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Should QCARC continue giving VE Exams before club meetings in even months?
Total Voters: 3  Loading ... |
The wide availibility of WAN repeaters should allow handheld users an opportunity to check in by using a local repeater instead of DXing the 147.315 machine which may be dozens of miles away! Here is a recording of the first session (6.5MB download)
Looks like I will have about 6 months, before I’m healed and so I have been thinking of a little something to do in the meantime. You see the rig at the right here, it’s my beautiful Kenwood TS-520 and its a so called “hybrid rig” it means that the radio have both old time tubes and transistors, the tubes are just used in the transmitter “PA”, but easily delivers a nice and clean 100w out. Now to my crazy idea, if you guys know of anybody who wants to get rid of his old non working TS-520, 520s or 520se, even TS-820, 830 or even TS-530 would work fine, I would be happy to buy for around $90- 100, just as something to do…. As you might have figured out, cheaper is better, since trying to get back to shape, (torn rotator cuff) so I can get back to work again, isn’t cheap… Mind You, I’m not a repair pro, but hoping to learn “how to” Thank you for taking time to read this… Lars KB3WBT PS: E-mail me at sm7fyw at hotmail.com Now is the time to renew your Quad-County Amateur Radio Club membership. It’s still only $12.00 a year, the same as it was in 1975! In 1975, that would buy you a tank of gas, today it would only buy 3 gallons. Or you could look at it as only $1.00 a month… or 3 cents a day!
2013 promises to be a fun-filled year with lots of enjoyable ham radio activities already being planned! Come join the fun, and support your Club!!!
Quad-County members participated in a number of contests over the summer months, with good results! Here are some of the official results: ARRL June VHF Contest Current Club President Herb Murray W3TM and Secretary Joe Shupienis W3BC hit the bricks to participate in the Rover-Limited category. Activating 5 grids and handing out 92 QSOs, their final official score was 5,406 points, with contacts being made in 48 grids! It was a lot of fun, and they activated some grids neither had operated from before, notably FN02, EN92 and EN91, along with FN00 and FN01. We are fortunate to live in or near so many “rare” grids, and the 6 meter stations were grateful! That score was enough to win the WPA Section, and to take second place in the Atlantic Division! Field Day Overcoming confusion about our location, we stuck it out and had a great time. Finishing in the top 10 of all stations in the WPA section, we scored 2,550 points and most importantly had 26 participants who helped put our signals on the air for the full duration of the event! That score allowed us to take First Place honors in our 2A-Commercial category for both the Western Pennsylvania Section and the Atlantic Division. We finished 6th place in our category, Nationwide. Great work, everybody! CQ WW DX (SSB) This is “The Big One” — the 900 pound gorilla of contests. Current Vice-President Peach Caltagarone AB3OG graciously opened up his Hummingbird Speedway facilities to the club, and the 16 members and guests who stopped by to operate and observe. We strung up a number of antennas, including a pair of crossed G5RVs and W3BC’s “Half-Rhombic,” a 300 foot monster pointed at Europe. Results were very good! We logged 91 counties — that’s almost DXCC in a single weekend! the antennas worked flawlessly, digging out European, African and Asian stations well into the wee hours. Then it was back at it Sunday morning, with all the comforts of home — W3BC brought an HD TV and antenna. We were able to receive 11 HDTV stations, and could keep an eye on the football games as we racked up our own score on the air! Our goal was to introduce non-contesters to RadioSport, to allow everyone to try their hand in a big contest, and to have fun. We did that and more! We finished 2nd Place in the 3rd call district, 17th place Nationwide, 27th place in North America, and 96th place worldwide. With over 8,000 other stations sending in logs, that is quite an accomplishment! The CQ WW DX (CW) weekend is coming up, as is the ARRL Sweepstakes (SSB) weekend. Gear up for these and be sure to include “Quad County Amateur Radio Club” as your club to help out our club aggregate score! Whatever you favorite on-air activity, it’s coming to your radio soon!
The other day, I was looking around for a cheap and simple antenna for my brother in-law. You see, he was asking me if it’s hard to get a amateur radio license, and if the equipment is expensive, so I told him that he could borrow a radio and coax from me, but, I didn’t have any antenna that he could use. That’s when I got to think about a neighbor of mine, a few years ago, he asked me if I wanted an old CB antenna that had been laying outside for the last 20-25 years, and at the time, I had what I needed, so I said no thank you, but now it might be a good idea to ask him, and guess what, it was still laying out there, he said, all he used it for was to knock down hornets nests. So I got the “antenna” for free, took it all apart, cleaned it up, and put it together again.
