The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011

The Pasadena Radio Club

Allen, KC7O will discuss Software Defined Radio (SDR’s), spectral analysis and have a number of “live” recorded digitized signals, HF and VHF, and will display the frequency domain spectrum over time. A live demo using the SDR-IQ will show how your VHF signals look.Allen holds a Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering, RF Communications – Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA and has over 40 years’ experience in aerospace manufacturing operations and quality management. He has worked on the Lunar Module including Apollo 11, military communications systems, the MX missile guidance system, commercial/military aircraft and hydraulic actuators, aircraft structures and spacecraft propulsion and deployments systems. He retired, at the end of 2007, but continues to consult.He holds and Extra Class Amateur Radio License along with a General Radio Telephone License (formally First Class Radio Telephone) and was first licensed in 1964 as WN2NTL and WB2NTL in New York. In addition he has held the calls of WB2NTL in New Jersey, WB9TXP in Indiana and KA7CGN and KC7O in Utah and California.Allen has been a member of the Pasadena Radio Club since 1984 and is a past president. In 1999 he was awarded the ARRL's Herb Brier Instructor of the Year award for 17 years of teaching Novice and Technician classes accounting for at least 450 new hams.

I'm honored to be voted in as your President for this year. I hope to continue building the Club as the previous Presidents have done. Please send your dues in by the end of January. I want to restart our mentoring program. If you wish to be a mentor or be mentored in any aspect of Ham Radio, I hope to pair you up to advance our Ham education.

Also, is anyone interested in having some group activities like camping, or picnics?73’s Mark, W6MES

KC7O,Allen Wolff

January 25th Presentation

BulletinJanuary 2011

SDR: Software Defined Radio

President’s Message

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011page 2

Meet Your 2011 Board of Directors

2010 TreasurerTom Mikkelsen WA0POD

Vice PresidentFred Lopez KG6GTL

2010 Vice President, PhilBarnes-Roberts WA6DZS

2010 SecretaryMary Bothwell AG6MB

Member at largeChris Galante, K6YZH

Member at largeAlan Denney, KI6ZYW

Member at large Danny Schurr, W6XXB

2010 PresidentFred Lopez KG6GTL

PresidentMark Seigel, W6MES

TreasurerRichard Parker, K7RWP

SecretaryJutti Marsh, KJ6HWL

photo unavailable

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011 page 3

Field Day is a planning exercise. I'll bet you haven't heard that before. I've heard people say it's supposed to be a spur-of–the-moment emergency exercise. They just grab a bunch of stuff from the garage, throw it in the car, and do Field Day. But you know what? That works a lot better if you just happen to have the right kind of stuff in your garage. Just how did that happen, anyway? Field Day is a planning exercise.The Pasadena Radio Club plans to pool our resources to assemble a massive multi-transmitter station on a parking lot and keep it in operation for 24 hours. Is that crazy, or what?It takes a lot of stuff. It takes a lot of people. It takes a lot of hamburgers. To be done efficiently, it takes a bit of planning. It will be a lot of fun, even in the planning of it.So Field Day starts NOW.We need Band Captains and Cooks, Operators and Hosts, a Publicist, an Antenna Crew, and you. How will YOU contribute to the Pasadena Radio Club's 2011 Field Day operation? It'll be fun. We're planning on it!Paul Gordon, N6LL, is Field Day Chair. Send an e-mail or radiogram to MY CALL at ARRL dot NET.

Annual dues are due and payable now. It has become our habit to wait until the drop-dead cutoff of the newsletter mailing in April before paying our dues. In spite of what it might say on your mailing label, the deadline is January. Please support your club. We have been able to continue our lowered member rate of $20 for individuals or families for another year. The club has actually grown in the last year. Bravo!For you computer types, rather than printing the renewal form here, we are asking you to download the form from the club website and fill it out on your computer. Then you need only print the form and mail it to the club’s P.O. Box with your check.Specifically, go to www.qsl.net/w6ka, click on the “Membership” button at the top of the page, then download the file. For best results, use the Word document. Open the document in your MS Word program and fill in the blanks, using the tab key to advance though the fields. Then print out the single page, saving the file for your records. This will make it easy for your new club treasurer to read, saving him lots of time spent in past years trying to decipher handwritten information.Help your club and do it today!

