AMATEUR ACTIVITIES 2010

Volunter Examiners (VEs)

Each even month on the 3rd Saturday throughout the year, VEs from the JCARA provide VE tests for FCC licences on a walk-in basis. The VEC is WCARS.

Tests are given at the East Tennessee State Univerity in the Technology Building (Wilson-Wallis Hall).

Our VEs include:

• Ken Hart (K4KN) - Team Leader
• Bob May (K4SE)
• Ed Ingraham (WX4S)
• Jerry Lake (KD4NH)
• Bernard Lovell (KB1GUL)
• Arline Lovell (K1GIG)
• Wendell Messimer (K4ZHK)
• Kent Schneider (W0SYP)
• Walter Stewart (WY4Z)
• John Swisher (AB4O)

First Contact

(January Newsletter)

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. --Talked to Wendell who is back from his trip below the equator to PY country yesterday. He will be notifying all of you very soon about the plans for the upcoming Holiday dinner get-together at which we wish to see all of you. You will be able to say thanks to Wendell for his service to the club in 2008 and 2009 as he hands the gavel over to yours truly to keep the JCARA ship in the water in 2010.

I appreciate the confidence you placed in me by voting for me to be your leader for the upcoming year (the vote was unanamous - I was the only one running) Starting in January 2010, I would like to see all our members - ex members, etc. come out to the meetings. We also would like to hear from you if you have ideas on how to make the meetings or any aspect of the club more interesting to you - We have a new Activities Director who will be pitching in to help plan meetings, etc. So let us know what you like and don't like.

As your un-official notifier of upcoming operating events of interest please be advised of the following coming up this week-end and next week-end. ..

From the Nov. 25 ARRL Contest Update: (available free from ARRL - just ask for it)
"This coming weekend, ....thousands of hams will take to the airwaves in search of elusive and distant contacts. From the surface of the Earth to outer space is the domain of radio and we travel within it whenever we desire. Bound by no dictated schedules or required production, we are free to come and go as we fancy..... As you fill your log with call signs both strange and familiar, from near and far, don't forget to be thankful for the radio amateur's special connection to the natural world, where new wonders lie just beyond every antenna. I'll see you there! 73, Ward N0AX"

HF CONTESTS

The first big 160 meter contest for this winter: ARRL 160 Meter Contest--CW, from Dec 4, 2200Z to Dec 6, 1600Z. Bands (MHz): 1.8. Exchange: RST and ARRL/RAC section if US/VE. Logs due: Jan 5. Rules

For complete rules just Google on the name of the contest. Hope to see you on December 15, at the Dinner meeting.

Yeah, I know they are both CW - but you SSB guys had your chance last week-end. Drag out the old key, dust it off and get on. Just answer the stations that are sending at your spped and give them a call. All you need to send is 5nn -04, write down the zone number they send you and their call, thats all there is to it. For the ARRL just 5nn TN. How much easier could it be? I guarantee that operating in a CW contest will boost your CW speed faster than any kind of practice you can do.

73 Dick N4ARO

JCARA Club Meeting

Tuesday January 19, 2010

Dick Church, N4ARO, called the meeting to order at 7 p.m., January 19, 2010. The meeting was held at the Courtyard Classroom of Northside Hospital in Johnson City. In his opening remarks, Dick commented that he takes his position as Club President seriously and to be a privilege.

We went around the room and everyone introduced themselves to the group. Dick mentioned that in the future he will ask each one to also tell us how long they have been an Amateur Radio operator.

Our Secretary, Ed Ingraham, WX4S, read the December meeting notes. Our Treasurer, Tom Cook, KB3HZA, presented a summary of the 2009 income and expenses of the Club.

Tom observed that our regular expenses exceed our expected dues income and expressed a concern that we will exhaust our resources in several years if we do not take action.

One expense that concerns us, due to low repeater phone patch usage, is the monthly telephone cost which is expected to be $440 in 2010 and which exceeds half our dues income. During the ensuing discussion, we decided that we should evaluate the possibilities of alternate means of repeater control, and Dick asked Ed and Tom to report on this in February.

Ed read messages which were received from Mike Wechsler, N4OFA, and Jerry Lake, KD4NH, resigning from their positions as Club Vice President and Activities Director, respectively. Dick expressed his disappointment in these decisions, but that he accepts these without question.

Dick announced that he would like people to volunteer to be nominated to fill these two positions. He discussed the various responsibilities of each and also summarized his goals for the club for the coming year.

Dick stated that if it was the club's desire, he would be willing to step aside and let the club elect a new President. There was no comment from those present, and Dick suggested that we consider volunteering for these positions and that he would return to the subject later in the meeting.

