ARRL Sacramento Valley Section News - November 2016

Update from El Dorado County ARCPosted November 5, 2016

FROM THE PRESIDENT

I hope this message finds all of you well and happy.

Another month is almost history. So is 2016 for that matter. On a repeated note, elections are coming up and you all should be thinking about who should be the club officers next year. We did a better job of publicizing our club and its activities in 2016 thanks to our new PIO. The effort to publish info about our club and its activities paid off better than I had hoped. We actually received guests at our Field Day event from members of the public who had read about them in the local paper. Way to go! But now is no time to rest on our laurels. Having tasted success this year only whets my appetite for more. It would be great fun to receive guests from the public at our monthly meetings who had read about them in the paper, or heard about them on a local radio station such as KFOK where I know there is already interest.

Well then, October has seen some fun with the California QSO party and the Youth Expo in Garden Valley. Due to some prior obligations AF6ND (yours truly) did this event solo. With some help from the CCC volunteers, I was able to erect my pop-up, a folding table and my newly acquired ICOM IC-706MKIIG multiband radio. For an antenna I slung a horizontal long wire about 12 feet high between two trees with a simple wire feed to a point near the middle. My MFJ-946 tuner had no trouble matching the radio to this jury rigged antenna and I ended up making about 16 QSOs during the CA QSO party. Unfortunately in my excitement I neglected to log the times of these QSOs which resulted in their not being countable. Had I not done this my score would have been about 90 which, when compared to the scores of some of our veteran contesters is a pretty modest tally; still it was a learning experience in improvised EMCOM field operations and I'll do better next time out. Interestingly, more than a few folks came walking up to our station with their eyes fixed on that antenna and asked about it, providing me with a segue to talk about Amateur Radio. I had a brief bad moment when the Garden Valley FD backed one of their trucks under my low slung antenna but no contact was made between the truck and my antenna. I have now installed that ICOM and related stuff in my shack and it is awaiting its first deployment on the HF airwaves although I have been using the 2 meter section of it to get on the nets since the beginning of October. Time to get hot on my code practice too.

Other activities this month included a group effort to buy out the Ham gear of an silent key in Garden Valley. To date we have paid off our initial investment and have a little more than $2500 over that to donate to the clubs accounts. ED Larsen KI6R, EB Keller KC6SOJ, Jay Harmor KE6GLA, and myself (AF6ND) were the primary members of this group effort but others showed up as well and helped move the literally tons of stuff to new locations where a lot of it can still be had by club members. There will be an estate sale of the rest of the stuff later and I'll let you know when as there is still some equipment and other items that may be of interest to club members. Some will go to our general fund and some will go to the repeater fund where I hope it can be used to help accelerate our voting receiver replacement project.

73 to all, and I hope to see you all at the monthly meeting on this coming Thursday, the 27th

Don McCallum, AF6ND. Newsletter

Update from Samuel F Morse ARCPosted November 5, 2016

NOVEMBER REPORT:

The W6SFM Samuel F Morse Radio Club October meeting was called to order by club President Mike, N6MQL on October 6th at the Carmichael Presbyterian Church in Carmichael CA, with 9 members and 2 guest in attendance.

Mike, N6MQL read the Month's budget report and announced the current funds available. Club Secretary, Chris, AI6U followed by reading the minutes of last month's in-person meeting. Chris also reported the totals for our W6SFM On-line/On-air net meetings for the month of September. Snacks were provided by John, WB6UBK and Rob, N6KIX.

This month the SFM ARC enjoyed 2 different events. The first being the Girl/Boy Scouts Flag Retirement which took place on Saturday September the 24th. For those unfamiliar with this event, a flag retirement is a ceremony for damaged and soiled American flags that are in need of a proper disposal. Although not illegal in the US for anyone to burn or discard a flag, There are only 2 entities that are able to properly conduct this "retirement" ceremony. The first is the US Military, and the second are the Scouts of America. Members Mike, N6MQL and John, WB6UBK joined the ARRL section manager, Carol, KP4MD along with N6NA group members introducing Ham Radio and Morse Code to Scout members at this ceremony. The station operated by W6SFM members. was comprised of a computer operated Flex 1500 SDR radio and a Horizontal Loop antenna. This station was dedicated to the CW mode. The W6SFM operated booth also displayed a Morse Straight key and code oscillator practice station.

As interested scouts approached the booth Mike and John gave a brief explanation of the history of Morse Code followed by a demonstration on how to properly send on a Morse Straight key. The members then used our club supplied 'work sheet' to give the scouts a hands on demonstration where each scout was given an opportunity to send their Coded name in Morse Code. Scouts who had a chance to operate the hands on display were given a copy of their name in Morse Code on a double sided sheet of paper which also contained important links on how to get involved with Ham Radio and Morse Code.

The Second event that the SFM ARC participated in was the Annual NCCC California QSO Party Contest held Saturday October 1st at the home QTH of Mark K6JJR who resides in Nevada County. Over 300 contacts were made this year in the event. That number was up from last years entry! Also, a big shout out to Mark for his hard work this year working 134 of the 307 contacts made in the event! There were a total of 9 members who showed up to operate this event. . The club was signed up for 12 hours of operation out of the 24 hour event. Surprisingly W6SFM's best band was 15 meters! Member Mike, K6LQ once again brought out his Sun Telescope for everyone to use. Even with 15 meters being as open as it was, while looking through Mike's Sun Telescope not even one sun spot could be found. The national NOA report stated there was a rate of 12 SSN (smoothed sun spots) for that day. Perhaps they were all on the other side of the sun as none could be seen by those who looked. Pictures of our event can be found in the W6SFM.COM Photo Gallery posted there soon.