Field Day Starts NOW

Field Day 1937

Time to Renew!A hot antenna design by KJ6HWL -- Yum!

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011

Recently I was surfing the web and came across the impressive shack assembled by Thomas Boza, NE7X, in Scottsdale, Arizona. NE7X has focused on the HF bands with several rigs and antennas and three Henry amps! He also has a serious repair and build workspace and even an area with vintage rigs in racks. Check out the photos and go to his webpage for more photos and information: http://www.ne7x.com/New_Shack_2010.htm.Happy New Year & 73 - N1BN

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Sub-audible TomesBruce Nolte, N1BN

Shack Tour: NE7X

1. Meeting called to order at 7:36 Present: Paul Gordon N6LL Peter Fogg KA6RJF Fred Lopez KG6GTL John Minger AC6VV Tom Mikkelsen WA0POD Richard Parker K7RWP Bruce Nolte N1BN Jutti Marsh KJ6HWL Christopher Galante K6YZH Phillip Barnes-Roberts WA6DZS Mark Seigel W6MES 2. Outgoing Treasurer’s Report & suggestions from both old & new treasurers

Pasadena Radio Club Board Meeting Minutes - January 11, 2011

Minutes continued on page 6

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011

So when do we need an antenna tuner? Some authorities would say always. Why? Well, remember that back in the March 2010’s installment of the Crown City HF we found out that the greatest power transfer from transmitter to antenna occurs when the antenna presents the same impedance as the coax and the coax does the same for its connection to the transmitter. Because the coax and transceivers most often used by hams are designed to work at an impedance of 50 ohms and our antennas’ feed points are also close to that impedance you might wonder why anyone would eschew the use of antenna tuners. Well they have some good reasons. As I have mentioned before every gadget you put between your transceiver and your antenna (that would includes a low-pass TVI filter and a lightning surge protector) slightly degrades the power transfer. Also, each of them is an expense, so if you don’t need an antenna tuner why waste your time tuning the thing and the money to buy it?Nonetheless, I would say that we should get one for our “virtual” shack*. Why? Well, there is almost always some degree of mismatch between the antenna and the transmitter. A dipole in free space at its resonant frequency has a feed point impedance of 72 ohms and that can vary up or down depending on the antenna’s surroundings, height above ground, and the electrical characteristics of the ground. So you almost always start with some mismatch. There will be another problem if we are using a large frequency range, like both CW and SSB, on any given band.That will be the case since this shack is intended for “Techs” using their 40 meter CW privileges and new “Generals” using SSB. In that case, even if our antenna has a very low SWR at the center of the band, it is likely to be quite high near the two ends of the band. But if we are going work only a limited portion of one band, say we only have “Techs” using CW, we probably don’t need a tuner.Also there is the occasional instance when we just can’t get the SWR down to acceptable levels in the parts of the bands we want to work no matter what is done. Finally, maybe when some “Techs” upgrade we will want to use several other of their new band options! One cheap option would be a multi-band

antenna like a fan dipole. But they are harder to tune. Sometimes it just will not work on all bands despite multiple attempts at adjusting the antenna (they can be tricky…fix one band and another goes bad).So before we decide which tuner to buy, what is this antenna tuner? It is a network of capacitors and inductors which are adjusted either manually or electronically to match our transceiver’s output to the SWR (and impedance) it sees at the end of the coax and antenna system to which it is connected. The biggest decision we need to make before buying one is between manual tuner or an automatic one. Well a major consideration is obviously cost. We need a tuner for HF that will handle our 100 watt transceiver’s output (arbitrary transceiver decision we made a while back), and for now let’s say we want a built-in cross needle SWR meter. I will come back to justify that later. A manual tuner which would fit those requirements safely would cost around $115-120 or you could get a automatic tuner for around $180-200. The obvious difference is that you have to do quite a lot more manual adjusting with the cheaper model. Is that all? Well the manual model has fewer and far less complex circuits to go wrong or be damaged. And there is a deeper level of involvement that some hams enjoy in fussing with the knobs on the manual tuner and seeing your reflected power drop and output soar as the needles swing! However the automatic tuner’s digital readout will tell you that information while you sit back and concentrate more fully on operating our rig! It’s a hard call, but let’s choose the more economic choice and get a manual one.Next month we will learn something about how antenna tuners work, where the antenna tuner will go in our antenna system and how to adjust those knobs.

