THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR - November 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/LO0711.pdf. It will be easy to print that edition. If you do not have the free pdf reader, you can get it at http://www.adobe.com TABLE OF CONTENTS COMING EVENTS PRESIDENT"S CORNER OCTOBER LOCAL OSCILLATOR THE SCHOLARSHIP ARES KF7E UPDATE MEMBER IN VIDEO N5CLM K5DI UNCLASSIFIED INCOME/EXPENSE BACK PAGE COMING EVENTS Sun CW net 7.142 MHz 4:00PM M-F 6 m FM net 52.540 6:00AM 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 Nov 3 Breakfast 8 AM Club House Nov 3 Business meeting 9 AM Club House Nov 7 Directors meeting 7 PM Club House PRESIDENT'S CORNER KD5ZHI Hello all, our elections for the officers and some board positions will be next month. If you are interested in a position please contact Marnie Leverett or Marty Campbell.They are the nominating committee for this year. I would also like to encourage participation at the next meeting in order to vote. We will also be voting about the phone line that should support the auto patch for the 64 machine. This line would normally be used for the auto patch which has been out of service for the last year but is also used by the county for their alarm system. The board decided last meeting that the club should also sell the Ten-Tec Cosair II HF radio. This radio was factory aligned and set in 2005. The asking price is $500. Please contact Bob Bennett if you are interested. The radio club has been given a wonderful donation of radio equipment from Mrs. Wood. This equipment will be for sale sometime in the month of November. A notification with the date and time will be sent next month. This equipment donation includes several UHF and VHF radios, a complete HF station and many other items just in time for Christmas I wish you all well and will see you at the next meeting OCTOBER LOCAL OSCILLATOR. K5XY I unfortunately left Las Cruces to visit relatives before I got the October local Oscillator published. It is difficult to do it by remote control because some of the submitted articles were unavailable remotely. Therefore it was incomplete in several ways. The txt version was more or less correct but the web and pdf versions were doomed to have parts missing. In fact the pdf and the web versions were not created because I could not access the web site. They will be posted in the next few days and some typos in the txt issue corrected. THE SCHOLARSHIP N7CYY On August 3, 2008 a committee of three was appointed by MVRC President, Tres Campbell to study the résumé’s of the two candidates that had applied for the annual scholarship fund offered by the Club. The three members of the committee were Marty Campbell, N7CYY, Chairman, Bob Deal, K5BBP and Richard Johnson, KC5EVR; members-at-large. After studying both applicant’s submittals and discussion among the committee members it was unanimously agreed by the committee to award the annual scholarship to Corby Allred KD5AEQ. Many of you might remember that Corby was also selected last year for this scholarship. Corby is enrolled as a sophomore in the field of Engineering Technology. He was in the Band in High School and was active in both his church and the Boy Scouts of America, achieving the rank of Life Scout. He was in Missionary Service in his church serving 2 years in the area of Barcelona, Spain. He is fluent in Spanish and was a Zone Leader during a part of that time. Corby said that the course of study he is pursuing, Engineering Technology, is different from academic Electrical Engineering, even though they are both in the same college of Engineering. Engineering Technology is an applied science, differing from pure theory as taught in the Electrical Engineering branch. The Engineering Technology has lots of theory, but also offers more of a “hands on” approach than a pure theory course of study. There are more projects and project management in this branch and it matches his personality and desires, as he wishes to be more involved the construction of electrical devices. As Corby said in his application, "Since I was a little boy I have loved electronics. I always wanted to take things apart, learn how they work, and then put them back together again". He also said "ET graduates often enter into a company as project managers. They oversee the production of electronic devices and development. The ET degree provides me a wonderful opportunity, to able to continue my desires of my childhood of learning how things work." Corby is a lifelong resident of the Mesilla Valley and we welcome him to ranks of Radio Amateurs in our club. ARES AD5FE On the second Tuesday of Oct., (Oct. 9), Bob Rossow, George Kopp, Tres Campbell, and myself, Henry Schotzko, met in the EOC (Emergency Operations Center) to develop a registration form for the Dona Ana ARES Team. (DACARES) This form will be available (when we get it finalized) to all those who wish to belong. I’ve included the first paragraph from the ARRL web site to make it clear what it takes to belong. “The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment for communications duty in the public service when disaster strikes. Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other local or national organization, is eligible for membership in the ARES. The only qualification, other than possession of an Amateur Radio license, is a sincere desire to serve. Because ARES is an amateur service, only amateurs are eligible for membership. The possession of emergency-powered equipment is desirable, but is not a requirement for membership.” (This is taken directly from the ARRL web site.) As you can tell, it really only takes a valid ticket of any class and a will to help out. How much you wish to help will be spelled out on the form so we know who to call for what. From this data we will develop a database and a “callout” sheet that will help us contact the “right” people for the job at hand. The delay is in how we collect the data for the callout sheet. Most of the form is roughed out. It is just the “callout data” part of the form that needs the work at this time. When finished, these forms will be made available to all those who wish to belong. Please note that there is no background check for ARES membership. There are monthly meetings of the Team on the Second Tuesday of the month, the next one being Nov. 13, in the county EOC on the corner of Solano and Spruce at 18:30. We will continue working on the enrolment form and discus the callout rosters and