THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR - August 2002 TABLE OF CONTENTS Field Day Program CW Class Report Back Page COMING EVENTS Week days 6 m FM net 52.540 6:00AM Mon R&S Net 449.90 8:30AM Mon - Fri Breakfast Wal-Mart 10:00AM Wed Net 146.64 6:45PM July 22 4th Mon Business Meeting Club House 7:00PM Aug 3 Saturday Breakfast Club House 8:00AM Aug 12 2nd Mon Social Meeting Luby's Cafeteria 6:00PM Aug 15 1st Thur after 2nd Mon Directors at Club House 7:00PM Aug 26 4th Mon Business Meeting Club House 7:00PM FIELD DAY KB5WHP Remember that Saturday, 22 June is the radio club field day get-together and dinner. Activities start at noon Saturday and continue until noon Sunday. Dinner is 6 PM Saturday. Come on out and operate the club radios or watch others operate and see what it's all about. Bring along anyone interested in amateur radio. We plan to have three HF stations available; CW, SSB and PSK32 digital and of course a 2 meter station. Cost for dinner, which includes hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, cold slaw, potato salad and soft drinks is $6.00 per person. Hope to see you there! THE PROGRAM KE3FF Have you ever wondered how all those commercial aeroplanes go from A to B without getting lost?? Okay we will find out. Spencer McConnell, a retired airline pilot, will give you all the details. CW CLASS REPORT K5DI For weeks before the first weekend of June, I had people in the CW Class practicing with first the Koch and later the Morse Academy software on their computers. Mr. Tim Linn was the first to sign up for the class and then later Mr. Sidney and Mr. Brandon Goddard joined in. All three were also taking both the Technician and General Classes. Tim was the first to have a problem with the Koch system. He was unable to get past the first 4 or 5 characters for several reasons. So I gave him Morse Academy and he began to learn all the characters at a slow speed. Sidney and Brandon started late and it sounded as if the Koch method was working with them. They had 4 days after the General Class to study hard. But on Friday Evening it was clear the Koch training was not there. I gave all three students a real exam and Tim passed that test fine. Sidney and Brandon were not even close to passing. Mr. Art Block agreed we should try and get Sidney and Brandon up to speed over the weekend. So that was the plan. Saturday morning after the big breakfast at the Clubhouse, we started using Morse Academy in the First Practice mode, which can teach a person the characters. Mr. Tim Linn brought 2 laptop and one pocket computer with Morse Academy on them so everyone had their own computer to work with. During the day Saturday we took many breaks because you can only work with the computer for about 30 minutes and you stop learning. I again gave a practice test and this time Brandon passed. But Sidney was not getting better. It seems that Sidney had learned the code 50 years ago and that was causing real problems. About 3:30 PM Saturday we quit and planned to return at 8:00 AM Sunday and finish up the learning. The Goddard's took a key home with them to practice both sending and receiving. Sunday morning after a practice test it was clear that only Sidney was still having trouble with most of the characters at the 5 wpm rate. We worked hard with Sidney but it was not enough. At 12:30 the VE Team showed up and ran a test where all three students took the test at the same time. After time to answer the 10 questions on the message was done, it was easy to see that Sidney failed and the other 2 passed. The VE Team sent paperwork to the FCC saying 2 people passed their Code Test making them that day General Class Hams. In summary it looks like the Koch method for Code Training is a failure the way we used it. We found that the Morse Academy software is better if your just trying to reach 5 wpm capability. This was a surprise to me and others. BACK PAGE The newsletter is always looking for articles and notes of interest to the members of the Mesilla Valley Radio Club. Please send them to Alex. F. Burr, K5XY, Editor, MVRC Local Oscillator, 695 Stone Canyon Drive, Las Cruces, NM 88011. Small personal ads from members will also be published. It would be helpful if submissions would be made in a machine readable form. MSDOS disks are welcome. Files can also be sent to the internet address aburr@aol.com. The club maintains a web site at http://www.zianet.com/mvrc. OFFICERS Pres Bob Bennett KB5WHP 382-0148 VPr Doug Hicks KE5FF 522-2683 Sec Ruth Barker KD6TBX 373-2838 Tres Rod Davis WK5I 522-6833 B'rd Alex. Burr K5XY 522-2528 Henry Frink W4GEG 523-5137 Dave Hassall WA5DJJ 532-1251 George Koop KD5OHA 523-1758 Karl Larsen K5DI 524-3303 Brad Sacca KC5SKE 382-4380 JOIN THE CLUB To join the Mesilla Valley Radio Club, renew your membership, or to support the repeaters, please complete the form below and send it with dues ($25 single, $35 family per year) to: Treasurer, MVRC, Box 1443, Las Cruces, NM 88004. Name: Address: Call: Class of License: Phone: E-Mail Address: ARRL Member? Yes? No?