PCARA Update Volume 9, Issue 12 Peekskill / Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association Inc. December 2008 over the items being offered. Just bring the best of your Anchors away! shack’s detritus and sit back and watch the sparks fly! The PCARA Annual Holiday Dinner will take place It’s a great way of recycling gear to other members, and on Sunday December 7, 2008 at At the Reef on you just might find something you may like for yourself. Annsville Circle. The dinner will start a bit later than Contact Malcolm, NM9J for further details. usual this year, at 5:00 p.m., to allow more of our To each of you, your families, and loved ones, I friends to be able to join us. If you’ve decided that wish a very Happy and Healthy Holiday Season, and a you’d like to join us, just make sure you e-mail Marylyn, most Joyous and Blessed New Year! KC2NKU and Ray, W2CH ASAP at w2ch “at” arrl.net. We always have room for more! - 73 de Greg, KB2CQE PCARA Officers President: Greg Appleyard, KB2CQE, kb2cqe at arrl.net Vice President: Joe Calabrese, WA2MCR; wa2mcr at arrl.net Net night Peekskill/Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association holds a weekly net on the 146.67 MHz W2NYW re- peater on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. Join net control Karl, N2KZ for neighborly news and technical topics. On December 7, cruise into Annsville Cove and drop anchor “At The Reef” restaurant for PCARA’s annual holiday dinner... Contents At the January 4, Anchors away! - KB2CQE 1 2009 meeting we will Adventures in DXing - N2KZ 2 be observing another LED lamps - NM9J 4 tradition-in-the- Field Day Results 5 making, the “PCARA 75 years of FM - NM9J 6 Bring and Buy Auc- WDFH move 8 tion” at Hudson Valley Auction time approaches 8 Hospital Center. Holiday meal 9 Sothebys of Peekskill / Practice exam site 9 Cortlandt will be on Siren success 9 ...then in January, bring hand to mediate the your biggest boat anchors to bidding wars that will the PCARA auction. inevitably break out PCARA Update, December 2008, page 1 WA2MCR, Ray, W2CH and Malcolm, NM9J all have Adventures in DXing shown me the rewards of using 100 watts of brute force into directional antennas. Our Field Day efforts can - N2KZ certainly be quite a show. Great equipment and great operators equal great results. It’s as simple as that! The Lowdown I take a different perspective. I’ve never been one Sometimes you’re high and sometimes you’re low. for working towards strict goals. I just don’t have the It doesn’t really matter which way you go, just as long competitive drive (or output power) needed to be the as you have a good time! There are so many different very best contester or the most proficient collector. It places to be. Here are the most favorite bands for would be grand if, one day, I reached a certain level of someone like me! expertise to earn a DXCC or VUCC, but I have so much All of us operate on bands that mirror our person- fun getting there, it really doesn’t seem to matter. I’m alities. If you are into working all the rarest and distant much better at long rag chews via CW than hit-and-run DX, chances are you know 20, 15 and 10 meters pretty QSOs, with breakneck speed, during a sprint or contest. well. Technician Class operators probably use 2 meters I am the tortoise not the hare! I know I’ll eventually get and 70 cm for day-to-day use and might find them- there, just let me know when I arrive! selves DXing on 6 meters during the sunspot maxima. If It’s not that I haven’t achieved some awards along you need a real challenge, necessitating skill, creativity the way. My very first award was the ARRL’s quite basic and output power, 160 meters may be your cup of tea. membership in the Rag Chewer’s Club. This discontin- Me? I like the low bands, a place to combine relatively ued award was issued simply to someone who liked to good DX and meeting hams just like myself to exchange rag chew and wanted everyone to know! Shortly ideas and chat with. thereafter, I worked a I find the main ham bands, (20, 40 and 80 sufficient amount of meters,) to be pretty miraculous. All you need is a wet QSOs for introduc- noodle and about a watt of output power to work tion to The Morse nearly everyone you hear (providing your noodle is Preservation Society resonant and efficient!) I use simple homebrew dipoles, (FISTS) club. A but I have painstakingly