It’s that time of year again—time to put on the old feedbag and spend a night out with your ham radio friends! We will meet in the upstairs Banquet Hall of the DuBois Diner at 6:00 pm on Saturday, May 5. Plenty of free parking in the back of the diner, and you can take the elevator or climb the stairs.
Our guest speaker is Mike Sapp, WA3TTS, a technical writer from Pittsburgh, who will fill us in on his recent work with Amateur Radio beacons, including his world-famous 6-meter beacon on the old KDKA-TV antenna.
The menu is a buffet, featuring Stuffed Chicken Breast and Beef Pot Roast with potatoes and carrots, salad and beverage for $13.99 per person, plus tax and an 18% gratuity. It works out to $17.50 per person.
The main door prize will be a brand-new Baofeng UV-5R dual-band portable transceiver.
Plan on attending one of the best ham radio social activities in the area. We hope to see you there!
Please make a reservation by sending an email to banquet@qcarc.org, or on the air during a net!
(Or fill out the convenient form below and hit the [Submit] button.
We finally stopped talking about it and just did it! Before the April meeting, several members tried their hand at finding W3BC’s hidden UV-3R somewhere on the Penn State DuBois campus. Lars KB3WBT brought his DF tape-measure antenna, and Don KB3LES brought one of his home-built log-periodic antennas with his UV-3R for a receiver.
Ed and Don close in on the fox, as passing drivers gape in wonder...
Stomping around the campus with antennas, the hidden transmitter turned out to be harder to find than expected. Lars reported the signal level picked up INSIDE the Swift building, and Don couldn’t get a good direction as he got closer to the fox.
The “winner” of the first heat was… Ed KB3VWX, who found it without using either a radio or antenna! We’ll have to call him “Eagle Eyes” from now on! Don took some time to introduce Bev W3BEV to the art of foxhunting before heading out to find the fox.
The first to find the fox using proper radio and antenna technique was Don KB3LES. After finding it, he got to silence it, and hide it in a second location. That second location was even harder than the first, utilizing a brick wall, a large flower pot, a metal trash can and a pile of leaves to hide out from the DF antennas. Lars was zeroing in on it when time ran out. Ed “Eagle Eyes” KB3VWX retrieved the radio and we all went inside for the meeting.
Reports were all positive, and some areas for improvement were discussed, notably signal attenuation when close to the fox. Others remarked that passing drivers gave us some astonished looks as we marched around campus with “space antennas!”
Everyone thought it was a lot of fun, and we look forward to perfecting our setups to do it again next month.
Don KB3LES shows us how happy he was to find the fox!
Ed and Don close in on the fox, as passing drivers gape in wonder...
Due to the Penn State Du Bois Convocation ceremonies this evening, we have been moved across campus to the meeting room of the Smeal Building. The Foxhunt is still scheduled for 6:30pm, rain or shine.
The Smeal Building is on the corner of DuBois Avenue (“Beeline Highway”) and College Place, near where the Mansion Building used to be. Parking is available in the parking lot adjacent to the Smeal Building, or on the street going toward the top of the WPA stairway at the end of Liberty Boulevard.
This time I have been playing with a piece of pvc pipe and some aluminum wire, the result became a cheap and simple antenna for 70cm.
The pvc pipe is about 57″ end to end and is 5/8 diameter (you can use bigger, if thats in your junkbox) and then a couple of short pieces about 1/2″ used for the reflector and also the driven element. I also got a T pipe, as a “mastclamp” since the antenna only weighs a few ounzes ;)
Here are the element lengths: Reflector loop 28″ Driven loop 26 5/8″ Directors 11 3/4″ to 11 7/16″ in 1/16 steps….
Check out the following link for more information about the EmComm & Deed restriction studies that the ARRL is conducting. There are two links relative the two topics at: ARRL Study
It is with sadness we report the passing of Theodore P. “Ted” Irwin WB3DCZ, 78, of Gardner Hill. Ted was active in the early days of the 147.39 K3PS repeater and was a regular fixture on VHF FM and SSB. He was known far and wide as a man of strong opinions, and a regular voice on the repeater.
Long-time members will remember him on the repeater, at club meetings, field day, hamfests and other activities.
He was a retired Navy SeaBee, and built his home atop Gardner Hill in Fox Township. He fell into poor health, and his license expired in 2007. We wish him a final “73”.
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It’s that time of year again—time to put on the old feedbag and spend a night out with your ham radio friends! We will meet in the upstairs Banquet Hall of the DuBois Diner at 6:00 pm on Saturday, May 5. Plenty of free parking in the back of the diner, and you can take the elevator or climb the stairs.
Hello all readers, this is the Swede again.