Now too the fun part, would this contraption work?? As I said earlier, this was an old CB antenna once upon a time, but what is it now?? I hooked up my trusty TS-440 sat, it has its own antenna-tuner, so I tuned in 28,500 and hit tune, well it showed SWR about 1-1:3, so I moved down to 28,020 and low and behold, it showed SWR 1-1:2! Well I thought, just because it shows low SWR, it doesn’t have to be a good antenna, so I tuned over the 10m band, and heard a station in El Paso Tx I had worked before, he was about S 5-5, so I called him, and he did answer, and gave me a solid S 5-9!! This told me that it was not just a pile of junk sitting on my back porch, so then I tried to tune it on 12m, and there it showed about SWR 1-1:3, which is not to bad!! This antenna turned out to work all bands, except 17m, and I guess 160m!! Not to bad of a pile of scrap!! So now, I’m asking all of you, go out and “save” old CB antennas, give them a second chance, and put them to work on our HAM-bands! When you are done, tell us how good it works, and how you managed to save it from the “scrapyard” Good luck, and hope to see your article here soon! Lars KB3WBT the Antennafarmer Congratulations to newly licensed and upgraded hams. The following hams earned new licenses and privileges at the recent VE session following 6 weeks of classes held at the Red Cross in DuBois. Bill Latta, Punxsutawney, KA3MKY – General
Thank you to all our visitors, and to all our contributors!
 Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work 100 countries in one weekend? Would you like to sharpen your operating skill? Do you want to try your hand at contesting and see if you have what it takes?
Well, this weekend is a great opportunity for you to do all that and more! And not only that… there’s food! Peach AB3OG has invited everyone back to Hummingbird Speedway this weekend to take part in the CQ WW DX contest. W3BC and W3TM are providing the radios and other equipment, and Peach will make the racetrack food concession available for our use. This will be a multi-operator, multi-transmitter station, and will be pretty much like another Field Day, except everybody will be trying to work DX. That should be pretty easy, since the bands have been very good, and the solar forecast calls for continued good DX conditions, day and night. You are invited to come out and stay as long as you want. Take your turn on the air, or just sit back and watch — we’re not in it to win it, instead, our reason for doing this is to give our members and other interested hams the chance to learn how to become a successful contester. Think of it as “On-the-Air Training.” Our goal is to make 1 million points, but more importantly we hope to have fun, food and friendship! Please plan to take part if you can, and don’t feel obligated to do anything except have a good time!
Saturday morning found club members Don Jewell KB3LES of Falls Creek and Peach Caltagarone AB3OG of Reynoldsville setting up 2-meter stations at the Red Cross shelters in Brookville and Big Run, with Greg Donahue KB3WKD and Joe Shupienis W3BC setting up in the Red Cross Headquarters in downtown DuBois. All stations set up and were able to maintain and relay communications with the Jefferson County EMA and the Red Cross HQ for the duration of the exercise. The Western Pennsylvania Section scenario was severe weather disrupting power, transportation and communications in the section. The Red Cross disaster drill was coordinated with the WPA master plan, and included simulated tornado damage and hundreds of evacuees in the areas of Brookville and Troutville. As the mission progressed, routine and priority messages were exchanged, including requests for counts of evacuees at each shelter, requests from the shelters for supplies, EMA bulletins, and calls for additional volunteers. Red Cross officials at each shelter were able to communicate with HQ via our Amateur Radio links. Tactical callsigns and plain-language communication techniques were used throughout the drill, and greatly facilitated accurate and effective communications. Several “problems” were simulated, both by EMA and Red Cross officials, and our amateurs were able to quickly and satisfactorily respond to each with appropriate actions. A couple “real” difficulties occurred which added an air of realism to the exercise. This was a great opportunity to put Amateur Radio Public Service on display for the public and the served agencies. We promptly got every message through, overcame difficulties and exceeded all expectations. Red Cross officials remarked on the high degree of realism they witnessed in our communications, and praised the operating skills and knowledge of the Amateur Radio Volunteers. They further indicated their desire to equip the headquarters and shelters with antennas and radios, and hope to plan a Red Cross disaster drill in the spring, with live “victims” and official vehicles actually travelling to shelters in all four counties. |
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Hello all Lars here.
Here’s the 2013 Membership Application!
With the risk, that you might say, I can’t do that, I say YES YOU CAN!
From what I could figure out, it was 11′ tall, and once it did have 3 ground plane-rods. Further more, it also had a coil of some sorts, connecting the center of the PL connector with the 11′ radiator, and since I had no clue of size, or number of turns, I started to look on the net for a similar antenna, but it was still just guesswork. As you can see, on the picture at the right, I used what I had sitting around, so its about 1 1/2 turns. Then of coarse I didn’t know how long the ground-plane-rods originally were, so I came up with a “one of a kind” solution. Since I didn’t have any aluminum pipes that would fit, I went another route, if you look close, I put “inserts” into the 3/4″ holes, then 3 pieces of 6′ fiber-glass rods were inserted, and on the rods, I wound about 7′ 22 gauge insulated copper-wire. The fiber-glass rods can be found at Lowe’s, they are used as “driveway” markers. I used electrical tape, to hold the wires in place, but shrink-tubes would be nicer.