* Crown City #12 (3/09) we have been putting together a “virtual HF shack” designed to be economical but very functional and safe. These discussions are aimed at Technician Class hams who are working for their General Class licenses and new Generals who are getting started using the HF bands.

Crown City HFTom Berne, W6TAGAntenna Tuners (1)

page 5

Made on a Mac

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011

a. Treasurer’s files passed to Richard Parker b. Insurance premium paid c. Same membership numbers as December d. Created a CD with files e. Reviewed and cleaned out files (shredded old files) f. Get membership campaign started, get people back to paying in January g. Put membership reminder in January newsletter h. Suggestion was made to set up a PayPal account for dues. Decision was made to stick with form and check or cash. Form allows for better tracking of who has paid and also gives PRC current address/phone/info. 3. Field Day Report a. New contact person at Art Center, still in process of contacting her b. Insurance for Field Day – Needs to be done with enough lead time to get it processed with the insurance company and handed over to Art Center 4. Meeting presentations - Fred Lopez a. January – Allen Wolff KC7O - Software Defined Radio b. February – HABEX High Altitude Balloon Experiment c. March – Chuck Swedblom - WA6EXV – Microwaves 5. Suggestions for future meeting presentations a. Satellites - AMSAT (have an antenna building project before) b. HF Propagation c. QRP d. Antennas for limited space/stealth - Bring your antenna to share e. Public Service NTS/ARES/ACS/CERT/Skywarn/KPARN f. NTS presentation by Kate Hutton 6. ARES NE will start VE sessions after their meetings on the 2nd Saturday at Huntington Hospital. Put into bulletin, exam time 11am. 7. PRC website a. Put an annual calendar on the website with a list of events we will be participating in by date b. Publish PDF of the newsletter on the website as well as in print c. Revamp website so that more club info is on the home page rather than the map 8. Convention Report: a. We are charged with doing the program. We are going to need help with finding advertisers for the program. Person getting vendor booths will give us info so we can contact them, discount for vendors. b. Should be done soon as many companies set up and spend their yearly advertising budget in Dec/Jan c. Create a Yahoo Group for people working on this project so we can track what everyone is doing, keep track of companies who have paid 9. Suggestions for activities for the coming year: a. Set up elmer system for new hams b. Elmer list for bulletin c. Put out a call for elmers d. Assign a mentor for new hams e. Ask for “ambassadors” make a signup list f. Create a new member/guest welcome package g. Get more PRC “business cards” for members to hand out

h. Finding a home for equipment we no longer use/bring it to meetings i. Restart raffle? Use it as a traffic builder with quality items? No decision was made on restarting the raffle j. Second field day in Spring? November? No date set k. Special Event station – go to Queen Mary and operate their station for 8 hours l. Do a joint activity with JPL m. Mt. Wilson picnic – set up station n. Fleet week – Victory ships with operating radio stations 10. Miscellaneous board decisions: a. Should we start board mtg at 7:10? Motion: The Executive Board shall meet at 7:10pm. Moved by Tom M., Second by Phil B-R. 6 ayes, 0 nays, 0 abstentions. Motion passes. b. Should PRC’s Yahoo Group be open to anyone who wants to join it rather than just members? After discussion it was decided to make the club Yahoo Group public with the following restriction: New non club members would be “moderated” to make sure their posts are not spam and appropriate. PRC’s board Yahoo Group will be used for board business only, not general membership. 11. Meeting adjourned at 9:15pm

Submitted by Jutti Marsh, KJ6HWL, Secretary

page 6

President W6MES Mark Seigel w6mes at arrl dot net

Vice President KG6GTL Fred Lopez fred at fredlopez dot com Secretary KJ6HWL Jutti Marsh kj6hwl at arrl dot net Treasurer K7RWP Richard Parker rwp42 at me dot com Members At Large Chris Galante K6YZH Alan Denney KI6ZYW Danny Schurr W6XXB