Sean Dennis, KD5COL, discussed low weekly net attendance and asked if there were ideas to raise the level of participation. Following a brief discussion, it was agreed that the net would move to 8pm weekly on Tuesday night, effective January 26.

Dick summarized the JCARA QSL card project. Design rules were announced in October, suggestions were invited, but little response was forthcoming. Dick and Ken Hart, K4KN, have worked together to develop a design that they like, and Dick showed 2 alternatives to the club: One with and one without ARRL and JCARA logos. The card with logos was selected by mutual agreement.

Dick also showed eyeball QSO cards which he recommends that the Club purchase and distribute among the members. Dick has located a printer in Maryland who agrees to produce 500 normal QSL cards for $75 and 600 eyeball cards for $60. It was moved (K4ZHK) and seconded (KD5COL), that the club purchase the cards as proposed and the motion was carried by a unanimous show of hands.

Returning to the question of replacements for Vice President and Activities Director, arms were twisted unsuccessfully. Sean Dennis, KD5COL, volunteered to accept nomination for Vice President.

Dick asked anyone who might be willing to serve the Club in these positions to contact him to discuss the responsibilities involved. Nominations will also be accepted at the February meeting, followed by an election.

PROGRAM: ARRL OFFICIAL OBSERVER

Dick introduced our speaker, John Swisher, AB4O. John is an ARRL Official Observer and has served in that position for about 10 years. He feels that the OO program is a valuable service to Amateur Radio because as a former CB operator, he wants to help keep Amateur Radio from going down the same path.

There are about 710 OOs in the nation, with 28 in Tennessee. The OOs monitor the ham bands looking for poor signals and operating techniques, but also for outstanding examples of good Amateur behavior.

When any of these are noted, the OO fills out a postcard and mails it to the Amateur involved. In the case of problems, this gives the Amateur the opportunity to repair equipment problems or to clean up their act. Although John does not usually get a response, he has received notes thanking him for the information.

The OOs also monitor and collect information on specific cases at the request of the FCC. There is no OO in Washington or Sullivan counties. John has recently become our ARRL Tennessee Section OO Coordinator, and if anyone would like to become an OO, they can contact him for additional information.

Happy Valentines to JCARA

(February Newsletter - 2010-02-10)

We have a meeting coming up Tuesday (Feb. 16 th) and we will be meeting in a different room –see the paragraph at bottom of page

On the subject of “Change”

Anytime a new leader takes over a club it always seems to appear that everything is being changed. I feel we have a very good club here in Johnson City and we can all be proud of it. But that does not mean that there are not areas where improvements can be made. As the new leader of the Club, my intention is not to seek any change of anything that is not in the best interest of improving the club in some way.

In the first Newsletter I sent to all of you I outlined the Goals for the club during 2010: Not much new here, but just a call to do them even better.

Q? Whose job is it to accomplish these goals? Ans: ALL OF US

1. We will seek and get more publicity for the club
2. We will continue having Social Get-Togethers as we did last year
3. We will have another great Field Day, building on our experiences from last year.
4. We will have a goal of increasing membership in the club and bringing back old members who have grown bored with club meetings and perhaps even ham radio itself.
5. We will have a schedule of programs for the year and prominently announced so that people will know what is coming up
6. We will always be open to suggestions for improvements to the way we operate the club in all its aspects. Every member has a voice.
7. We will seek to improve the viability of our Repeater and the weekly Net.
8. We will explore ways to make more use out of the excellent Club Website

We have already put into place several improvements that will help meet one or more of the above goals. We have “eyeball cards” on the way from the printers for each member to carry and hand out when you meet other hams who might want to learn about our club. The card invites check in on the 2-meter net and attendance at our meetings. Every club member will be given a supply of these hand-out cards at the next meeting. Put your own name and call and other information on the back, carry a few with you, and hand these to prospective members you meet.

On-Air Net

We have changed the time of the on-air net to 8 pm, on Tuesday nights which seems already to have attracted many more Hams to check in. My goal now is to expand the communications on the Net to be more than just signing in with your call sign. Be ready to say hello especially to anyone new that you have not met before. These may be people who have read about us or received an eyeball card and will be anxious to be spoken to. If the new check-ins are from the area be sure to invite them to the next club meeting. Do not be afraid of taking up a few minutes of time on the Net to be friendly. I would like to try having each one who checks in get a turn to say something to the group. Lets get a bit more informal and start communicating.

If there were any emergency traffic that would have been taken care of when the Net was first called. We will have a discussion of the use of the club Repeater at the next meeting.

