Field Day Poster

Beth (KI4ZAK) and Steve (AI4ZL) have produced a very nice looking poster advertising our Field Day operations to the general public. They brought some very professional-looking copies to the meeting last night, which we handed out to folks so they can put them up on school and business bulletin boards, or any place else that might get public exposure.

Mike (KY4OEM) made a good suggestion that we make the poster available for download for anyone who wants to print out copies, or just forward them on to various contacts via E-mail. The purpose of this post is do just that. Here is a link to the poster in portable document format:

field-day-2008

June Meeting

Reminder: the next meeting of the Paducah Amateur Radio Association will be on Monday, June 9th at 7:00 PM in room 142 of the Anderson Technical Building, WKCTC.

Sporadic E Season

Folks, sporadic E season is in full swing!

This is great news for Six Meter fans, of course. I can assure you that all of our local 6m ops have been keeping very busy on the band this week.

But…

Sporadic E also affects Ten Meters, and that band has really been hopping lately, too. This is a great opportunity for our newer operators who have been looking forward to making some long distance contacts on the HF bands.

Sporadic E openings can occur at any time of day, and provide propagation out to about 1200 miles. Check the band frequently, because openings can last anywhere from minutes to hours. Just because the band isn’t open right now doesn’t mean that it won’t be open a few minutes from now.

Good luck and good DX!

Meeting Minutes Archive Available

Minutes from past Paducah Amateur Radio Association meetings are now available on the W4NJA web site. You can access them from the menu at the top of any w4nja.org page (click on Minutes).

We have all of the 2008 minutes posted. We have no plans to go back further than that, and please note that there was no February meeting due to weather. The minutes are available in portable document format (pdf). If you are a Windows user and don’t have a pdf reader, may I recommend the free Foxit Reader?

Thanks to Bill, KY2O, for the idea and for converting the minutes to pdf, and to Rose Marie, KG4JXI, for creating the web page.

May 25 PARA Net Report

Received a nice report from Mika, KI4GKV, regarding last Sunday’s net:

Hi there!

The net tonight lasted 12 minutes, with 10 people on.  They were:

W5CPT
KU4RC
KY4OEM
KI4NXF
KI4RZY
WA9WJL
WB5YYA
KG4VKB
KC4YIR
KI4GKV (Net Control)

Have a great day!
Mika KI4GKV

Avoiding Feedline Confusion

In order to make it easy to disconnect feedlines, I have short (three to four feet long) jumpers connected to all my radios. When severe WX threatens I just crawl under the table and disconnect them there, rather than having to reach around behind the rigs. I labeled all of the feedlines and jumpers with paper tape labels, but then I added more feeldines and got careless about labeling, and I was starting to get worried that I would get things mixed up in the less than optimum light under the table.

Today I was in the hardware store and saw a five-pack of colored PVC tape in the bargain bin for $2. I just got everything marked, and it works great! Here is my system. All I have to do is match the feedline color with the jumper color:

160m dipole: black stripe on white background

80m-40m vertical: red

6m halo: yellow

2m Yagi: green

135 cm Yagi: blue

70 cm Yagi: white

Yeah, that’s six “colors,” but who doesn’t have black tape lying around? Note the rough correspondence with the spectrum and the order of the resistor color code. As I said to Barry after last week’s meeting, “blackbrownredorangeyellowgreenbluevioletgreywhite.”

Frequency Measuring Test Tomorrow (May 21)

The ARRL Frequency Measuring Test is a fun and challenging activity.

Tomorrow’s test will involve measuring the exact frequency of a modulating tone on an SSB signal, given a specified frequency of the suppressed carrier.  Particularly for folks who operate the digital modes, this is a good chance to check out your understanding of the relationship between your digital signal and your “dial frequency.”

You can expect to get pretty good results just using your normal digital mode software if you use reasonable care and calibrate your rig and software against WWV.

You can read more about the FMT here.

Net Control Assignments

Should have put this in the previous post:

May 18 — Gene, N4FZ

May 25 — Mika, KI4GKV

June 1 — Bill, KU4RC

June 8 — Mike, KI4NXF

May Meeting Report

We had 20 members at last night’s meeting.  Here are some highlights:

Barry, W4IBI, told us a bit about his early days in Amateur Radio, then made a presentation on lightning protection and grounding.

There will be no PSK-31 net this week.  For future sessions we may consider trying other digital modes, and maybe even SSTV.  On a related note Barry suggested that SSTV or one of the other digital modes might make a good topic for a future program.

Some of the folks who are working on the trailer and mast project had a very productive side meeting relating to some of the mechanical details of the setup.

Field Day preparations were discussed.  Based on Field Day Rule 4.1.1.2, we don’t believe we would have anyone to operate a GOTA station, so we will probably just operate as a regular 3A station this year.  Folks are encouraged to bring lawn chairs if they find the picnic table benches uncomfortable for long operating sessions.

There was considerable discussion, both during and after the meeting, of what will be needed to improve our severe weather net operations.

May Meeting

Don’t forget the meeting next Monday at 7:00 PM, Room 142, Anderson Technical Building, WKCTC.

Barry says he will have a short presentation for us. For the business meeting, we will look at how Field Day preparations are coming along, and discuss other issues including the trailer and mast project and the severe WX nets.

Please think about volunteering to get up and tell everyone a little about your participation in Amateur Radio, including how you got started and what kind of activities you enjoy now!