Past Officers Fred Lopez KG6GTL Phil Barnes-Roberts WA6DZS Mary Bothwell AG6MB Tom Mikkelsen WA0POD Education Chair W6MES Mark Seigel w6mes at arrl dot net 818-430-5244

VE Team Liaison AB6LR Merrie Suydam ab6lr at arrl dot net 626-969-4409

Club Net KF6FEM Mike Dinko 626-797-8082 Bulletin Editor AC6VV John Minger ac6vv at arrl dot net 323-256-0046

Board Minutes, continued from page 4

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011 page 7

Some of our speakers at PRC during 2010 were Dr. Theo ten Brummelaar: The CHARA Array, Michael Scofield: Life Without Full Duplex, Joy Matlack: Baker to Vegas Team Communications, David Greenhut: ARRL activities, Mary Bothwell: Satellite Communications under the Southern Skies, or Lions, Rhinos, and Wildebeest, Oh My!, Braddock Gaskill: Morse Code and Microcontroller Development, Bruce Nolte: World Premiere - Field Day 2010 Film, Brian Thorson: Dealing with Electromagnetic Interference, Tom Mikkelsen: Taking Advantage of the ICOM-756 Pro III’s State-of-the-art Receiving Filters, Dr. Craig Ihde: IBEX - Interstellar Boundary EXplorer. Thanks Phil!

Program Highlights of 2010

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011page 8

In Memoriam

Pete Hoover, W6ZH1927 - 2010

Dale Boyd, KD6PYQ1933 - 2010

Leonoard Klenk, KC6KUI1925 - 2010

The evening began with a potluck dinner provided by members.

Meeting was called to order at 7:25 PM by President Fred Lopez.

Bruce handed out new badges and announced Toys for Tots collection that evening.

Visitor and new member: Valerie Schurr, visitor, and Brett Kenyon, new member.

Announcements: Peter and Bruce told of equipment for sale.

Fred announced the PRC officer slate for 2011:

President Mark Seigel; Vice President Fred Lopez; Secretary Jutti Marsh; Treasurer Richard Parker; Members at large Alan Denney, Chris Galante, Danny Schurr. Nominations from the floor were solicited. There were none.

Motion made, seconded, carried, slate elected.

Tom announced results of CQ WW DX single, transmitter, multi operator contest held in October.

209,880 points (53,148 in 2009); 402 contacts (207 in 2009); 32 operators (24 in 2009). QSL’s received so far: 84.

The next contest will be March 25-27, 2011, for CQ WPX.

Fred thanked Tom for his leadership in running the contest.

Jutti announced the January class for technicians.

Speaker for the evening was Craig Ihde. The topic” Capturing Whispers from Space with the Deep Space Network.”

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:25PM.

Cynthia Berne, interim secretary

Board members present: Tom Berne, Mark Seigel, Kate Hutton, John Minger, Fred Lopez, Bruce Notle, Mary Bothwell, Phil Barnes-Roberts, Tom Mikkelson

Others present: Peter Fogg, Paul Gordon, Jutti Marsh, Richard Parker

President called the meeting to order at 7:39 p.m.

Minutes from previous meeting were printed in the bulletin.

Peter Fogg is considering planning an ad hoc holiday dinner on Tuesday, December 28. We’ll all come if he does. Bruce may help him, or he may not.

Vice president’s report from next year’s VP: Preview of coming attractions - possible microwave talk for January or February.

Treasurer’s report: Total funds on hand: $4,177.96. Total members: 100. Income is slightly higher than expenses on an annual basis.

Mark reported on HamCon (Sept. 2011 in Torrence) and working to find advertisers for the program, for which we are responsible.

Paul discussed early plans for Field Day.

Richard Parker is ready and willing to give updates on ARES to people who are interested.

The president thanked the board for its hard work and dedication to the club during the past year.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:47 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Bothwell, AG6MB, Secretary

Pasadena Radio ClubGeneral Meeting, November 23, 2010

Pasadena Radio ClubBoard Meeting, December 14, 2010

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011

The Pasadena Radio Club meets the fourth Tuesday of each month at 7:00 p.m. in the Kaiser Permanente Walnut Center, located at 393 East Walnut Street, at the corner of Los Robles Avenue in Pasadena. Enter the parking structure at the Los Robles Avenue entrance and mention “Pasadena Radio Club”. Everyone is welcome to attend. Please sign in at the front desk and security will direct you to the meeting room.

