N7KE - Radio Club of Redmond

When: Saturday, May 18, 8:00 AM, but come early;
Where: Panera Bread, Redmond Way/Bear Creek Crossing
17262 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052

We are bursting at the seams.

So get up early on Saturday and come join us at the May RCR Club meeting!
As our meetings have become very well attended, many members gather between
7 and 7:30 to chat and to get good seating.

For our short program this month, we’ll continue our Field Day planning led by FD Chairman Grant Saviers, KZ1W. Also, Paul Lemson, W9PL, will provide a short program on Low-band Antennas. This topic should provide some new ideas to help us with planning your Spring antenna-improvement projects. We will follow those discussions and presentations with our usual “Around the Table”, where you can introduce yourself and update the group on your recent amateur radio activities.

If you need any HAM radio help, post a message to: Elmers@n7ke.net

When:  Saturday, April 20, 8:00 AM, but come early;
We are bursting at the seams.
Where:  Panera Bread, Redmond Way/Bear Creek Crossing
17262 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052

Although we have no formal program scheduled for this meeting, we will have a discussion about the club’s Field day planning effort led by our FD Chairman, Grant Saviers, KZ1W and we will also have a discussion about the Club’s annual participation in the QRP to the Field event, which will be led by Steve Buroker, W7QC.

We will also be discussing a possible tryout of a new meeting location for the month of May.

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

If you need any HAM radio help, post a message to: Elmers@n7ke.net

RCRers…

The annual W7 QSO party will be held on May 4-5. This is a fun contest because the W7 stations are the hunted. You can sit on one frequency forever and they will find you. You can operate from the comforts of your shack or you can make it an adventure by setting up in a rare county.

Information on the contest, previous years scores and rules can be found at:

http://www.ws7n.net/7QP/new/page.asp?content=start

if you know where you will be operating, you can reserve a county by emailing [7QPOps AT codxc.org]. the Oregon boys are very active and already have most of their counties reserved. There are only a few WA counties reserved (and there are some pretty rare counties in WA), only one Idaho county and absolutely nothing in MT, WY and NV.

Bill (W7GKF) and I are the state coordinators for WA and it is up to us to get the word out and get as many WA stations on the air as we can. We are counting on you to help out in this regard.

Steve W7QC

For our RCR meeting program on Saturday we’ll have a really
great Video and Talk/Q&A about the 2012 3D2C Conway Reef DXpedition,
given by Jim Michener, K9JM. Jim will join us via internet.

When: Saturday, March 16, 2013 8:00 AM, but come early;
Many members gather earlier to chat and to get a good seat.
Where: Panera Bread, Redmond Way/Bear Creek Crossing
17262 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052

If you need any HAM radio help, post a message to: Elmers@n7ke.net

Please join us for our meeting this coming Saturday

The program for Saturday:  “What is a Vector Network Analyzer and what can it do for me?”

by Grant Saviers, KZ1W.

Grant will demonstrate the “VNWA”, a compact and inexpensive Vector Network Analyzer designed by DG8SAQ.
He’ll show how the VNWA can measure RF characteristics of components, RF chokes, and filters and also
characterize antennas up to UHF frequencies.

When: Saturday, January 19, 2013 8:00 AM, but come early;
Many members gather earlier to chat and to get a good seat.
Where: Panera Bread, Redmond Way/Bear Creek Crossing
17262 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052

If you need any HAM radio help, post a message to: Elmers@n7ke.net

RCR Members and Guests, Time for our December meeting.

When: Saturday, December 15, 2012 8:00 AM, but come early; We are bursting at the seams.
Where: Panera Bread, Redmond Way/Bear Creek Crossing
17262 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052

If you need any HAM radio help, post a message to: Elmers@n7ke.net

Updating the experience with this new radio:

I installed the LP-PAN SDR and the E-MU 0204 soundcard to create a panadapter with NaP3 software.  Setup went pretty well with some small problems with getting the sound card output to work properly.  These are fed to a high end ATI Radion PCI-E GPU with two digital outputs for the two Dell widescreen monitors.

This setup is installed over the top of the microHAM router which is used for SO2R with the IC-765 as the second rig.  The router permits a second CAT setup so both the Router and NaP3 can talk to the rig. Whether I am using DXLabs with spot collector or N1MM. I also set up DX Monitor on the second rig so that I can click on spots there to tune that rig to that frequency.  DXLabs and N1MM work through CAT 1 in the router and NaP3 and Dx Monitor work theoufh CAT 2 in the router.  N1MM spots can be called up from the bandmap.

I used it in the CQWWCW test and it helped to locate decent signals on 10 meters during the poor conditions on that band.

For DX purposes in the split mode listening though the soundcard is a plus. VFO A can be ported to one ear and VFO B ported to the other, just like when operating SO2R with the run in one ear and the S&P in the other. This helps you to tune the TX VFO (VFO B) to the frequency of the responding station while watching for it on the pnadapter screen.

So far so good including narrowing the IF bandwidth to 50 Hz without any ringing.  A fun setup 73 Bill W7VP

RCR Members and Guests, Time for our October meeting.

Agenda:

1. Main Presentation: 

     An update on 80M, 40M, and 20M 4-Square arrays, presented by Paul W9PL. 

     He reports that he has some new lessons to share with us, based on success getting a 80M version

     working “fantastically”. 

2. Short Presentation:

      How to use the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) check your 4-Square array and other antennas. 

Presented by Steve W7QC, aided by Bill W7GKF.

When: Saturday, Oct 20, 2012 8:00 AM, but come early; We are bursting at the seams.
Where: Panera Bread, Redmond Way/Bear Creek Crossing
17262 Redmond Way
Redmond, WA 98052

If you need any HAM radio help, post a message to: Elmers@n7ke.net

Amateur Radio is significant in this Science News item:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-pasta-shaped-radio-venice.html

A group of Italian and Swedish researchers appears to have solved the problem of radio congestion by cleverly twisting radio waves into the shape of fusilli pasta, allowing a potentially infinite number of channels to be broadcast .   

Amateur Radio plays an important part in this experiment.

You can watch a video of the Texas balloon flight on Dec 30th, 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eiL1Xx9Ckg.

Matt KF7OCC and a casual group of friends launched a balloon carrying APRS tracking and two video cameras to 103,000 feet from College Station, TX. Well done!

They have been talking of launching another balloon from eastern Washington during this spring or summer.

Barry WA7KVC