THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR - November 2002 TABLE OF CONTENTS COMING EVENTS PRESIDENT'S CORNER OCTOBER MEETING BUILERS GROUP RACES USE THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR INTERNET LOCAL OSCILLATOR CONTEST DX NETS LIGHTNING MINUTES TREASURER'S REPORT BACK PAGE COMING EVENTS Week days 6 m FM net 52.540 6:00AM Mon R&S Net 449.90 8:30AM Breakfast Wal-Mart 10:00AM Wed Net 146.64 6:45PM Oct 27 Rio Grande Marathon Oct 28 4th Mon Business Meeting Club House 7:00PM Nov 2 Saturday Breakfast Club House 8:00AM Nov 4 1st Tue Builders group Club House 7:00PM Nov 9 Baylor Pass Run Nov 11 2nd Mon Social Meeting IHOP restaurant 6:00PM Nov 14 1st Thur after 2nd Mon Directors at Club House 7:00PM Nov 19 3rd Tue Builders group Club House 7:00PM Nov 25 4th Mon Business Meeting Club House 7:00PM PRESIDENTS CORNER AD5LJ I have a few announcements that may be of interest to club members. 1. The MVRC membership roster has been finished. Copies will be available at the October business meeting. The roster can also be viewed or downloaded from the WEB site www.zianet.com/common/mvrc/index.html. Please give Alex a few days to get the roster on the site before you attempt to access it. 2. I received an email from the Deming Amateur Radio Club (DARC). They have a Thursday evening net that meets on their 146.82 MHZ repeater (minus offset, no PL) at 7:30 PM. Las Cruces hams are welcome to check in. The DARC also has a new 70 CM repeater on the air (449.475 MHZ, negative offset, 77 HZ PL). All hams are welcome to use the new repeater while in the Deming area. 3. At its 17 Oct. meeting, the board of directors decided to implement some much needed changes to the local oscillator newsletter and to the business meeting format. These changes are intended to make the newsletter more interesting and to streamline and shorten the business meeting. First, we will publish the minutes from the previous months business meeting along with the current budget report in the local oscillator. These items will not be discussed at the business meeting unless someone has a question. Second, we hope to shorten the business meeting duration to 30 minutes or less. We can do this by only presenting those items that require a vote by the membership. Most general announcements and business items that don’t require a vote can be put in the local oscillator and only covered at the business meeting if questions arise. Members will of course have the opportunity to raise new business items at the meeting. Third, the board questions the need for a business meeting every month. If there is no important business to transact, then why not omit that month’s business meeting? Instead we could have a program on some aspect of ham radio followed by a time to socialize. Your thoughts on this suggestion are solicited. Finally, the contents of the local oscillator will start changing with this issue. Besides the things mentioned above, there would be at least one amateur radio related technical article in each issue. We already have six articles and authors identified. If you would like to contribute an article, please contact Alex, K5XY. 4. The nominating committee is busy finding candidates for club offices for next year. If you are interested in being either a club officer or a director, please contact Cash, KD5SSJ. OCTOBER MEETING WA5DJJ For the October meeting we are going to talk about QSL cards. I would like everyone to bring their FAVORITE QSL card, along with the story behind it. We are going to go through the design, printing, filling out, mailing, and storage of QSL cards, plus some interesting side notes. So you all come and bring your FAVORITE QSL CARD. BUILDERS GROUP WA5DJJ The MVRC's Builders Group has started up again and is meeting on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month. Some new faces have appeard and there is room for more. So if you were thinking about starting to learn how to build your own radio or accessories for your station, Now is the time to get started. We will be meeting on these Tuesday nights from now until next May. Group Projects are in progress but personal projects can be substituted. So if there is just something that you need to build and want to learn how to do it, Join us. RACES K5DI There will be 2 major MVTC races the last of October and the first of November. The Marathon will take place October 27 and the Baylor Pass Run, always a favorite of both runners and Hams will take place Saturday November 9, 2002. If you want to help with the Marathon please call Karl Larsen at 524-3303. If you want to help with the Baylor Pass Run, call John Beakley at 522-7078. Both events will require you to be at the start point about 6:30 AM. The Marathon will be a long race and will take about 4 hours. The Baylor Pass Run also takes about 4 hours because Hams need time to climb the mountain. You will need a radio that works on the 2 meter Ham band. It will need to operate with repeaters having a tone system and you need to be able to change frequency to a simplex frequency usually 146.55 MHz. HOW TO USE THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR K5DI All of you are receiving the Mesilla Valley Radio Club Newsletter called the Local Oscillator as E-Mail. You are not getting all you should from it. From my own experience let me suggest some ideas that have merit. I am the one who mails out this E-Mail and I always send myself a copy. I use Linux rather than Windows so the keys I press to print the E-Mail will not be what you do. Anyway I