us, basement classroom 417 East Ridgecrest Blvd, Ridgecrest CA No handicapped access Pre-reg by 8 October. Limited to 9 applicants. All must register at 9 AM Contact Elvy Hopkins NØLV <lvrh7589@iwvisp.com>

2 President's Shack Hello Everyone! I last saw most of you at the SARC ice cream social, which can only mean that it s time for our September meeting. I hope you re all energized and super-charged with excitement about the upcoming community-support season. Speaking of which, I ve received word from the Kiwanis Club that they would like our support for their annual walk-a-thon this year. Note that they ve revamped the route to help keep the participants a little further from busy streets. (Editor a map is included in the ) Another annual event is the Boy Scouts Jamboree On the Air will be October. Bill WA6QYR, Dave AD7GU, Ed KI6PSP, and others did a great job last year, and I ve been contacted about doing it again this year. As of this writing I m still looking for a headcount and venue from their leadership hope to have more details by the time we meet. The plan would be to do what we did last year for the Cub Scouts, but also have Boy Scouts getting some mic time to earn their merit badges. I know that Dave won t be available this year, but there s no reason we shouldn t be able to pull this off! We had a great time last year, and the scouts were more generous with their cash donation than I would ever have hoped (we didn t ask them for anything, but they really took care of us). Since we re likely to need the portable repeater within the next couple of months, I ve got to get with the Repeater Committee and purchase a new antenna mast to replace the fiberglass one that was destroyed by the wind during a horse ride earlier this year. I believe it will be within the total repeater budget for the year, so I don t think we ll need to ask the club for extra funding (don t quote me on that, though). Does everybody know what time it is? Not Tool Time. It s time to put together an election committee for the SARC board. I haven t polled anyone other than Julie KI6YRA, who is happy to continue as Treasurer, but I think it s time for a new President. I m in my third consecutive term, so that means that I m at least partially responsible for whatever problems you may think the club is having. New blood can be a good thing, so why not consider be King (or Queen) of the SARC for a year or two, and fix what s broke? Bring your own cowbell Hope to see you all at the meeting on September 12 th! 73, Harry K6HLS@webstephens.com Minutes from SARC Summer 2012 meetings The SARC 11 July informal BBQ meeting was held at Ron Ogren s home. About 20 people attended. Lots of good fellowship was had by all. The SARC 8 August 31 Flavors informal meeting had about 40 folks present. President Harry Stephens called the meeting to order for one piece of business. The General License Class was going to start in September and needed to order books and materials for the class. The membership agreed to fund the effort to about $700 of which about $500 would be coming back to the club following hall rental and other class costs. The group continued to eat ice cream and have a good time. Several kit built QRP rigs were brought in for show and tell. Submitted by Bill WA6QYR SARC Secretary

3 Treasure's Report Beg Bal $6,410 Income 117 Expense (656) End Bal $5,871 Expense is for club insurance and the general class. Julie Stephens SARC Treasurer KI6YRA Amateur Radio General License Class The Sierra Amateur Radio Club (SARC) will be conducting a training class for the purposes of earning the General Class Amateur Radio License. The class will be over an 8 week period ending with an exam session. Each night will start at 6:30pm and end at 8:30pm. The class will be starting Thursday September 13th and ending November 15 th, with a couple weeks off in October. Below is a copy of the class syllabus. The class will be held at the USO Historical Building, 230 W. Ridgecrest Blvd, Ridgecrest, CA We will be using the ARRL General Class License Manual, 7th. The book is mandatory for all students and as there have been sufficient changes since the previous edition, 7 th edition is required. Be aware, if you buy yours through one of the online book vendors you may get a good price, but it also may be an earlier edition and be useless. We are purchasing the book at a discount from the ARRL and are passing that discount on to the student. The class is formatted for the person who already has a Technician class license and assumes some base knowledge of amateur radio. We will not be covering the material for the Technician class license. Cost: Non SARC member $30 includes book SARC member $25 includes book Non SARC member who already has book (must be 7th edition) $10 SARC member who already has book (must be 7th edition) $5 We are collecting together the material we will need for the class, so the sooner we know who will be attending the better. To reserve a spot please contact me at: wa6ara@gmail.com (760) Mike Herr WA6ARA