Club Programs

At the January meeting you learned that a couple of the newly elected officers “jumped ship”. Sean Dennis has volunteered to be our new VP and if no one else wants to jump up and volunteer to be put on the ballot, Sean will become our new VP. Sean has been a great help to me in the first couple of months of my tenure and I will be happy to work with him. One job he and our past President, Wendell will share will be to fill in as Activities Director for the club with a major job of helping find speakers to come visit us. However each of you can help Sean and Wendell and I by either volunteering to give a program on something you know about, or supplying leads to people who might like to come talk to us about some aspect of the hobby that will be of interest.

I would like to start a continuing series of 15-minute talks about various types of antennas. The plan would be for one of you to take a particular type of antenna and talk about it at a club meeting. Next meeting another member would discuss another type. Focus would be on simple ways to build and tune antennas for use on the Ham bands. Please be willing to volunteer to take one of these tasks at the next meeting. This is such a diverse topic that we could have a program every month for 10 years and not run out of material to talk about.

Another chapter posted in “History”

If you want to find out what being in the JCARA was like in 1967 to 1970 be sure to read the chapter just added on the Club website under “History”. Charlie Vaughan who was the clubs president during those years wrote much of the chapter and supplied many photos and news clippings. I think you will find it of interest. Other chapters about the club will be added as they are put together. I have much material to work with, but still looking for much more if you are an old time member and have anything please let me use it to record the history of your club.

See you at the next meeting on February 16th. Same time –but in a different classroom: For February only: will be in the Princeton classroom. According to our contact at the Hospital, the room is located down the 100 hallway midway down on the left. Come in through main lobby, take a left, and then keep going around to the left (past Respiratory dept). There are signs posted

Dues –Due

All you members please bring $16 or if a family membership, $24 to the meeting so we can finish up this onerous task of collecting annual dues. Visitors are welcome to come a few times and check us out when you are ready to join up, we are ready to welcome you to the club with open arms. You will receive your very own membership card suitble for framing (small frame).

Bill - W6WRT contributes this issue's words of wisdom - "RF energy is expensive to generate. Do not waste it by running it through dirt. Keep it up in the air where it belongs." The lesson here is that vertical antennas need a ground return; dirt is not a good return, so use radials on top of the ground or elevated above the ground around your vertical to improve performance.

73, Dick N4ARO

JCARA Club Meeting

Tuesday February 20, 2010

Dick Church, N4ARO, called the meeting to order at 7 p.m., February 16, 2010. The meeting was held at Northside Hospital in Johnson City.

We went around the room and everyone introduced themselves to the group and reported on how long they had been licensed.

Dick reported that our QSL cards have been received. He displayed the QSL card and distributed packets of eyeball QSL cards to the members present. We are to use these cards to introduce the club to new hams and prospective club members.

Dick reminded us that Sean Dennis, KD5COL, volunteered at our January meeting to serve as Vice President of the club. After an unanswered call for additional volunteers, Sean was elected by a unanimous show of hands.

As planning for future programs for our club meetings, Dick proposed that we have a 15-minute talk each month about a different antenna topic. These could include basics, construction, and erection of antennas. After discussion and volunteers, the following schedule was adopted:

• March Meeting - Dipoles, Sean Dennis, KD5COL
• April Meeting - Verticals, Arline Lovell, K1GIG
• May Meeting - Loops, Dick Church, N4ARO
• June Meeting - Field Day plans
• July Meeting - Beams, Bob May, K4SE
• August Meeting - Antenna Construction, Ken Hart, K4KN

[Webmaster Note: The whole year was carefully displayed by the President on the white board for clarity.]

At the March meeting, Ed Ingraham, WX4S, will also present a demonstration and program about his SoftRock 40m software defined receiver.

Ken Hart, K4KN, announced that the VE test session will be held at ETSU at 10 am on February 20.

Dick discussed a CW operating guide that he has written, and said that if there is sufficient interest, a Morse Code class can be organized. Ken offered space on jcara.org for any technical reports that members might like to offer.

In a discussion of our weekly net, Dick suggested that we increase the content by giving all participants the opportunity to report on their recent activities and interests. Sean reported that the recent net time change to 8 pm has been accompanied by an increase in net activity.

Dick reported that during our January meeting we discussed discontinuing the telephone line to the repeater as a way to save over $400 per year. Ed reported that it is his understanding that the line is no longer required for repeater control, as we have on-frequency control as well as a time-out timer. It was moved (K4KN) and seconded (K1GIG) to discontinue the telephone line. The motion passed by a unanimous show of hands.

JCARA Club Meeting

Tuesday March 16, 2010

Dick Church, N4ARO, called the meeting to order at 7 p.m., March 16, 2010. The meeting was held at Northside Hospital in Johnson City. We went around the room and everyone introduced themselves to the group and reported how long they had been licensed.

Tom Cook, KB3HZA, reported that an ARES exercise will be held on March 24. All available ARES members are needed to participate.

