THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR - March 2004 - NOTE: An HTML version is available at www.mvrc.qzxservices.com. NOTE new URL For this issue a pdf file of the web edition is available at www.mvrc.qzxservices.com/LO0403.pdf. It will be easy to print that edition. If you do not have the free pdf reader you can get it at www.adobe.com - TABLE OF CONTENTS COMING EVENTS PRESIDENT'S CORNER BREAKFAST SUPER SUNDAY RACE SOCIAL DINNER CW CLASS INFORMATION ELMER SESSION DEARHOLT TRAIL RUN BEAN FEED THE CLOUDCROFT VE TRIPS UNCLASSIFIED ADS COMING EVENTS Week days 6 m FM net 52.540 6:00AM Mon WTRA Swap net 146.88 8 PM Wed Net 146.64 6:45PM round-table 52.525MHz 8 PM Weekdays Informal get together Mon Wed Fri Munson Center 10AM Tue Thur Wal-Mart Feb 28 El Paso Ham fest see www.qsl.net/w5es/hamfest.htm March 6 Breakfest 8 AM Club House March 6 Business meeting 9:15AM Club House March 11 1st Wed after 2nd Mon Directors at Club House 7:00PM March 8 Social Meeting 6 PM New China Buffet Mar 14 Code test Mar 25 Bataan Death March Apr 3 Run Old Mesilla Apr 16, 17, 18 General Class Club House Apr 18 Triathelon Apr 25 Bean Feed May 7 - 9 Extra Class Club House PRESIDENT'S CORNER KD5SSF I have recently been intrigued with radio direction finding. I find it fascinating that one can determine the direction to a transmitter using antennas, phase shifts, and signal strengths. We also need to think about direction finding in another sense. What direction do we want to find our club going a year from now? My idea is to continue to be a group of people pursuing diverse interests, united by our love of Amateur Radio. I want to have our club meetings be times that members tell each other of the fun they are having in their radio-related hobby. There may never be a majority of the club members involved in your favorite facet of Amateur Radio, but by sharing your enthusiasm, we all benefit and the club is a much more fun place to be. If you have a particular aspect of Amateur Radio that you enjoy and would like to tell the other members how much fun you have doing it, contact me or Bob Deal and we will find a time for you to tell the rest of us about it. BREAKFAST KD5SSJ Join us for breakfast at 8:00am on March 6, 2004. The breakfast has been very successful over the last year, Let's keep it going and growing. I try to plan fairly close on the provisions so that we can have the breakfast, breaking even or making a small profit. Last month I bought three and a half dozen eggs, six pounds of bacon, biscuits, two gallons of orange juice, etc. Bob Deal has been real good about bringing in some extra meat, last time he brought in a box of polish sausages, which got high complements. The reason he contributes the extra meat is that there are so many who are on the Atkin's diet. Last month I ran out of eggs, so I'll bring in another dozen or so. Things like the extra meat can go back into the freezer but I try not to keep eggs, milk, and juice over from month to month. Last month I got some really great help from Dorothy, K0SWK and Tressa, KD5ZHD. I have a couple of volunteers for this month. A few guys like Bob, AD5LJ, and Tim, KD5SSF, have stayed after the meetings to help so many times I've lost track. Their help is always appreciated. SUPER SUNDAY RACE K5DI On February 1 2004 at 9:30 the members of the Club began arriving to support the Super Sunday 5 and 10 KM races. At this time my thermometer in my car said it was 45 degrees and a good stiff wind was out of the west, making the wind chill temperature about minus 5 degrees. All positions were assigned and we had the whole 10 KM under view the whole race. Henry AD5FE was at the first corner and George KD5OHA was between Henry and Dennis who was at the 5 KM turn around point. Steve WM5Z and Val KD5ZGY were at the next turn onto Tellbrook and they needed their 4 wheel drive to get there. Next was John WK5C on the hill where he could see everybody. This also required 4 wheel drive. Brad KC5SKE was next and he was situated so he could see John and Joe KI5FJ who was at the 10 KM Turn Around. Karl K5DI was at the start/finish line and stayed huddled in his car. K5DI had his Ham Radio and a hand held that contacted the NMSU EMS people if needed. This was very nice. There were no injuries and we all got shirts of the size requested. Everyone cleared out for home and a warm cup of coffee as soon as possible. It was another race well covered. SOCIAL DINNER KD5SSJ The social dinner is at 6:00pm on March 8, 2004 at the New China Super Buffet, 850 North Telshor Blvd. Suite K, just north of the Spruce underpass. The social dinner this month comes on the heals of the Breakfast / Business meeting, because the second Monday in February and March this (leap) year immediately follows the first Saturday. Last month only a few attended but I know that several of us were thinking that it shouldn't come so soon after the business meeting. Come and enjoy food and drink, there's usually a pretty good group. CW CLASS INFORMATION K5DI If you are planning to get a General Class ticket you need to demonstrate that you can copy the Morse Code at a rate of 5 Words per Minute. There will be a CW Class offered along with the Technician, General and Extra Class classes. You can get the instructions and the software that runs well on windows computers from my web page whenever you want it. To reach this web page point your browser at: http://www.zianet.com/k5di/ and click on CW to get to that page. There are 2 papers and the Koch software to download. You can get started right now if you want to! For other information please contact Karl Larsen at 524-3303. ELMER SESSION KD5SSJ Last fall we tried something new, we called it the Elmer session, and it was a success. It was scheduled for March 20 to follow the Technician Class in February, but with everybody's permission, I'd like to combine it with the Bean Feed. We have a busy schedule of classes in March. DEARHOLT TRAIL RUN K5DI On February 14, 2004 at 8:00 AM it was 21 degrees at the start/finish line for this race. The frigid temperature kept many runners from coming out. The ladies who passed out the numbers and registered them were very cold! We Hams were lucky. We could spend most of the time in our warm cars. This was the first race for Charlie Mabry, KE5AAE and he enjoyed it even though it was cold. Alex, K5XY was the only walker in this race and the photographer. Steve, AC5RI, Jack, N5PK, Dennis, KB5TPV, John, WK5C, Henry, AD5FE, Karl, WF5A, Rodney, WK5I, George, KD5OHA, Joe, WZ5R, Dale, K4BHL, and Karl, K5DI were the radio stations that watched the runners from sites on the runner's path. The Fire Department came out with a truck and we discussed how we would get an injured runner to the truck, since it was not capable of driving the dirt roads. It was fun and this was the first time this course has been used. There are a lot of new homes and roads being put up in this area. In three years there will be more homes and all the roads and some jogging paths will be finished. So this will become a much used course. BEAN FEED KD5SSJ Speaking of the Bean Feed, our annual swap meet and fundraiser. This year it falls on April 24 (always the last Sunday of April). Last year we made well over $2000 which has helped to keep membership dues from rising. Bob, AD5LJ, and I picked up two pickup truck loads of donations today. There were some WW II ventage transmitters / receivers, and lots of power supplies (heavy duty), four small military oscilloscopes, and some miscellaneous stuff. If you have some electronics / ham gear that you have gotten tired of or just can't find a place to keep it (think of how many months you've paid the rent on that storage building), consider tailgating at the Bean Feed or donating it to the club. Dorothy Figgins, K0SWK, has volunteered to do the talk in. We need help with lots of aspects of the preparations to make the Bean Feed a success again this year, so be thinking of how you'd like to help and get in touch with me on the air or at 382-1917. THE CLOUDCROFT VE TRIPS K5DI Reg Duncan, W5UWY moved to James Canyon near Cloudcroft several years ago and decided to get everyone who lives up there a Ham Ticket. He is helped a lot by Howard and Grady. Reg is using the same basic method to teach the students that we use here. He is using the old video with the new booklets done by Dr. Steve Horan AC5RI. I have the booklets in a "pdf" form on a cd-rom that I take to Instomtic Printing in the old downtown where the worker/owner puts the cd-rom into his computer and out comes 15 booklets, that they bind with the black plastic spiral stuff. Grady comes to Las Cruces often on business and he gets the booklets up to Cloudcroft. The VE session was Saturday February 2 2004, and there was a Club meeting. So all the VE's came to the club meeting and we left from the Clubhouse, leaving all the cars there but mine. I now drive a 4 wheel drive Dodge Durango that has seating for 6 adults. We drove through a little snow and had no ice I was happy to find. There were high piles of snow along the road and we passed several groups of inner tube snow fun groups that were obviously from Las Cruces and El Paso based on license plates and high school stickers. We got to the James Canyon Fire station and the ladies had brought some pizza and sweets for lunch for the VE team, students and teachers. Then we got set up and I introduced the team that was Loren Otto, N7LO, Henry Schotzko, AD5FE, Joe Ostrowski, KI5FJ, and myself. We had ten students so there was a lot of paperwork. One young lady only missed making it by one question so I asked her to take another test, and she passed. So as we have come to expect, good teachers using the ARRL video's and Steve's booklet result in 100% of the students passing the test. We had a pleasant trip home and got home about 3:00 PM. UNCLASSIFIED ADS WANTED: The club needs a small unit that can receive on the 70 cm band. The unit could be either a hand-held or a scanner. If you have such equipment that you would like to donate to MVRC, please contact Tim Linn 521-0486 or kd5ssf@arrl.net. 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 has a web site maintained by WA2NIJ at http://www.zianet.com/mvrc. OFFICERS Pres Tim Linn KD5SSF 521-0486 kd5ssf@arrl.net VPr Bob Deal KD5PPP bob-verna@zianet.com Sec Carleton Talbot KC5MRM (915)877-3538 kc5mrm@zianet.com Tres Charlie Welch W5TLU 524-3412 cwwelch@usa.net Board Communications Karl Larsen K5DI 524-3303 k5di@zianet.com Education Joe San Filippo WZ5R 521-7574 sanfilippo@zianet.com Special Events Cash Olsen KD5SSJ 382-1917 KD5SSJ@zianet.com News Letter Alex Burr K5XY 522-2528 k5xy@arrl,net Repeaters Brad Sacca KD5SKE 382-4380 sheikyerbouty@msn.com Facilities Bob Bennett AD5LJ 382-0148 rbennett@zianet.com 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?