THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR - February 2007 NOTE: An HTML version is available at www.mvrc.qzxservices.com. A pdf file of the web edition is available at www.mvrc.qzxservices.com/pdf/LO0702.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 A THANK YOU CHRISTMAS DINNER CLUBHOUSE CLEAN UP 2007 MVRC COMM EVENTS CALENDAR GENERAL LICENSE CLASS DIGITAL TV INCOME/EXPENSES BACK PAGE COMING EVENTS Sun CW net 7.142 MHz 4:00PM M-F 6 m FM net 52.540 6:00AM Mon YL Rise & Shine 449.9 8:30AM Mon WTRA Swap net 146.88 8:00PM Wed Net 146.64 6:45PM M-F round-table 52.525 MHz 8:00PM MWF Informal get together Wal-Mart W (Valley) 10 AM TTH Informal get together Wal-Mart E (Walton) 10 AM Feb 3 Breakfast 8 AM Club House Feb 3 Business meeting 9 AM Club House Feb 4 Super Sunday Race Feb 14 Directors meeting 7 PM Club House Feb 16 Tech Class Club House Mar 9 General Class Club House Mar 10 Run Old Mesilla Race Mar 25 Bataan Memorial Death March Apr 29 Bean Feed PRESIDENT'S CORNER KD5ZHI Mesilla Valley Radio Club is well underway for the year of 2007. Bob Bennet organized a great club house clean up day. We are starting to plan and organize the Bean Feed. We have two classes scheduled, one for tech the weekend of February 16th and a general class weekend of March 9th. We will need a great amount of club support and participation for the Bean Feed as always. Jeff Campbell KE5KLH with the help of Cash Olsen KD5SSJ is organizing the Bean Feed this year. Should you have a particular thing you want to help with, please contact him. Jeff will definitely be contacting all of us for help. With that note, if you have anything you want to donate, please contact Dennis Shapen or Bob Bennet. The club depends on donations and sales to help support the operations of the club. If you don't want to donate then tail gate, get rid of that stuff you just don't use or want any more to make room for the new goodies. If you would like someone to come by and pickup items you would like to donate to the club, we will make the necessary arrangements. We hope to have some commercial vendors to sell new goodies. In a sad note we have lost Art Block this month. I am sure Art will be missed by many, our thoughts are with his wife and family. I also wanted to remember those that are sick or ill. Stay on the radio, its good therapy. A THANK YOU KC5SKE (and family) On behalf of my family I want to thank everyone for their support and prayers during our time of need. Ever since I became a Ham I have found so many great people that are willing to give of themselves when needed and it was very evident, especially when we needed it the most. Thank you all. CHRISTMAS DINNER K5XY A very successful Christmas Dinner was held at the new Furr’s Buffet on December 5. The first of more than 40 people started to fill the event dinning room at Furr’s before 6 PM. A special price had been arranged and there was a wide choice of good food from which to select. There was no special program, but a lot of rag chewing went on and the retiring president, N5PK, presented awards to the outgoing board members. CLUBHOUSE CLEAN UP AD5LJ On Saturday, 13 Jan 2007, ten people worked all morning cleaning our clubhouse and lot. We started at 8:30 AM and divided into two teams with one team cleaning the clubhouse and the other working outside. Just about every surface in the clubhouse was scrubbed and it is now the cleanest it has been in several years. It looks great! The second team working outside managed to cut and pile a lot of the dead weeds from the lot. Bob Deal (KD5PPP) brought his tractor with a front end loader and rear rake. With the tractor we were able to clear a path from Wilt to the rear of the clubhouse, knock out some cactus mounds in rear of the clubhouse and make a few new parking places for use during bean feed tail gating. A small amount of clean up still needs to be done and we will have another work morning in a month or so to finish the lot work. The following participated in the clean up; Cash Olsen (KD5SSJ),George Kopp (KD5OHA), Bob Rossow (KE5ISD), Tres Campbell (KD5ZHI), Ron Lerdal (KE5KLK), Dennis Shepan (KB5TPV), Bob Deal (KD5PPP), Verna Deal (KD5PUN), Dave Hassall (WA5DJJ), and Bob Bennett (AD5LJ). 2007 MVRC COMM EVENTS CALENDAR AD5FE They are: Feb 04: Super Bowl Sunday 5 & 10K Mar 10: Run Old Mesilla 5 & 10K Runs/ 5K Fitness Walk Mar 25: Bataan Memorial Death March, Not a MVTC Event. Apr 01: MVTC Triathlon, 5K Run/25K Bike? 500M Swim Apr 21: Horse Endurance Race, T or C; Not a MVTC Event. Jul 04: Independence Day Run ** 8K/1Mile, Jul 14: Burn Lake Duathlon ** 5K Run/28Mile Bike/5K Run Aug 04: Summer Fun ** 5 & 10K Runs/ 5K Fitness Walk Sep 29: The Whole Enchilada Fiesta ** 5K/1Mile Oct 28: Rio Grande Marathon, Marathon/M-Relay/Half-M/5K Nov 10: 37th Annual Baylor Pass Mountain Run, 5.9 Miles Nov 22: Turkey Trot 5K Run/ Fitness Walk, 1 Mile Kid’s Run ** = Events co-sponsored with the City of Las Cruces. Please note that two (2) events added to the list are not sponsored by the track