4 SARC General Class 2012 Day 1 13 Sep Sign up and introduction - Operating Procedures and Practices Day 2 20 Sep Commission Rules - Math for Hams Day 3 27 Sep AC Power and Basic components, Reactance and Impedance Day 4 04 Oct Active Components, Practical Circuits, Power Supplies and Test Equip Day 5 18 Oct Radio Equipment, Radio Signals Day 6 01 Nov Antennas and Feedlines, Radio wave propagation Day 7 08 Nov Electrical and RF Safety, Sample Test and Review Day 8 15 Nov Test NO CLASS Oct 11 or Oct 25 September Meeting Program Eric, KJ6NYs, will be speaking of his recent adventures in Uganda and radio. As you might recall, SARC supported his endeavors in Uganda by funding the purchase of training material that he used while there. Kiwanis Walk-a-thon It's that time of year again, the Kiwanis Walk-a-thon. We have received a request from the Kiwanis folks for the SARC to support their walk-a-thon. Event date is 29 Sep 2012, starting at 0800 at Jackson Park. They're using a new route this year. New route is the same (or similar) as the Run for the Fund used for their 5k. This is a great, easy to do event to get your feet wet in public service. Everest Challenge Bike Race Sept 29 and 30 The following is from the Bishop Amateur Radio Club. They are looking for voluenteers to assist in an upcoming event At the July meeting the BARC membership voted to support communication for the Everest Challenge Bike Race after Race Director Steve Barnes K1ECR gave a briefing about it. He passed out a map and talked about the routes. Sept 29: The riders start at the Millpond and proceed south to Rt 168 and race up hill to South Lake. They turn around and head back down past the Millpond and race past Rovana to the Pine Creek trailhead. They turn around head down to the Lower Rock Creek Road and race through Paradise to the Rock Creek Road where they race to Mosquito Flat for the finish. The total distance is 88.4 miles on this day. Sept 30: The riders start at the intersection of Rt 168 and the Death Valley Road 2 miles east of US395 in Big Pine. They race back to Big Pine and up to Glacier Lodge. They turn around and head back to the starting point and proceed out the Death Valley Road to the Papoose Flat dirt road (11.2 miles from Rt 168). They turn around and return to the starting point and proceed up Westgard Pass to the White Mountain Road and proceed to the Schulman Grove at the Bristlecone Visitor Center. The total distance is 68.0 miles. At this time there is a Road Closed sign on the Death Valley Road but the 11.2 miles is unobstructed.

5 Our job is to provide communications in the event of an accident or injury along the route. We will be stationed at or close to established aid stations. Sept 29: Net control will start at the Millpond and will be moved to Tom's Place as the race progresses. We will need comm stations at Bishop Creek Lodge, Pine Creek summit, Paradise FS, and Mosquito Flat. We may also have a comm station at South Lake to relay problems to Bishop Creek Lodge on as there is no path from South Lake to Silver Peak. Sept 30: Net control will be at the Rt 168/Death Valley Road. We will need comm stations at Glacier Lodge, Papoose Flat turn off on the Death Valley Road, the White Mountain Road intersection with Rt 168, and the Bristlecone Vistor Center. All communication will be through the Silver Repeater All of these locations were checked for a path to Silver Peak and should be no problem with a 30 watt 2 meter rig and a 5/8 wave vertical. The Pine Creek summit may need more ERP. There will be more information at the BARC meeting on September 11. I will also give times later when the various comm stations need to be activated. There are cutoff times when an entrant will not be allowed to continue in the race. Please give some thought to participating in this event. 73, Kurt, W6PH, Coordinator w6ph@aol.com SARC ARRL Field Day 2012 Report The Gang On June 23 rd, twenty two hearty individuals participated in another successful Sierra Amateur Radio Club Field Day. This year, SARC conducted Field Day up in the rarified air at Horseshoe Meadows. SARC operated using Special Event callsign N6N and as a 6A station (6 simultaneous transmitters / Club). SARC Field Day participants operated just under 6 hours and made a total of 152 contacts using CW (19), digital (27) and SSB (106), for a total of 1,286 points. the 20 meter operation center

6 On the way home, many of the SARC participants stopped by the BARC Field Day site located just off the road at the junction of the Whitney Portal and Horseshoe Meadows roads. We even managed to disrupt the hard charging BARC members from the 40 meter attack group making a couple of contacts. Participants included: Bill/WA6QYR, RJ/AG6DP, Ryan/KJ6HBY, Dave/AI6S (Official camp cook), Micah/K6GOH, Dave/KJ6VRV, Erin/KJ6MQM, John/KJ6MQN, Ron/KE6KIK, Maureen/KE6KIP, Ed/WK6L, Sandy/KJ6VRW, John/KC6UWM (Official photographer), Lorilyn/KC6LEW, Roy/KG6SFT, Chad/KJ6VYA and Hal/ex-VQ9FM/N6HAL. the fearless leader SARC July BBQ