Wendell Messimer, K4ZHK, announced that we have been asked to help with the March for Babies Walk on May 1 at the Appalachian Fairgrounds. More details will be available at our April meeting.

Wendell also discussed putting together a group order for ARRL Field Day t-shirts, caps, pins, and mugs. He passed a sign-up sheet around the room to make our selections. The list of items and money will be collected by our Treasurer, Tom Cook, KB3HZA.

Wendell suggests getting the order placed by April 1. In a related discussion it was asked whether the club had handout literature for Field Day left over from last year. Sean Dennis, KD5COL, volunteered to check the trailer for literature.

Dick announced that Wendell has secured approval for us to use the cabin at Winged Deer Park again this year for Field Day. Dick said that he thinks this is the best FD site in the area.

Dick took the floor to discuss the upcoming Virginia QSO Party on March 20-21 and the Georgia QSO Party on April 10-11. Dick also suggests that the club consider a group effort for the Tennessee QSO Party which will be held on September 5-6. He would like everyone to think about it and plan to participate.

The announcement was made that Jerome Christian, KE4FH, is in the VA Hospital. Visits and cards would be appreciated.

Dick discussed the weekly JCARA Net which is held at 8pm on Tuesdays on 146.790. The time was moved up an hour recently and it appears that participation has increased. A round for comments has also been added to the net. Frank Stout, KD4UZR, and Sean Dennis, KD5COL, are the only net controllers at present, but Dick would like to add others to help spread out the work. In a call for volunteers, Arline Lovell, K1GIG, and John Ruggieri, K4GML, agreed to help with the net. Dick promised to provide scripts for the net.

Sean Dennis, KD5COL, described a G5RV antenna which he has built. Sean discussed the design and construction of the antenna. Dick contributed his experiences building a multi-band dipole.

Our program was presented by Ed Ingraham, WX4S, on the SoftRock 40 receiver and Software Defined Radio (SDR). Ed told us that the SoftRock 40 is an inexpensive, 40-meter Software Defined Receiver and a platform for SDR familiarity and experimentation.

Ed showed pictures of the kit and the finished unit, and explained the functionality of the receiver at a block diagram level.

Ed described the differences between Software Defined Radio and the soundcard digital modes and some of the features of Software Defined Radio. This was followed by a demonstration of the SoftRock 40 receiver and Rocky software.

JCARA Club Meeting

Tuesday April 20, 2010

Dick Church, N4ARO, called the meeting to order at 7 p.m., April 20, 2010. The meeting was held at Northside Hospital in Johnson City.

Dick read a letter from Sean Dennis, KD5COL, resigning as member and vice president of the JCARA along with his wife, Maura. It was recommended by Dick that the club refund their dues for 2010. There were no objections. Dick recommended that rather than attempt to elect another VP, the club secretary preside at meetings if the president could not be present.

Everyone was reminded to read the President's message each month that is emailed to all members and is also posted on the JCARA web site.

Dick mentioned that he and Ed Ingraham, WX4S, had been working on a member survey to assist in program planning, etc. A rough draft showing what the survey would look like was passed around. Due to Ed's absence the proposed survey of club members will be discussed in greater detail at the next meeting.

The Tuesday Net now has four Net Control Operators that will rotate each week as net control. Volunteers are Arline Lovell, K1GIG; Frank Stout,KD4UZR; Dean Nash, N4SHD; and John Ruggieri, K4GML. An updated script is available on jcara.org so that each control operator can follow the same format each week.

Wendell asked for volunteers for the March for Babies Walk that will be held at the Appalachian Fair Grounds on May 1 from 8 - 12. Volunteers included Dean Nash - N4SHD, Arline Lovell - K1GIG, Ken Hart, K4KN, and Jerry Lake, KD4NH.

Ken (K4KN) announced that four people passed the ham license test held at ETSU on Saturday, April 17.

Dick announced that as President of the club he would not be acting as FD Captain this year. Dick asked for a volunteer to take over as Captain and offered that he and other members of the club could be counted on to help.

Arline volunteered on the condition that she would require a lot of help. Dick briefly outlined what needed to be done now including preparation by downloading the ARRL FD package from arrl.org and getting familiar with it.

At our next meeting, operators and participants will be identified, and the June meeting will be devoted mostly to planning for Field Day.

Arline gave an excellent presentation on the S9v vertical antenna she uses. She showed several DX QSL cards from stations she has worked. She discussed the need of radials for maximum efficiency when using vertical antennas.

Dick showed examples of rope and pulleys that he had used for antennas for several years. The nylon rope and metal pulleys had deteriorated beyond use. He recommended using a good quality Dacron rope, stainless steel pulleys, and top quality coax properly water proofed when mounting antennas in trees.