Month: June 2018

PRC mtg June 18

ARRL Field Day 2018 … moments away How can it be that ARRL Field Day (June 23-24) is almost here!  And this next meeting on June 18th will be our final opportunity to go through our check list and make sure everything is in place. We hope you’ll be able to participate this year with … Continue reading “PRC mtg June 18”

ARRL Field Day 2018 … moments away

How can it be that ARRL Field Day (June 23-24) is almost here!  And this next meeting on June 18th will be our final opportunity to go through our check list and make sure everything is in place. We hope you’ll be able to participate this year with any or all of the event. Field Day is June 23th, 2 pm to 2 pm on the 24th at Top O’ Ledges in the Hinckley Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. We’ll be setting up 10:00 am on Saturday and can use all the help we can get.

A printable map to our Field Day site:

Thanks to Tom Bedoc, K8DMM for drafting some press release documents to promote Field Day to the public.

It’s always good to hear new voices on the VHF/UHF  10 meter nets.  These weekly on air events  are a great way to stay in touch with fellow members and new people.  If you’d like to participate in a very special way, we have openings for Net Control Operators.  It a great opportunity to meet a fun group of people.  A couple of slots are now  available.  Just let us know you’re interested.  A convenient script is available, so you don’t have to ad lib unless you want to. You can always adlib.

In addition to the great camaraderie, participation in the nets can have other benefits. Recently, one of the net participants in the VHF/UHF net became the recipient of a  vintage Hallicrafter’s SX-110 receiver that had been donated to the club.

A thought about the benefit of e-minders. Certainly you get early reminders of the upcoming meeting and the program topics. But there’s more! We also tell you about events of interest that you might not learn about otherwise.  And  if a meeting is cancelled, you’ll be advised early enough to avoid making an unnecessary trip only to find a locked door.

Bandconditions dot com is back

One of my favorite web sites is bandconditions dot com.  This site gives a very accurate visual report on the current condition of your favorite HF band. Updated every 30 seconds, it’s all done thorough the magic of special algorithms “explained” on the site.  A couple of weeks ago I was disappointed to go read on the site that they were in search of another server, since their Yahoo server could not handle their html2 data. The good news is they must have found a new server that meets their needs.

According to the owner, the world-wide site is extremely popular, and during a recent week saw 4 million users, with thousands of those being new users.  It’s simple but beautiful.  Check it out.

Hal Rogers, K8CMD President Communications Director

 

 

 

mtg June 4th

Good News The good news is that this will be a very brief post.  As most of you have undoubtedly experience, with longer days, my activities have become more numerous.  I don’t understand it but there must be an explanation. Time to get technical At our past meeting we discussed the technical problems that we … Continue reading “mtg June 4th”

Good News

The good news is that this will be a very brief post.  As most of you have undoubtedly experience, with longer days, my activities have become more numerous.  I don’t understand it but there must be an explanation.

Time to get technical

At our past meeting we discussed the technical problems that we experienced with some coax at our Earth Day Special Event.  It wasn’t until too late that we realized the 40 meter rig had some faulty coax.  We found one bad barrel connector but still had issues.  It would be easy to just buy new coax but is that the what we really want to do?  Some members thought it was giving up too easily.  Perhaps we fix what we have.  One of our members had a great idea – bring the coax into the upcoming meeting and check it out with an analyzer and dummy load.  If it needs a repair we’ll fix it. Now that’s the spirit.

Why didn’t I think of that?  So our June 4th meeting we’ll use the o coax problem as a learning experience with an actual workshop. We’ll have all the test gear we need to be certain our coax is in excellent shape for upcoming ARRL Field Day.  We’ll  also take a closer look at antenna analyzers and see some of the amazing things they can do.

In addition, we’ll discuss other critical matters related to our Field Day event – like our power source. It appears that the the solar panels we have used might not be available. Time for a plan.

Hal Rogers, K8CMD President, Communications Director