Happy Holidays to All Time to Renew It Was a Happy Day for Those of Us Who Gathered for Our Annual Holiday Luncheon at the Sea Cliff Inn on December 13, 2014

DECEMBER 2014

Happy Holidays to All Time to Renew It was a happy day for those of us who gathered for our annual holiday luncheon at the Sea Cliff Inn on December 13, 2014. The food was excellent and the fellowship amongst our club SCCARC Membership Renewals members was superb. As usual, our drawing was especially fun as we all carefully watched our Due January 1; tickets in anticipation of hearing one of our ticket numbers called. We were only sorry that If you have already renewed your some of our members were unable to join us because we missed those were unable to partici- membership for 2015, thank you! If pate in the festivities you haven’t, please do it now. Annual dues are $25 for full members, $6 each for each additional member at the same mailing address, and $10 for full-time students age 18 or under. Dues may be paid in cash or check (payable to SCCARC) in person, at regular Club meetings, or checks may be mailed to SCCARC, P.O. Box 238, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-0238. If you have any questions you can email the Secretary Michael Usher

I don’t know about all of the tables, but at the one where I was seated, the “tech talk” was Secretary or Treasurer. We appreciate all of lively. Between Kerry Veenstra, K3RRY, Ron Skelton, W6WO, Steve Petersen, AC6P, and Jeff the work that this team contributed for our Lieberman, AE6KS, various aspects of propagation were the topic of interest. welfare over the past ten years. Sometimes When it came time for announcements, our new Board of Directors was installed and we we take for granted the work done by others, thanked our outgoing Board members for their efforts during this past year. Our new Board but at our holiday luncheon, it is obvious consists of the following club members: that it takes a lot of planning and effort to • President: Suellene Petersen, K6CPA accomplish such a fun and successful event. • Vice President: Bob Wiser, K6RMW This year, the background support team who • Secretary: Michael Usher, AG6MK assisted Kathleen and David, were Becky Steinbruner, KI6TKB, who helped set up; Mike • Treasurer: Stephen Petersen, AC6P Dorn, KM6IKE, who was M.C. for the draw- • Director: Kathleen McQuilling, KI6AIE ing; Michel Usher, AG6MK, and Rich Olsen, • Director: Bruce Hawkins, AC6DN W1WUH, who shopped for prizes. The entire • Director: Dave Steinbruner, WB6DWP team did an excellent job and we thank them • Director: Allen Fugelseth, WB6RWU for their effort. • Director: Robert Ritchey, KJ6FFP Immediate Past President Happy holiday to all of our Club members and Our outgoing members that are not returning to the Board this year are David Copp, WS2I, Ray to all we wish that your new year will be Matteis, KE6NGH, Becky Steinbruner, KI6TKB, and Oliver Pitterling, KJ6LDD. happy, healthy and prosperous. Together, let’s It was also joyfully announced that Life Membership was awarded to Kathleen McQuilling, make 2015 a fun year for SCCARC! KI6AIE, for her many years of faithfully serving as either Secretary or Treasurer. Many thanks —Suellene Petersen, K6CPA to David Copp, WS2I, were expressed for his contribution to our club for also serving as either CLUB MEETING FRIDAY JANUARY 16, 7:30PM DX DISCOVERIES

2 DECEMBER 2014 is that a desired message has to be selected walked us through a few of the very many from a set of possible messages. features of the user interface as part of the A reminder is that we will be meeting at Open HPSDR program. Apache labs has built NextSpace every 1st and 3rd Saturdays at RF hardware based on Open HPSDR design 10:00 AM from now on and need to hear from but is and independent supplier. The HF some volunteers to lead discussions dur- radio used in the demo is the no-knobs Anan ing the second hour of our 2-hour sessions. 