how we wish to set them up. I am starting from scratch as there is no ARES organization in the county at this time, so if you registered in the past, you will need to re-register once we get our form going. AD5FE will be the county EC when the process gets thru the ARRL. I have been appointed by the DEC and must be recognized by the ARRL for it to be official. As you can see we have a lot of work ahead of us to get the team up and running, and I could use all the help I can get. Another note, once we get ARES going, then I plan to start on a RACES Team, so you can see we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. I hope that when we get it done we will have two Teams that can help the County OEM (Office of Emergence Management) deal with whatever Mother Nature or man throws at us KF7E UPDATE KF7E The following information was received from KF7E, a former member of MVRC. Well Alex, just tell everyone I said 'saludos' and I think about all my Las Cruces friends quite often with fond memories. I wish them very well. If it were not for the friends one makes along the way in this hobby, it would not be worth all the time, money, and occasional frustration. I feel guilty that I have not made in back now for over 18 months! I will try to make up for it by getting on 3939 or other NM Net frequency during the winter. And I hope all is well with you. I am an 'operational analyst' for the Boeing Company, and work in one of their rather unknown satellite operations divisions. I am active 160m-6m and a little bit on the ISS packet repeater from time to time. MEMBER IN VIDEO KD5SSJ I recently discovered a ham radio monthly video which is pretty good and then discovered that I had been mentioned by name in a segment at http://transmitter.amateurlogic.tv/video/amlogic16.wmv. another segment prominently features my soldering method. That segment can be seen at http://transmitter.amateurlogic.tv/video/amlogic15.wmv starting at about 9:30 minutes and running 10 minutes or so. The segment demonstrates the building of a Softrock 6.0 using a hot air method and my solder paste. N5CLM N9OG I am sad to report that I only learned today that we lost Greg Molyneaux, N5CLM, to a tower fall October 20. I have pasted the ARRL obituary below. He is a member of the MVRC and joined at the bean feed here last spring. New Mexico Ham Falls to Death from Tower (Oct 23, 2007) -- ARRL Member Greg Molyneaux, N5CLM, of Roswell, New Mexico, fell to his death Saturday, October 20, as he was climbing his tower, according to the Office of the Medical Investigator for the State of New Mexico. Friends said that Molyneaux was climbing up the tower to make antenna adjustments and had just passed the guy wires at 90 feet when he fell; according to reports, his climbing belt was not hooked properly. Molyneaux was a member of the Pecos Valley Amateur Radio Club, FIST, ARRL, Straight Key Century Club, Roadrunner Amateur Radio Club, Public Service Net and the Southwest Traffic Net. The family will be holding a private service at a later date. K5DI K5DI I have thought hard about this and can not escape the fact that I do not like the way the ARRL is going, loosing members at a very fast clip, and the Mesilla Valley Radio Club doing the same thing. This is all about the hobby I love and have been active in for 55 years. I remember when I decided to become a Ham I could hear CW traffic both commercial and Ham all the time. You just had to copy code. It was what was used then for the press and the military. My first radio was a ARC-5 receiver and a crystal controlled 6L6 tube driving 2 more in push-pull at 100 Watts on 40 Meters. I didn't have a license then. I worked a bunch of guys using the High School Call and my CW speed just climbed every day. I remember the joy when I could copy the news from South America solid! Then I got my General License and a month later my Advanced License because I wanted to try Voice. I bought a used 60 Watt transmitter that was AM modulated. I joined a couple of voice nets and enjoyed them. In the 1950's the Ham Clubs and ARRL were doing very well. The Military funded ARRL and other Ham groups to keep a well trained group of Radio Operators in case of another War. It was easy to get a new Ham. You could tell them it is important! And you had to teach them code. Today you no longer teach them code and there is no-way it is important. They must really want to be a Ham, usually because their Grandfather is one. Since there are VERY few young people becoming Hams it means that my hobby is going to fail soon. I plan to continue to own a good radio and antenna and Ham until I die. But I will not stay a member of a Club or the ARRL because they may fail before I die. My stopping now will not hurt either group and it will let me just do my hobby as I like it. UNCLASSIFIED FOR SALE: I have an Alinco DR-570 VHF/UHF mobile rig for sale. I'm not active in the HAM community anymore so I don't really know where to put it up for sale. If you know anyone or are interested please let me know. Here is a link with a photo:http://lascruces.craigslist.org/ele/446781676.html Kevin Renn INCOME/EXPENSE to September 30 2007 N9GO INCOME 2007 Budget 2007 Actual YTD Bean Feed 400.00 380.50 Breakfast 600.00 452.00 Contributions & Drinks 535.00 248.00 Dues 2,500.00 1,817.50 Newsletter 20.00 0.00 50-50 Prize Raffle 60.00 22.00 Interest Income 0.00 130.16 Equipment Sales 700.00 2,254.00 Education 850.00 0.00 Tshirt sales 0.00 0.00 President's Fund 15.06 Total Income 5,319.22 Expenses Bank Charge 0.00 0.00 Bean Feed 300.00 202.41 Breakfast 400.00 262.86 Club House 200.00 498.26 Field Day 300.00 152.52 Insurance 1,000.00 0.00 Misc. 150.00 15.60 Newsletter 75.00 84.80 NM Emergency Fee 30.00 30.00 PO Box 50.00 56.54 Postage 150.00 77.40 President's Fund 150.00 15.06 Property Tax 600.00 0.00 Repeater 150.00 0.00 Tax Exempt Fee 10.00 10.00 Utiilities 644.94 Electric 450.00 257.15 Propane 400.00 57.78 Telephone 350.00 226.02 Water 150.00 103.99 Education Classes 850.00 110.12 Total Expenses 2,050.39 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 KB5TPV@zianet.com Sec Bob Rossow KE5ISD 522-7445 fullback@zianet.com Treasurer Martin Winkler N9OG - - BOARD Communications Henry Schotzko AD5FE 526-1922 schotzko@comcast.net Education Tim Linn KD5SSF 521-0486 KD5SSF@arrl.net S pecial Events Jeff Campbell KE5KLH 526-2868 Jeffrey.campbell-1.nasa.gov 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 s end 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?