New Repeater Site on Cady Mountain

Transcription

1 The Dummy Load August 2009 Newsletter In this Issue Cady Mtn Site ILLW Update 1 1 Beam Heading 2 Morse Code Net 2 J-Pole Anntena 3 Just Listening 4 Internet Fun 4 USS Cobia Shack 5 QSL Cards More info on ILLW Dummy Load SJCARS Editor N Lindenberg KD7IRD nrlindenberg@ rockisland.com Distribution D Hoyer KE7TLE KE7TLE@ arrl.net 5 5 No Meeting in August SJCARS Annual Picnic, Saturday August 8th Midday Odlin County Park, Lopez Island Next Monthly Meeting Sept. 11, FH Fire House, 11:30AM New Repeater Site on Cady Mountain Bryan Hoyer, KG6GEU It is my pleasure to share with you a program that was initiated several years ago and has now come to fruition, a new repeater site on Cady Mountain. Frank Beatty KD7IRE, purchased the 5 acre property near the top of Cady Mountain a few years ago and began development efforts bringing in utilities with the intention of putting up a ham shack only to be sidetracked by outside events. Now thanks to Frank, Ed Kelm KD7TUN and myself there is a dedicated 10 x 12 Ham shack located on the property. The shack has a front porch and is built in the style of "Granny's Cabin" on the Beverly Hillbillies. Initially a satellite receiver with a tone of was set up with very positive responses for coverage and quality. Next we used the site as a phantom repeater to test the possibility of a new 2m coordination. Although the tests were positive, the WWARA had an existing coordination that although non-operating, was a potential conflict. More recently Dan N6AU and Wayne WA6MPG performed sensitivity tests on the Vusario repeater during a power outage, that revealed our loss in sensitivity is most likely due to RFI generated from within the nearby structures. As a result of this Dan has reprogrammed the Vusario tone to while Cady uses Consequently no changes in programming to your radios is required to take advantage of the greater sensitivity afforded by this location. Please join me in thanking Frank for this wonderful opportunity for the club and it's repeater. ILLW Update Bryan Hoyer, KG6GEU The International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend takes place August Testing has been completed at Lime Kiln Lighthouse showing no signs of interference from our 100W SSB transmitter with the Whale Museum's hydrophones or recording equipment (and yes the whales showed up as we called CQ!). Having secured the park's permission, we are now clear to move forward with the International Lighthouse Weekend. There needs to be finalization of a time. The choices are anytime from Friday at 5PM to Sunday at 5PM. Please talk with Ed Kelm at the Lopez Potluck in order to help finalize a time.

2 Three Ham Manuals Offered FREE By Gabriel Jacobs, N3BLR If you re interested in any of the following, call or the number below: or Radio/Tech Modifications & Alignment Controls for Alinco, Standard, Yaesu, CB Radios 1996 Radio/Tech Modifications & Alignment Controls for Icom, Kenwood, Scanners 1995 Lost User Manuals for Alinco, Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu Radios, Scanners Uniden, Realistic, Cobra 32nd Annual 8.8K Run Scheduled for Saturday, August 15, 2009 We need Emergency Radio Operators, sign up with Bryan Beam Heading Diagram This is a beam heading diagram centered on Vancouver, BC, it is close enough to SJI for most purposes. MORSE CODE NET --- Decoded By Nancy and Charlie Lindenberg Each Wednesday evening, you can talk to your friends in the Ham community in a variety of ways. At 1900 hours, or 7:00 P.M., the Single Side Band Net meets on 3944 khz. After about 15 minutes, the Digi Net begins its complex activities. At 1930 hours, or 7:30, you will hear the CW (Continuous Wave) Net, or the Morse Code. All this is before our regular ARES Net at 8:00 P.M. I have asked Captain Dit to explain just what he is doing as Net Control, and he kindly wrote out the following summary for us newcomers. Remember, if Kindergarten is 5 words per minute, the editor is still in preschool, so we're going to take it one step at a time! What you will hear on 3555 khz at 7:30 P.M. is V...V...V de W7BXH San Juan Island CW net open. Pls answer to roll call. ( BT or Break). Call signs are listed alphabetically, not by the first alphabetic character, but by the second or third. Listen in each week, check them off as you recognize them, and in a short time it will all fall into place. No punctuation is used, other than the letter x which doubles as a comma, period, or whatever except for the question mark, which is di-di-dah-dahdi-di. Also known affectionately as Diddy Dum Dum Diddy? Net Control will call roll of all the stations which have checked in before, and any others who wish to check in. Just answer with your Call Sign, not too fast, not too slow... and Net Control will adjust his sending speed to accommodate new members. Later, we'll explain the Q signals. Speed is the least important factor, accuracy is primary. As far as we're concerned, FUN is right up there at the top. The Net is not run to show off old pros, or how expert we are, but to welcome anyone who wants to learn and practice Code. Our goal is to perpetuate and encourage the CW mode. We'd love to have any and all join in! First, just start by listening, listening, and listening. Bryan has instigated the learn your Call Sign The Dummy Load August 2009 Page 2