100D. https://apache-labs.com/ Caution: I have sent out a list of topics that have Once you have used a display like the one we been identified, pick one, or another of your saw your own radio may look rather dated. choosing and please let me know in advance For the second half of the meeting Warren of your chosen date(s) Our winter sessions will be on the 1st lead us through the basics of SDR principles, and 3rd Saturdays as follows, Jan 3,17 In our session Dec 6th Warren NG0T will buzzwords and architecture. Feb 7,21 March 7,21 please make note provide us with more insight into the the way The extent of DSP evolution in Amateur of them In-phase and Quadrature signals contribute radiios was illustrated by comparing the K3. Cake Nov.15 to DSP and Software Defined Radios. This is KX3 and the OpenHPSDR design. The receive one not to miss path was discussed at length and Warren We commenced our Winter Series of meet- I wish to bring to your attention that my old indicated his willinness to follow through ings at NextSpace as planned, as always new with a talk on the special features of the insights into technology came to light. Keen W6WO@ ebold addr has been replaced with that above. transmit path. Does you radio have a Field as ever our Senior Citizen Frank, K6BDK was Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) yet ? first in the door and brought with him a The ionosphere is expected to provide some magazine containing an interesting article RF excitement over the next few days, we about an Over Horizon Radar site in Austra- might never see the like of it so GOTA. lia. It uses a huge array of what appeared Cake Dec 6. to be LF dipoles that produced a steerable beam. Steerable arrays have not gained much I am running out of superlatives to describe attention in Amateur circles perhaps due to our CAKE sessions but our meeting on Dec.6 space limitations. This was not a problem was truly outstanding in the Australian outback !. The acronym Our focus was on SDR technologies and RADAR originated during WWII and as I recall techniques but not to the exclusion of other it stood for Radio Acquisition Direction and items of interest. One such was Peter Jen- Range. nings AB6WM description of his water-wise There is never a CAKE meeting without projects. Peter is well regarded for his inno- discussion of antennas, we heard reports vative solutions using low cost technology. from Fred KJ6OOV and Frank about the He describes his projects in a very profes- effectiveness of BuddyPoles and Pixel loops. sional manner as you can see from his web Rich Olsen is well known at CAKE sessions for showing his gadgets I don’t know how but the topic of Depleted site http://benlo.com/esp8266. Cake Dec. 20 Uranium came up with the observation it was Going round the table Glen KG0T showed Ward AE6TY delivered a thought provoking far heavier than lead, I did not hear of any how he installed a bare board SDR radio presentation at our CAKE session on Dec 20th peaceful uses for the material from Apache Labs into a neat enclosure. that showed how useful power output of A considerable discussion followed on the Ward AE6TY showed his earlly home-brew a transmitter is directly related to its load technology involved in communicating with SDR radio, once again to really appreciate impedance. In the case of an antenna this remote landers on planets and now on a the breadth and depth of Ward’s work visit impedance is complex and will vary across comet. We had many unanswered questions his web site at AE6TY.com. We might look the frequency range of interest. Given that, but Eric KK6IZY found a few details on a web- forward to a presentation from him in the Ward asked how well do we know what our site. Our Radio Astronomer Fred is interested near future output power is and what might be be done in the subject so we may hope to have more Gary K6PDL set up our first audio/visual to increase it. SimSmith is a fine tool to details in due course. Discussion on LASERs connection to a CAKE meeting so that absent yield some answers to these questions. followed with emphasis on safeguarding eyes. friends can take part. We found that room I was trolling around looking for some The second hour included a discussion on acoustics and lighting played a major role unrelated information when I came across the Life,Work and Legacy of Claude Shannon in making such links a success we will be an article by Grant Bingeman who discussed which was moderated by Ron. it included thinkin about ways to improve for improve- the same subject, his paper can be found on a fun exercise proposed by Shannon in his ment next time. Thanks again Gary I hope http://www.km5kg.com/loads.htm landmark paper ‚ÄúMathematical Theory of you will take the lead on this and it will Communications‚Äù (1948). This was the become a normal feature of our sessions. Grant made statements to the effect that best overall PA performance may not occur at first time anyone had rigorously addressed Fred KJ6OOV brought his Pixel loop mounted resonance and power output, efficiency and the fundamental communications problem of on a 5ft pipe to provide some input signals distortion need to be considered. reproducing a signal at a receiver that either to an Anan SDR radio. The room is evidently exactly or approximately equals the transmit- well shielded but we were able to clearly see All good reading material for rainy weekend ! ted signal. A major point made by Shannon some AM broadcast stations. Warren NR0V —Ron W6WO DECEMBER 2014 3 A Kid in a Candy Store (on a low carb diet) Veterans Day 2014 That’s just what I felt like in scanning the CQ CQ K6V from the Santa Cruz Veterans Memorial Building table of contents of a supplement to the By Don K6GHA current issue of Microwave Journal dedicated Veterans by getting the Veterans Hall HF to mobile communications infrastructure. station back on the air. Here’s a partial list of features that caught Thanks goes to everyone who took time my attention because of their potential in to support and honor those who served Amateur circles. over Veterans Day Weekend. We salute a) Millimeter Wave Propagation Measurements you! b) Understanding Envelope Tracking Veterans: c) Receiver Measurements Every Wireless Reed - N1WC Engineer should know JV - K6HJU d) Smart Antennas Maurice - N6GOW Veterans Day 2014 was a community event! e) Locating Sources of Interference Don - K6GHA And this year it celebrated the reopening of f) DC to 6GHz SDR the Ham Shack in the Santa Cruz Veterans and civilians A few snap shots of these articles will indi- Memorial Building (on Front Street) on Nov Cap - K6AFE 8th, 9th and 11th. The first time in 3 years cate what seems relevant. Becky - KI6TKB the HF Station was on the air! a) NYU Wireless conducted wideband milli- Tom - KW6S It took an ‘all hands’ effort in the last few meter measurements at 28-73 GHz with angle days and weeks leading up to the event. Pig Ariel - KK6EYK of arrival and departure information and is Pen (from Charlie Brown’s crew) would have Aster - (not licenced yet) being upgraded with GPS-controlled clocks. been proud of the dust cloud generated by a Signal processing of I and Q components is Apologies to those who helped, operated, group of Amateur’s bringing radios, antennas, involved or supported this event, but not noted here. and room furniture together getting ready Without your support we wouldn’t have been b) Keysight Technologies (Formally Agilent) for the event. As of Saturday morning the able to say “CQ CQ Kilo 6 Victory, Veterans is investigating envelope tracking (an idea HF station was back ship shape, and ready Day”! from the (1930s) to improved linearity, to make contacts around the world for the Photos Courtesy: Veterans Day weekend. All hands were on efficiency battery life of Power Amplifiers. Fred- KJ6OOV and Michael – AG6MK It may use a a mixture of open and closed deck manning the special event station and loop feedback with delays introduced in the signing Kilo Six Victor (K6V)! amplifiers IQ or RF path Key highlights from the weekend included; Operating over 100 contacts c) Seven receiver measurements are listed (from Japan to Florida and Canada), and although the article refers to LTE com- contact with other Special Event Vet- munications most apply equally well at eran Locations around the US, having any frequency such as sensitivity, blocking a number of folks from both SCCARC characteristics ,spurious response and inter- and SLVARC stop by to say hello and modulation operate, having San (W6RRR) work all d) The description of novel Q-band (40.5- of the CW contacts made, admiring 43.5 GHz range) antennas included a Michael’s (AG6MK) young daughters Fabry-Perot cavity which is a type of leaky really boosting our phone contacts waveguide consisting of a partially reflective when they were calling CQ, and every- surface and a totally reflective surface. It one enjoying a fantastic community made me wonder if a parasitic Yagi element is and technical effort honoring our local perhaps a partially reflective surface e) Among all the millimeter articles it was f) This was a very brief description by Per Now back to my humble, but ever effective, something of a relief to read one that used Vices in Toronto Canada of a product called hand-held, social media, HF radio appliance familiar had-held Yagi and Log Periodic Crimson from [email protected] It is and Morse key. No harm in looking ahead is antennas together with a hand held spectrum powered by an AlteraTMArria VFPGA (5AST- there? analyzer and easyMap tools software. I will MD3E3F3113N) sounds rather like what we —Ron W6WO bring copies to a future CAKE meeting. are hearing from the OpenHPSDR camp. 4 3