7 SARC August Ice Cream Social SARC T- Hunt Now that the heat of the summer is down a bit,the SARC T-Hunt will be starting up again. Our first hunt will be Saturday, 15th of September at 8am. Meet at the Crest Donut parking lot. After September's hunt we will be continuing them, every other month, odd months. Hope to see you all there.

8 Pacificon 2012! Mark Your Calendars! Pacificon 2012 October 12, 13 & 14 ARRL National Convention Marriott Hotel Santa Clara Go to for registration links Welcome! PACIFICON 2012 will return to the Santa Clara Marriott Hotel. The Pacific Division convention has the honor of also serving as the ARRL National Convention. Plans are well under way to prepare for the biggest and best Pacificon ever! A complete list of forums is in preparation. Marriott Hotel reservations are now available. The convention rate is $109 per night plus taxes (approximately $ per night). Parking is free for hotel guests and day use convention attendees. The deadline for room reservations at the convention rate is September 26. The youth involvement in last year's convention was unprecedented. This year we will work hard to increase the youth involvement in our convention. Please join our team as a Forum Speaker/Presenter. No doubt with national convention status, there will be an explosion of exhibitors and vendors for our conventioneers. Pacificon will feature ARRL EXPO which is a showcase of ARRL exhibits, activities and program representatives celebrating the very best of Amateur Radio. Online Registration is now open! You'll want to take advantage of the best prices and not fail to get tickets, because they are "sold out." The Keynote Address, Banquet, Antenna Seminar, and One Day Class all have limited capacity. The Breakfast with Gordon West SOLD OUT early last year. Online and mail-in registration ends midnight October 1st. Thereafter registration will be at the door. Go to for registration and hotel links Little Lake Repeater News A new repeater has been installed at Little Lake with good coverage into Ridgecrest. It is still on /81 and no PL at this time. The old repeater was hanging up and the new one is working well so far. It isn't linked to Mazourka (146.76) as of Sunday September 2 but the link repeater is expected to be reinstalled on Mazourka within the next couple weeks. There is no initial ID when kerchunking but W6TD is transmitted every ten minutes while the repeater is active. The link to on Silver Peak in Bishop is still work in progress and hopefully it will be operational soon so that SARC members can join our nightly net at 8 pm. It is a very casual net and we talk about anything and everything. Little Lake also has UHF repeater on / with no ID. It was previously linked to Mazourka but is currently isolated to LL. Kurt, W6PH CW Practice Due to the summer travels it was just about impossible to keep the CW practice going with any regularity. But now that summer is drawing to an end, the practice will start again. Look for it starting up again on 17 Spetember, first with a review and then continuing where we left off. Practice starts each Monday after the end of the IWV Emergency Net. It is conducted on MHz....Mike WA6ARA WA6ARA@GMAIL.COM

9 75 Meter AM Rag Chew Net With the longer days of summer, sun up till almost 9pm, and folks gone, it was just about impossible to conduct the 75 meter Am phone rag chew net with any regularity. But now that summer is near an end and it is dark by 8pm, look for it to start up once again. Look for us on Monday nights, around 8pm at or about 3905Kc AM modulation starting about 17 September. Hope to hear you all there. Ask Elmer The Question... I am a new ham and am looking for a small hand held. The Woxoun or Baofeng radios are attractive because they are so cheap. But I have heard that programing these rigs can be a problem. Should I be concerned with this? The Answer... There are two ways to program the Woxoun or Baofeng, or just about any hand held radio. You can either manually program it or use a computer program. There are pluses and minus for both methods. Software method: IF the software package is good, then it is pretty seamless to use, just enter in the information and go. There have been reports of folks having problems with the software supplied for these two rigs. There does seem to be a lot less frustration from software from the big three manufacturers. One reason some use this method is they can preload the repeaters in a specific area from the ARRL repeater data bases. Be aware, my experience is the ARRL data base is only about 50% correct. Manual Method: IF you have manually programmed a radio from the big three ham radio manufactures, you will likely get frustrated with program the chinese rigs. But, it can be done. Specifically, the method for inserting a repeater info in the VFO mode is completely different from the method to put it into memory. And it is a bit convoluted but once you do it, it isn't so bad. The best way is to search web for someone who has done it and download their instructions, and follow them. The supplied manual is getting better but not there yet. Cloning: Actually, there is a third way, that is to have a friend who has already programed his and then clone your's from it. BUT, regardless of the method used, be careful! Some of the radios being sold can transmit outside of the amateur radio band. So if you program it improperly then you could be transmitting outside the ham bands. Regardless of the method you select, you should, as a minimum, be able to manually input a repeater frequency and tone encode in the vfo mode on the fly. You never know when you might have to do it, either out of town or during an emergency. In general, the low cost Chinese radios are harder to use, harder to program, and below minimum customer support. But the cost is significently less than from the normal manufacturers, but the buyer beware.