Membership in the Pasadena Radio Club is open to anyone interested in Amateur Radio. Dues are $20 per year, $10 for students. Request a membership application at the club’s mailing address, on the club website, www.qsl.net/w6ka, or in person at the monthly meeting.

The Pasadena Radio Club, W6KA, conducts a weekly net every Tuesday night, except on meeting nights, at 7:00 p.m. The frequency is 145.180 MHz (-) PL 156.7. All licensed amateurs are invited to participate.

The club has a packet station on 145.630 and on 223.600 (cross-band capable) with a PBBS of W6KA-10 and a node name of MIRDOR.

There is also a Yahoo Group for club members at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PRC-Club/. All members are invited to join as this allows for rapid dissemination of information to members via e-mail.

Bulletin Submissions: please submit any articles, photos, or ideas for future articles via e-mail to AC6VV at arrl dot net, please include “PRC” in the Subject line. Other modes of submission may be arranged in advance on an individual basis. Submissions are due by the Friday after the board meeting.

Permission is granted to use articles in this issue as long as “Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin” is credited.

Please submit any address or e-mail changes to the Treasurer.

Better Banking for Southern California123 S Marengo Ave., Pasadena

www.wescom.org

page 9

Thank You

for your support of The Pasadena Radio Club, and amateur radio hospital

emergency communications

Download the Bulletin:www.qsl.net/w6ka/bulletins.html

Jutti Marsh, KJ6HWL,will Host January’s

Refreshments

www.cmprintmail.com

Notice: This year the CQ WPX SSB Contest (www.cqwpx.com/rules.htm) will begin at 5 PM PDT on Friday, March 25th and run until 5 PM PDT on Sunday March 27th. If you would like to join the W6KA contesting team for this event and have not yet signed up (or are just not sure that you have) please let Tom, W6TAG, know of your interest by sending an E-mail to him at cberne at juno dot com. He will begin assigning operating sessions right after our January 25th club's general meeting.

CQ WPX SSB Contest Signups are Due

The Pasadena Radio Club Bulletin - January 2011

Pasadena Radio Club, W6KAP.O. Box 282, Altadena, CA 91003-0282

www.qsl.net/w6ka

In This Issue

Page 1 Monthly Speaker, Presidentʼs MessagePage 2 Meet Your New Board of DirectorsPage 3 Field Day Starts NOW, Time to Renew!Page 4 Sub-Audible Tomes, Board MinutesPage 5 Crown City HFPage 6 RosterPage 7 Program Highlights of 2010Page 8 In Memoriam, Meeting MinutesPage 9 Ads, Club Information, Contest SignupPage 10 Club Calendar

page 10

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY

PRC Net 7:00 pmPRC BOARD 7:10 pm

PRC Net 7:00 pm145.180 - PL 156.7

PRC Net 7:00 pm145.180 - PL 156.7

PRC Net 7:00 pm145.180 - PL 156.7

This Month: Allen Wolff,KC7O tells about SDR:

Software Defined Radio

PRC Club Meeting7:00 PM

KPARN Nets 12:15 pm448.280 Mhz ,

52.700 Mhz, 7.228 Mhz

KPARN Nets 12:15 pm448.280 Mhz ,

52.700 Mhz, 7.228 Mhz

TRW Swap Meet

Chino Swap Meet

TRW Swap Meet

Jan 23 Jan 25 Jan 28Jan 26 Jan 27Jan 24 Jan 29

Jan 30 Feb 1 Feb 4Feb 2 Feb 3Jan 31 Feb 5

PRC Club Meeting7:00 PM

Feb 6 Feb 8 Feb 11Feb 9 Feb 10Feb 7 Feb 12

Feb 13 Feb 15 Feb 18Feb 16 Feb 17Feb 14 Feb 19

Feb 20 Feb 22 Feb 25Feb 23 Feb 24Feb 21 Feb 26

Feb 27 Mar 1 Mar 4Mar 2 Mar 3Feb 28 Mar 5

NE ARES Meeting

ARRL Int’lDX/SSB

ARRL VHF Sweepstakes

Lola Lowe Memorial

Ground Hog Day

Presidents’ Day