3 challenge, and it was a delight to hear him come in a week ago. Practice on your call... and you'll be surprised how nice it will sound coming back to you. When you respond to the roll call, you have the entire frequency, so don't feel rushed; just send your Call Sign back.. Then, after everyone is checked in, Net Control will start at the top again. When he calls you, you can then add the word, HI, which is truly easy: dit-dit-dit-dit, dit-dit. Any questions or suggestions gladly received via land line ( ) or by to cwlindenberg@interisland.net, and he will get right back to you. We'll start the monthly code words later. Or maybe you are ready to learn the word, ODLIN? 73 DE CW (Lindenberg). Here is the CW roll call: N6AU K7NHE N7JJ N6CSM W6OPX KE7KRR KG6GEU KE7TLE K7LF KD7IRD KE7WQ WA7ZTT A J-Pole Antenna for 2-meters This antenna has been around for a long time. It is described in my 2002 ARRL Antenna Book as follows: The J antenna is a mechanically modified version of the Zepp* antenna. It consists of a half-wavelength radiator fed by a quarterwave matching stub. This antenna exhibits an omni-directional pattern with little highangle radiation, and it does not require the ground plane that ¼-wave antennas do to work properly. In the 1992 ARRL Handbook, the J-pole is described in a section as A 70-cm and 2-m J-Pole Satellite Antenna. This version has two feed lines for connection to a 2-meter rig and a 70-cm rig. Thus, one antenna serves two radios simultaneously. The 1992 Handbook piece refers to the ARRL book FM The Dummy Load August 2009 and Repeaters for the Radio Amateur, 3 rd printing, 1976, A combination 6- meter and 2-meter J-Pole. So indeed this is no brand new antenna concept. The antenna is still of interest today because of its simplicity, good radiation pattern, absence of radials, ease of construction and low cost. It gets good grades in all five categories. Many construction methods can be tried. At my station, I used ½ inch copper pipe. Other versions might use PVC with an inside piece of wire, or even No 12 AWG wire attached to a piece of wood for dry weather application. My antenna is shown in the picture. The SO239 coax connector is soldered to the stub side and a piece of No 14 AWG wire extends to the radiator where it is soldered. A screw through the flange of the coax connector into the copper pipe adds mechanical strength. This antenna used less than ten feet of copper pipe which is available from home hardware stores for about $1/foot. A tee fitting and an elbow fitting are also required.. The coax fitting was a dollar or two. The cost of the antenna compares favorably with commercial antennas that may cost many tens of dollars. To find the dimensions for your J-pole, use the Google search engine and to look for J-pole antenna. A dimension calculator is available from many of the references thus found that will give dimensions for a frequency you specify. I used the calculator at Construction was done using a copper pipe cutter and a propane torch. Locating the exact point for the coax fitting was done with the help of an SWR meter. (see pictures on next page) The whole project consumed less than one rainy winter afternoon. Footnote: * The Zepp antenna had its beginnings from use on the hydrogen filled Zeppelin lighter-than-air balloons. When needed for communication, the antenna was trailed out the back of the balloon. Page 3

4 J-Pole Antenna By Dan D, N6AU New 2-meter Repeater Configuration On Saturday afternoon August 1, the 2 meter repeater configuration was changed. Two meter input to the repeater with a Hz tone will be accepted by the Cady Mt/SJI receiver. Two meter input to the repeater with a Hz tone will be accepted by the Vusario/Orcas receiver Communications Academy The 2010 Communications Academy will be held on April 10 and 11, at South Seattle Community College. This is a great event for all Hams. Put it on your calendars now and stand by for additional information in regards to speakers, classes and vendors. Just LISTENING. "You can see a lot by just looking." Yogi Berra made that brilliant observation. Today, with respect to the repeater, you can hear a lot by just LISTENING. Consider those two tones beep, beep that you hear at the end of a user's transmission. They are either a low-high sequence or a high-low sequence. If the sequence is high tone first, that tells the user that the 2 meter receiver on Mt Constitution (Vusario) received the input. If the sequence is low tone first, two possibilities exist. The repeater input may have come on 2 meters via Cady Mt or, it may have come on UHF (440 MHz) directly to Mt Constitu- G O O D L I S T E N I N G! The Dummy Load August 2009 This change will improve repeater access for most users by geography change and sensitivity change. The receiver on Cady is in a location with less environmental noise. No change has been made to UHF (440MHz) access. Users are requested to give signal/access reports on the Wednesday night net so that the change can be thoroughly evaluated. Internet Fun! The Ham Locator By Dani H, KE7TLE The internet, a wonderful tool or time-waster. I, personally, use it for both with exceptional success! Ever so often I stumble on websites that are worth passing on for information or for fun. Here is the link to one of those interesting websites: N4MC has several interesting links on his page: a tool to build an Official looking Callsign Certificate to hang over my radio (for those moments when I forget WHO I am!). a Ham Locator link. If you select the option to use the latest FCC data, and put in zip codes for the islands (or areas) you wish to look at, it will google map everyone s call sign right on to the map. Of course, those of us that use a PO BOX as our FCC address are centralized in a certain area, but zooming in to the flags, I was still able to find all of our club members and many folks that are apparently around, but do not turn their radios on. More data to give you a good idea where our HAM friends are transmitting from. Here are the local zip codes for easy entry: SJI ; Lopez ; Shaw ; Orcas , Page 4