print a copy of this months issue and it's usually 3-4 pages in length. First I read it again to make sure what I sent out and you all received is what was sent to me by Alex Burr, K5XY, who publishes this paper. Then I take my 3 hole punch and put it into a 3 ring binder with all the last issues for this year. Now I look at it and see if there is anything in the new issue I need to act on. Then I set the binder away where I can find it later. Today I wanted to know when the Board of Directors meeting was to be held in October 2002. I got the binder, found this months first page and discovered it is October 17, 2002. I then read again about the ARRL list that they want me to join. You will use this printed paper often during the month. If you leave the paper as just a E-Mail you must search for it in all your other messages and this can be very time consuming. You then must read the whole thing to find what your looking for. Then perhaps write out the names or web page address. It's there in your notes until that gets lost or discarded.In summary, please print the E-Mail Local Oscillator and save it in a file or 3 ring binder. We are more likely to use it to find out dates of events, or for sale things, or where to send a written paper like this for inclusion in the next Local Oscillator. Read this at least once. This also makes the E-Mail version much like the Printed and Mailed version. INTERNET LOCAL OSCILLATOR K5XY This issue of the Local Oscillator will appear on the Internet at www.zianet.com/common/mvrc/index.html about November 7. I am out of town for two weeks teaching a course on power supplies. Please look at it and tell your officers whether or not the extra work involved in creating a web edition is worth the effort. Your opinion can be easily transmitted via the form located on the feedback page. This e-mail issue had to be prepared a bit earlier than usual so the web edition might be a bit more up-to-date. In any case the web edition will have a photograph and a formated membership roster. GRANDDADDY OF THEM ALL CONTEST K5DI Beginning at 0000 UTC on October 26 the biggest and the best DX contest will start. The CQ World Wide DX Contest is the oldest DX contest in the world and more people enter it than any other event. This is the SSB section and it runs until 2400 UTC October 27 (we are 6 hours ahead of UTC time, but it will change to 7 hours when we switch to MST on October 27 at 2:00 AM). Hope you have a clock set for UTC. Later on 0000 UTC on November 23 to 2400 UTC November 24 the CW portion of the contest is held. This is my personal favorite contest and I enter in the QRP category. I run 5 watts to my best antenna and last year I worked Europe on 40 meters! For details on this fun contest look in QST for October 2002 page 90. DX NETS W4GEG This article is about two 20-meter DX nets, The Southern Cross DX Net is operated out of Australia, and the Bill Bennett Family Hour DX Net is operated out of the United States. Before going into net operations I will go over the equipment I use: · Antenna one is a Mosley TA33 Jr. beam with an Alliance Rotator. · Antenna two is a vertical sleeve dipole mounted with an eaves mount. The sleeve is a 20-meter quarter wavelength mast section with a notch at the bottom for the coax to feed out. A 20-meter Ham Stick Whip is the top half of the antenna. The coax shield is attached at the top of the sleeve. The coax center conductor is attached to the Ham Stick. Where the coax feeds out of the sleeve the coax is coiled to form a choke. I use an MFJ antenna switch to switch between antenna. · I use W6ELProp software to give me a printout of the SHORT-PATH GREAT CIRCLE BEARING via call sign prefix and country location. Adding or subtracting 180 degrees from the short-path bearing will give you the long-path bearing. · My transceiver is a Kenwood TS-430S. This transceiver has 250 watts PEP SSB, I also use speech processing. The purpose of a DX net is to allow amateurs using low power to work DX and not have to try and make contact through a large pileup. Several DX stations check into a DX net. The net control stations have large antennas and a good transceiver with a high power amplifier. The net control operator allows a small group (usually 10) to check in and work one of the DX stations. To get on the call list the net control asks for anyone wishing to work one of the DX stations to give the last two letters of their call sign. The net control station makes a call list order from the operators checking in with the last two letters of their call. The net control station periodically calls for DX stations wishing to check-in. The Southern Cross DX net operates with net control stations in the US or Australia. When the net control is in the US I use my vertical antenna to copy net control and switch to my beam which is pointed at the DX station to copy the DX. One has to be an early riser to work the Southern Cross DX net. The operating hours are 1100-1300 UTC. The operating frequency is 14226.5 Khz. The late riser can check into the Bill Bennett Family Hour net. The operating hours are 1400-1700 UTC. The operating frequency is 14245.0 Khz. After operating on the DX nets for a while you get to know some of the operators. There is a chance you could meet one of the operators at the Dayton Hamvention. Several of the DX operators go on Dxpeditions. You can get information about where they are going to operate. I have received several QSL cards after operating on both of these DX nets. Cards from the South Pacific, Australia, American