as I didn’t want to be on the receiving end, Free Stuff! barehanded. At least I wasn’t standing in a By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU puddle of water or under a tree. When my I’m a sucker for free stuff. Below, you’ll find tower was up, a high wind would hit it and links to a free transistor amplifier design shake the whole house. Told my XYL not to program, a free printed circuit board design worry as the tower was holding the house program, and a free tutorial on antennas. All up, not the other way around. (Still, she of these look to be worth a look. worried!) During some wind storms there was a clatter or two as the elements blew off and TransistorAmp 1.1 fell on the roof. (Can’t blame her, really.) This is free software for designing bipolar It is nice to see Robert Ritchey, KJ6FFP, transistor amplifiers. I found the link to this The one-hundred-foot eucalyptus tree on assume the role of our new District Emer- software (http://en.transistoramp.de/) on my hillside made ferocious sounds when the gency Coordinator (DEC) for Santa Cruz the AMRAD mailing list. Phil, M1GWZ, who very high winds hit it early this morning. It County. It’s a big job and helps keep our posted the link, says, “A transistor circuit was our first big storm of the season as the community safe in times of emergency. Cap, that I’m developing needed a 5x voltage “Pineapple Express” was back with us after KE6AFE, did a fine job over the past decade. gain stage. I could have thrown in a single several seasons of drought. Fortunately, that (Thank you for all your time and effort, Cap.) op amp with split power rails and all that huge tree was leaning away from my house. DIL8 real estate, but a single transistor stage Lesser trees near my property were hav- During local storm activities, ham radio is would suffice. Trouble is, I’m an EE by incli- ing the same problem. Good, strong, root always a great means of communicating, nation, not training, and all those calcula- systems help, but in the case of eucalyptus especially from the towns and communi- tions - working out those capacitor reactance trees, I’ve heard that that is not the case. I ties in San Lorenzo Valley. When power and values - well, I don’t do them often enough feared that they would topple, taking my 40 telephone lines go down, cell phones can for them to be easy. And I want voltage gain, and 80 meter wires with them. Despite the also be jammed by overuse from anxious not current. And then I found Transistor Amp wind and rain, I got on the air and checked callers. During a severe traffic accident on 1.1.” in with my nets and received great signal the Bay Bridge a few years ago, it resulted in a lengthy traffic stoppage. Cell phones “It’s a nice piece of software,” says Phil, “It reports from up and down the coast. One of were useless as everyone attempted to call installs easily and did the job for me quickly the good features of having nothing up but work or home phones. Mobile ham and CB and easily. Oh, and when I built the circuit a couple of dipoles at 25 feet high is that radios came into use for licensed hams or the for real - voltage gain of 5x!” not much can go wrong. If they fall down, they don’t bend or break, just string ‘em public. [[ NOTE: A screen shot of the software that back up. Am, of course, in the daily habit of Let’s all hope that this winter we hams are you can use for the article can be found grounding them. While our thunderstorms ready to provide our usual good communica- at http://www.kb6nu.com/wp-content/ are rare in our area, one year there were so tions network skills when needed. Our past uploads/2014/11/specify-common-base- many they lit up the whole West side hills ARES training and continued state of readi- circuit.png.....Dan]] almost continuously. Decades ago before