club, but are supported by the MVRC. Also note that this list can change if the need arises. GENERAL LICENSE CLASS K5DI We have traditionally held a weekend class that gets a student his General Class written exam, but this does not make him a General Class Ham. In fact he gets a CSCE from the VE Team that is good for one year. I used to conduct a CW Class that ran for a couple of weeks but many did not't even listen to the code until the last week end. They did not succeed and a year later they lost credit for taking the written exam. Any fool can see that learning the code is a lot more difficult than learning how to pass the written exam. So I propose to teach a General License Class. At the end of this class there will be a VE Exam where the first test will be for code, and the second for the written exam. The student will learn to pass the written exam by taking the practice exams on the QRZ web page. We will check progress with a real written exam near the end of the class. The code will be learned using a simple device you put on your windows computer and it will send CW to you. It is very easy to use but it took me 4 hours to figure it out. So in the first class meeting we will all learn to use this free software. I suggest that you learn how to put earphones on your computer so you alone hear the CW. This is to keep peace at home. This class will not be over one weekend. In fact you will be asked to come just for an hour Tuesday and Thursday evenings for 6 weeks. At these meetings you will be told how your doing and will be shown some methods to get over your special problems with CW. The class will be held at the Mesilla Valley Recreation Center which is near Main and Union Streets. You will receive detailed instructions later. We will use the latest Koch trainer which is from G4FON and you get the software from G4FON by putting his call in Google. You want version 9.1.4 and it is not too large to download if your using a telephone modem, but will take a few minutes. It works just fine on my WindowsXP on my laptop. To join this class please contact the instructor Karl Larsen at 524-3303 or cell 640-1383 or Internet k5di@zianet.com. I am often on the 146.64 repeater in the early morning hours. DIGITAL TV KI5FJ If you have an old reliable TV, meaning ANALOG, and a roof antenna there may be only 25 months ANALOG transmissions authorized. Currently DIGITAL TV (DTV) is being transmitted along with the ANALOG from PBS and the El Paso major network stations. The end of ANALOG has been planned for Feb 2009 or when 85 percent of the population has DTV available. What does this mean for you? If your old TV picture is not as bright and clear as it used to be, you might consider upgrading. DTV or sometimes-called HDTV receivers are now available. These TVs have many inputs for a lot of fancy stuff like VCRs, DVD Players, and Satellite dish receivers. Most importantly, they probably have TWO 75 ohm TV antenna connectors. One of these F type antenna connectors is for the old ANALOG NTSC format and the other for the new DIGITAL (DTV). Converter boxes for your old TV may be available. The FCC plan is to move all of the stations from VHF frequencies (Channels 2-13) to UHF when they no longer transmit ANALOG. As an example, Channel 4 will move to Channel 50. The picture and sound quality for an off the air DIGITAL signal from El Paso is great! Thanks to Richard, KC5EVR for making me aware of the DTV in our area. INCOME/EXPENSE KJ5Q November 1 through December 31, 2006 Beginning Balances MVRC Checking Account 1351.90 MVRC Savings Account 0.00 MVRC 1 year CD 5000.00 Education Fund Account 2327.65 Cash on Hand 50.00 Balances Total 8729.55 Income Breakfast & Drinks 81.00 Dues 420.00 Equipment Sales 1224.00 T-shirt Sales 67.50 Total Income 1792.50 Balances + Income 10522.05 Expenses Breakfast 8.98 Newsletter 29.79 President’s Fund 260.25 Property Tax 580.19 Utilities Electricity 60.25 Propane 153.96 Telephone 57.86 Water 23.21 Total Expenses 1174.49 Balances on hand, Dec. 31, 2006 9347.56 Ending Balances MVRC Checking Account 1969.91 MVRC Savings Account 0.00 MVRC 1 year CD 5000.00 Education Fund Account 2327.65 Cash on Hand 50.00 Balances Total 9347.56 Sandra Hempfling 2006 Treasurer Final Report 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 k5xy@arrl.net. The club has a web site maintained by WA2NIJ at http://www.zianet.com/mvrc. OFFICERS Pres Tres Campbell KD5HZI 373-2008 trscam@netscape.net VPr Dennis Shepan KB5TPV 522-7466 - Sec Bob Rossow KE5ISD 522-7445 - Tres Martin Winkler N9OG - winklma@comcast.net BOARD Communications Henry Schotzko AD5FE 526-1922 schotzko@comcast.net Education Tim Linn KD5SSF 521-0486 - Special Events Cash Olsen KD5SSJ 382-1917 KD5SSJ@zianet.com Newsletter Alex Burr K5XY 522-2528 k5xy@arrl.net Clubhouse Bob Bennett AD5LJ 382-0148 rpbennett1@comcast.net Repeaters Brad Sacca KC5SKE 382-4380 shiekyerbouty@msn.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 ($35 single, $45 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?