tuned them to resonance to couple of years later, I had amassed enough QSOs with eliminate the use of an antenna tuner. My results have fellow Fists members to earn membership in their been (at least on a small scale) pretty remarkable. One Century Club. This is an honored certificate showing of my favorite QSOs was working a friend in Nova true patience and dedication to the CW craft. Scotia via QRP My finest CW on 40 award to date is meters. The the ARRL’s combined Worked All States output power award with CW of our two endorsement. transmitters Nearly every state did not exceed was contacted half a watt! It with rigs using was enough single digit fun to make wattage (and in a you giggle! couple of in- I marvel stances, even less ARRL Worked All States certificate at hams who than one watt!) really know Looking at my WAS and seeing the CW endorse- how to gather ment brings me a lot of pride. It says, in big bold DX and letters: “I do know the code and I use it often.” Corny as contest totals. it may sound, it really is a confirmation to me of being I have learned a real ham with verified skills even more than holding a great deal an Extra Class or commercial ticket. from watching So, what is my favorite operating band? It has to and listening Flashback to Field Day 2008. L to R: Bob be 80 meters, the band for which I built my very first to fellow N2CBH, Joe WA2MCR, Jerry WA2ZOA, dipole and operated exclusively during the first years of PCARAns in Marylyn KC2NKU and Ray W2CH erect my amateur license. My old hangout is now obsolete action. Joe, the three element triband beam. creating one major problem. I am no longer resonant! PCARA Update, December 2008, page 2 3700 kHz was the address where you would find me Look for 830 WCCO Minneapolis, 870 WWL New working many, many fellow new hams from Maine to Orleans, 1040 WHO Des Moines and 1120 KMOX St. Florida and out to the Midwest (especially when the Louis as indicators of potential potent amateur signals night grew long.) on 160 and 80 meters. It can be fascinating listening, as My 80 meter dipole is not very high above the well! For a real stretch, try for 640 KFI Los Angeles, 850 ground. It is only about 30 feet up creating a device KOA Denver and 1160 KSL Salt Lake City late at night. good for only near vertical incidence skywave (NVIS) All the main stations from Chicago often reach my QTH transmission. Most of my catches were fairly nearby stronger than ‘local’ stations from New York City in the neighbors but we certainly heard each other well. 1, 2, hours of darkness! 3 and 8s were the rule. Anything beyond that was This weekend, I am reporting from Northern gravy! I remember some early mornings working a 6 or Virginia. Using my simple Sony SRF-59 Walkman, or 7 call and reveling in the great distance I achieved! On even my very modest and trusty 12-730 Realistic rare occasion, a small miracle would carry my signal to Flavoradio, I can hear the big boys from New York (like South America or the Pacific Rim. What a wonderful WFAN and WCBS) on AM radio day that would be! One day, I’ll get my dipole high into even during the day listening in a the sky (how about 75 feet?) and a new world will be basement! The medium wave mine! bands are truly amazing and so Times change and so do frequency allocations. 80 are 160 and 80 meters! Meter CW now ends way down at 3600 kHz and my old The days of low sunspots dipole antenna has become dramatically short. At bring lots of daytime excitement band’s edge, my little S&S TAC1 QRP transceiver only to 80 meters. If you can find a suffers a little, but even down 50 kHz, at 3550 kHz, the willing correspondent several TAC1’s final transistors overheat rapidly, due to high hundred miles away during the VSWR, and my signal starts fading away to all who day, you can sometimes catch Sony SRF-59 AM/ listen. I have to build a new antenna, with much longer stations in dead-spot areas very FM Walkman elements, to now match today’s lower-in-frequency 80 difficult to work during normal conditions. Listen for meter CW band. scheduled nets, with check-ins from far-away places, to These days, I find myself living in the area from see just how far your ‘ears’ can hear! A good place to 3600 kHz down to around 3520 kHz or so. Below 3525 start is the Empire Slow Speed Net heard at 6 pm kHz, you’ll find major-league CW ops looking for the Eastern on 3576 kHz.