5 USS Cobia Shack of the USS Cobia, SS245, presently at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, Manitowac WI The boat (subs are boats) is open to the public and tours are available. FREQUENCIES: We generally recommend use the event segment of the 5 'Classic' bands with a centre frequency if conditions are bad, then at least we have one place we can (try to) meet. We request that the centre frequencies are not used as primary frequencies but as a last point of call to other participating stations. Because it is NOT a contest you may operate on any authorized frequency as per your license. OTHER: To assist other stations we request that participating CW stations add LT for lighthouse or LS for lightship, other stations add 'LIGHT', 'LGT', 'LIGHTHOUSE' or 'LIGHTSHIP' after their call. Some stations obtain a callsign with the letter L in the suffix to assist other stations identifying them as a participating station in the event. YouTube video of Perpendicular Lighthouse 2007: Photo by Dan Drath...More about the Lighthouse Weekend... The event is always held on the 3rd full weekend in August starting at 0001 UTC on Saturday and finishing at 2359 UTC on Sunday. It also now coincides on the Sunday with the International Lighthouse Day which is an event organized by the International Association of Lighthouse Keepers whereby as many world lighthouses will be open to the public for the day. PURPOSE: The basic objective of the event is to promote public awareness of lighthouses and lightships and their need for preservation and restoration, to promote amateur radio and to foster International goodwill. GUIDELINES: The event is NOT a contest. There are no prizes, certificates or other enticements to participate and therefore, participation is free. Each station's operators decide how they will operate their station regards modes and bands. Participants are not committed to being on the air during the entire period - only as much as they can. There are no restrictions on aerials or power. We wish operators to enjoy themselves and have fun whilst making contact with as many amateur radio stations as possible. We request that stations take time to work other lighthouses or lightships as well as the slow operator, or the newly-licensed or QRP stations. Our activity does not have to take place inside the tower itself. Field day type set-up at the light or other building next to the light is OK. Our guidelines require that the station must be AT or ADJACENT to the light. Adjacent means The next to Dummy or as close Load as August possible 2009 in the field next door. QSL CARDS, ANYONE? For members of our radio club who would like to have "ham radio QSL" post cards printed. There would be one order consisting of several individual cards each from its own cameraready pdf. Your name and call in big letters. See the sample below. The cards would be 3.5 x 5.5 inches, color front, B&W on back. Equipping your boat with Amateur Radio By United States Power Squadron v3n4_amateur.htm Is this a project you would be interested in? Contact Dan Drath for more information! Ham It Up On The Water! Page 5

6 The San Juan County ARES Nets Every Wednesday - Local Time 19:00 - SSB Net 3944 KHz +/- QRM 19:15 - Digi Net MHz contact K2SPR for more info 19:30 - CW Net 3555 KHz Checkin! Take the Callsign Challenge 20:00 - VHF Net MHz, -600 KHz offset, tone , +5 MHz offset, tone In the event of repeater problems we shift to: First: Repeater Output MHz simplex, tone Second: TAC MHz simplex, tone Net Control Schedule Aug 5 Dan Drath, N6AU Aug 12 Dave Vandaveer, K9MRQ Aug 19 Wayne Rankin, WA6MPG Aug 26 Bryan Hoyer, KG6GEU Sep 2 Peter McCorison K2SPR Sep 9 John Stimpson KC7WJJ Sep 16 Frank Beatty KD7IRE Sep 23 Gabriel Jacobs N3BLR Sep 30 Howard Rosenfeld N7FBC Please arrange a substitute if needed Aug 8 Aug 15 Aug Oct 10 Upcoming Events SJCARS Annual Picnic Odlin Park Lopez Island 8.8K Loop Run-Operators needed International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend Ham Testing FH Fire House The Dummy Load c/o Nancy Lindenberg PO Box 1513 Friday Harbor, WA First Class Mail