Topics of Discussion at our in-person meeting included the passing of HR Bill 1301 "Ham Radio Parity" act. This means that the bill with a new name will now move on to the Senate for their decision. If the Senate passes their bill than the FCC has said they would enact the new law within 30 days.

The club discussed the idea that should the bill pass the senate there would most likely be another 4 years of litigation due to the wording that the HOA of America added ("require any licensee in an amateur radio service to notify and obtain prior approval from a community association, if any, concerning installation of an outdoor antenna" and 'permit a community association to prohibit installation of any antenna or support structure by a amateur on common property' (*common areas the entire community make use of) and "permit a community association to establish reasonable written rules concerning HEIGHT, LOCATION, SIZE and ASTHETIC IMPACT of, and INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS for, outdoor antennas and support structures for the purpose of conducting communications in the amateur radio services") Although the new law says HAMs would be entitled to set up an "Efficient" antenna the HOA could challenge the Height or size of that antenna. For example for those that operate on 80 meters, an "efficient" antenna would be a 160' long wire up 60'.

Thoughts were that the HOA would never allow that. It would then be up to the courts to determine what the word "efficient" means. One of our guests pointed out that efficient could be challenged based on 'how far' do you need to communicate. Therefore a 30' long antenna up 20' on 80 meters would be efficient enough to communicate with someone 200 miles away... A big difference from what most HF Amateurs would deem "efficient".

As a quick reminder the FCC is still taking comments on the Part 97 rules change RM-11708 until NOV. 11th. This was the ARRL asking to remove the "Symbol Rate" of Data transmissions and replace it with a set 2.8 KHz bandwidth allowance. It's important that we express our opinions when it comes to CW band areas and the use of other Digital signals within it. Otherwise our bands may become VERY crowded for CW operators as new Data modes/types are designed in the future.

Vice President Rob, N6KIX reminded that we are heading into the month of November which means it's once again time for the W6SFM Bug Roundup Event, or CQ BR as it's also known by! This is an ON-AIR event that invites all those with a Bug Style key to communicate with each other in the same fassion as the ARRL's Straight Key Night (SKN). Mike, N6MQL reports that he has started announcing the event by way of Domestic and International Radio on-line forms. Rob, N6KIX has already notified the ARRL of our event. This information should be posted both on-line and in the QST Magazine coming out this month.

Other ARRL news and information was discussed at the meeting along with the current band conditions based on our own personal on-air experiences.

For our “show and tell” Technical portion of our meeting Vice President Rob, N6KIX presented a Modified Vibroplex Blue Racer. Rob's key was a very well crafted reconfiguration of what appears to have been an early 60's Blue Racer #4 bug that had been turned into a very smooth operating single lever paddle.

Rob also brought with him the 1999 Vibroplex Code Worrier Jr key. This key was molded after the first generation Nor Cal iambic paddle.

Mike, N6MQL presented to the club his newest adopted family Member from Italy, the Begali Sculpture Arrow Straight key. This Begali Key was just introduced as one of 3 matching companion keys in the Sculpture line of keys. Mike told the group that Begali now makes the dual lever Iambic, Straight key and the newest addition the Swing cootie key.

Our next SFM ARC in-person meeting will be held at its normal time and address Nov. 3rd, followed by our Dec. 1st meeting). The SFM ARC in-person meeting will be held in the Howard Crowley room upstairs at the Carmichael Presbyterian Church. More information including a Google Map is available on the homepage of our website: w6sfm.com

At our November meeting we will be discussing the upcoming preparations for the Bug Roundup Event. Any remaining member time slots to operate as the W6SFM station will be assigned to those at the meeting who hadn't had a chance to sign up before the meeting.

As usual, current events, News regarding Amateur radio and other ARRL items will be discussed. As always we will have our Tech (show and tell) portion where members and visitors are asked to share their Ham Radio related items they find of interest. Feel free to visit our In-Person meeting with items that you purchased or were given that you would like to share with the group. Visitors are always welcome to join us.

Each Tuesday of the week 8:00 PM on 3.545 MHz the SFM ARC enjoys getting on the air with CW for our weekly Nets. You do NOT need to be a member of the SFM ARC to check into our nets and we encourage you to invite a friend to join us as well. Although our nets usually run around 13 wpm code, we are all happy to accommodate those that are slower and need us to oblige. If you are unable to copy Morse Code or need some code practice please feel free to visit our on-line LIVE streaming broadcast of both the Audio and a CW to Text decoding of the meeting. The “LIVE FEED” link can be found on our home page of our website. For those that would like to watch the Live Feed on their Apple IOS or Android devices a “LiveStream” App is required. For instructions and the proper location to view the LIVE FEED please contact Mike, N6MQL for more setup information.

Those visiting the on-line site are welcome to make themselves known by using the ‘contact us’ link to let the net op (NCS) know you are there. This of course is not mandatory, just a way of making everyone feel more involved in our on-air nets.

Very 73. Michael N6MQL -W6SFM Club President