Samoa, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Lord Howe Island, New Zealand, South Cook Island, Saipan, Western Samoa, Vietnam. With my beam pointed at Australia I have been able to talk to South Africa and Zimbabwe via long path. If DX is your bag, DX nets are fun. LIGHTNING K5DI It's Friday October 18 2002 and after a long dry spell it started to rain at my house about 3:30 AM and the bedroom was lite by a nearby lightning strike. I got up and went to the Ham Shack and unplugged the computer and removed all the antenna feed-lines. About 5:15 and then 8:30 AM and now at 2:15 PM I just removed the antenna feed-lines again and it's raining quite hard and lots of lightning. You can ask "why do you remove the the antenna feed-line when lightning is near?". The likelihood of your antenna getting hit by lightning is small but possible. Do you know what a radio looks like after it's hit by lightning? It will usually look fine. But when you turn it on it blows a fuse. You send it to Kenwood for repair and you get a call from Kenwood asking if the radio was hit by lightning. You say yes, and they say "buy a new radio, this one is not worth fixing". On the desk here is a Kenwood TS-50 QRO radio for the Breakfast Club and other nets, and a Yaseu FT-817 QRP radio that I use for everything else. If either radio is junked by lightning I would be devastated. It would hurt my wallet and cause harsh words between my wife and I. This is because I would as soon as possible buy new radios of the same type or newer. I would look in QST magazine and find some lightning arresters and install them to protect these new radios. By now there should be no lightning with a storm, but things are not normal this year. Be careful with your radios! MINUTES KE5FF Minutes of the General Meeting September 23, 2002. The meeting started at 710pm. The program for the evening was cancelled due personal reasons of the presenter. As the secretary was indisposed, D.J.Hicks KE5FF took the minutes, Introductions were made. There were 20 members present and one guest. Health and Welfare report - two members under the weather. The Treasurer, Rod Davis had heart surgery and is progressing very favorably. Treasurer's report showed a bank balance of $2957.58. No outstanding accounts exist. The minutes of the August Meeting were read and approved. Motioned by Steve Horan and seconded by Dave Hasall. Awarding of the Annual scholarship was discussed. Scott Kersey of N.M.S.U. will be awarded the scholarship in the amount of approximately$500.00 per semester. Approved by Dave Hassall and seconded by Jim Leverett. Steve Horan spoke on behalf of his wife about the upcoming Robot Competition to be held October 6, 2002 at the NMSU Activity Center. Volunteers to judge the event were requested. A committee for nominating the club officers and Directors for 2003 was formed. Cash Olsen will chair this committee with the able assistance of Tim Linn, Marnie Leverett and Terry Edwards. Their efforts will be presented at the October Meeting. The club’s emergency communications coordinator position was discussed with the idea of possibly making the position a full directors position. The membership voted to keep the position for Emergency Communications as is. The effort to collect E Mail addresses for all members is still ongoing. It appears that we may have exhausted all leads and the list may be considered complete. Copies of previous issues of the club paper, the Oscillator, have been received. For now we have 20 years of issues on hand. We are still seeking copies prior to 1980. Dorothy Higgins is still open for orders for Club Jackets. The order will be placed at the end of October. Those wishing to order please contact Dorothy. The Builders Group will start up again in October. October 1st and the 15th are tentative dates. Painting of the Club House is now scheduled for October 5 at 0830.Come early and have a good breakfast to start you painting day. Cash Olsen will be scheduling his course on "printer circuit boards" in early January 2003. Dates will be firmed up shortly. A handout on: ”recharging batteries” was also provided by Cash. Chairman for the education course was not present so course dates for 2003 have not been firmed up as yet. Volunteers to support the October 27 Public school marathon were requested. Cash Olsen, Carlton Talbot, George Kopp, Dave Hassall, Terry Edwards, Marnie Leverett and Richard Johnson all volunteered to help. Jim Leverett brought the club up to date on the EOC. There are interference problems that will be addressed by El Paso Electric. A new radio installation is in the works. The Wednesday Net has suffered by lack of a Net Master. Local users of this net will be asked to maintain a log and set up a schedule of who is to act as Net Master. Those users will then ensure that a Net Master is on tap. A special breakfast is planned for October 5th, Paint Day. Come on out EAT - PAINT, 0800 - 0900. No problems were reported with the Club repeaters. A lawn mower session is planned for October 3, to reduce the weed population on the clubhouse grounds. Come on out and MOW-DE=LAWN (French for cut the grass). No new or old business. Meeting adjourned at 8.07 pm TREASURERS REPORT 17 Oct. 2002 SAVINGS= $386.92 CHECKING: Previous Balance = $2428.57 Expenses = $573.30 Donations = $200 Profit from Oct Breakfast = $17.55 Current Balance = $2072.82 CASH ON HAND = $227.95 TOTAL = $2687.69 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 AD5LJ 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?