10 For Sale From Phelps, W6PTH estate: ICOM IC 2720H dual band in-vehicle two way radio complete. Includes Remote head, DTMF Mic, cables, and manual Price: ICOM IC 756 PRO II, no accessories. Price note: I'm seeing used prices for these in the dollar range. Also, the 756 will come with a goodies bag. ;] BIRD wattmeter with pelican case and 3 elements with 2 thru connectors Price Diamond GZV 4000 switching power supply. Price NOTE: If someone is interested in the RADIO'S and wants to try them for a week, I will hold off depositing the check. They can return unit if it is not what they want, or there is a problem. Jackson Terheun For Sale: I have a Astron Model RS20A power supply unit still in box that I would like to sell to someone who is new into Ham Radio. And if no one new then someone who could use it. I would like to sell it for $100 or best offer. Do you know of anyone who would be interested in it?. If so please give them my address and have them contact me. Anna Ball KE6YLU annamball1@yahoo.com FREE 2 ea., glued together, CSB Battery Technologies, HRL 1234W F2FR, 12V DC, 34 Watt ( 2.8 AH), batteries replaced after 3 years, from myapc UPS. See specs at < Note the 130 Amp high discharge rate and long life quotes. Have been kept charged. These two would make a fairly reasonable approximation of a +/- 12 VDC power supply with the addition of a cheapie, WallyWorld motorcycle battery charger. < 1.5-Amp/ > NØLV Elvy Hopkins <lvrh7589@iwvisp.com>, ELVY

11 Local Repeaters Status Location Call Freq in MHz Tone Notes Distance UP Randsburg WA6YBN (-) Wide Area, Emergency Power S 18.6 Mi Translator, No Squelch Tail, Emergency Power UP Ridgecrest WA6YBN (-) Area Emergancy Net 7:30 PM S 2.5 Mi Allstar #27178, Echolink #518309, Info *510 UP Ridgecrest WA6YBN (+) ARRL Audio News on 7 PM W 2.5 Mi Standby Ridgecrest WA6YBN (+) Club Portable Repeater, used only for events SW 1 Mi UP Randsburg N6BKL (-) 82.5 Linked to other 6m repeaters in SoCal. Net S 18.6 Mi 6:30 PM 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 El Paso Pk WI6RE (-) Allstar Node usually on WINSYSTEM S 10 Mi UP RF Linked to m Remote Base on FM E 15.9 Mi Trona K6YYJ (-) call frequency MHz - Controls: Rx 61, Tx 62, Off 63 UP Little Lake W6TD (+) RF Linked to Mazourka Peak NW 24.9 Mi UP Bird Springs KF6FM (+) Wide coverage of Indian Wells Valey - swrrc.org WSW 27 Mi UP Mazourka Pk W6TD (-) RF Linked to Little Lake N 96.5 Mi UP Hauser Pk K6OX (-) Near Palmdale, Wide coverage of Antelope Valley SSW 80 Mi UP Keller Pk KE6RYZ (+) kpra.net - Near Big Bear, Wide SoCal Coverage SSE 104 Mi UP Ridgecrest W5HMV (-) RF Linked to Input is about -4 KHz off. SE 2.6 Mi UP Ridgecrest WI6RE IRLP-3741, contact tiplerek@iwvisp.com for codes W 2.8 Mi UP El Paso Pk WI6RE (-) IRLP WinSystem.org S 10 Mi UP Ridgecrest NC9RS (-) 88.5 Input: Linked to others - NC9RS SW 2.0 Mi Last Update: May 12th 2012