ness throughout the year should help make Altium CircuitMaker I had a ground switch, I was unscrewing a that possible. CircuitMaker (http://www.circuitmaker. coax fitting when lightning began. I hurried com) is a free printed circuit board design tool for hobbyists, people like you and me. wave propagation, the important general When not scouring the Internet for free stuff, Maxfield Parrish of EETimes says, “one key characteristics of an antenna and parameters, you’ll find KB6NU working on updates to his aspect of CircuitMaker is its intuitive and such as antenna gain, radiation pattern, “No Nonsense” study guides, working CW on easy-to-use interface -- all of the important bandwidth or VSWR. A more detailed explana- 40m, or blogging about amateur radio at www.kb6nu.com. “stuff” is presented in an easily accessible tion of the functionality of some selected manner in a ribbon at the top of the display. antenna types (e.g. dipole or monopole) is Another major consideration is that Altium also given. has decided to make CircuitMaker all about “Community,” so users can easily share ideas Maik Reckeweg, Product Manager Antennas, and designs, comment on designs and offer Rohde & Schwarz GmbH, Munich, Germany, suggestions for improvement, and generally who is responsible for all the company‚Äôs help each other along the way.” monitoring, measurement and communica- Free antenna tutorial tions antennas is the tutorial’s. For a limited time, Rohde & Schwartz and The video is kind of dry, but I think Reckeweg the IEEE Communications Society are offering does a pretty good job of discussing antenna a free tutorial on Antenna Basics (http:// basics. The video is also accompanied by a www.comsoc.org/form/tutorial-registration- white paper that delves into these topics antenna-basics). This tutorial explains the a little more completely. Overall, there’s a basic functionality of an antenna, starting bit more math than in most amateur radio with Hertz’s antenna model. It also includes discussions of antennas, but this makes the a short introduction to the fundamentals of discussion a little more comprehensive. No more climbing towers for you OM DECEMBER 2014 5 SCCARC Board - 2015 SCCARC Calendar of Events President Suellene Petersen K6CPA (831) 335-2662 Vice President Bob Wiser K6RMW ARES Meeting (prior to club meeting) Friday Jan 16 Secretary Michael Usher AG6MK (408) 582-2029 SCCARC Meeting Friday Jan 16 Treasurer Stephen Petersen AC6P Cake Meetings 1st and 3rd Sat Directors Allen Fugelseth WB6RWU (831) 475-8846 Bruce Hawkins AC6DN Board Meeting Thurday Jan 22 Kathleen McQuilling KI6AIE (831) 476-6303 Short Skip articles due Monday Jan 4 Robert Ritchey KJ6FFP Dave Steinbruner WB6DWP (831) 685-2915 SCCARC Meeting Friday Feb 20 K6BJ Trustee Allen Fugelseth WB6RWU (831) 475-8846 MONTHLY MEETINGS. MONTEREY BAY REPEATER ACTIVITY The SCCARC Meets at 7:30 PM, on the THIRD FRIDAY of the each month (except December). Meetings are Santa Cruz K6BJ 146.790- PL 94.8 Santa Cruz (linked to KI6EH) at Dominican Hospital, Education Center, 1555 Soquel County KI6EH 147.945- PL 94.8 Watsonville (linked to K6BJ) K6BJ 440.925+ PL 123.0 Santa Cruz (not linked) Drive, Santa Cruz K6BJ D-Star 441.675 +5MHz (D Star link: tinyurl.com/dstar-sc) . • SCCARC Net Monday 7:30 PM 146.79- /147.945- /147.180+ linked Net Control Schedule: • SCCARC 10 Meter Net Monday 7:00 PM 28.308 MHz USB 12/15 Phil KE6UWH ARES Net SC County Wide ARES Tuesday 7:30 PM on 147.180+ PL 94.8 and 443.600+ PL 110.9 linked 12/22 Tom K6TG San Lorenzo WR6AOK 147.120+ PL 94.8 Ben Lomond 12/29 Lou NJ6H Valley • SLV Net Thursday 7:30 PM 1/5 Becky KI6TKB Loma Prieta AB6VS 440.550+ / AE6KE 146.835- PL 94.8 (linked for net) 1/12 Chris KG6DOZ • LP ARES / LPARC Net Tuesday 7:15 PM 1/19 Phil KE6UWH Monterey K6LY 146.97- PL 94.8 / 444.700+ PL123 (linked for net) Monterey • Monterey Co. ARES Net Wednesday 7:30 PM K6LY 146.970- (PL 94.8) Short Skip is published 12 times per year. • NPSARC Net Wednesday at 8 PM on K6LY/R Free to members. LPRC WR6ABD 146.640- PL 162.2 / 442.900+ PL 162.2 (winsystem.org) Santa Cruz County Amateur Radio Club, Inc. • LPRC Net Tuesday 8:00 PM 146.640-(PL 162.2) Post Office Box 238, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 • Amateur Radio Newsline broadcast Tuesday Editor: Ron Baldwin, [email protected] • Santa Clara Valley Section Traffic NET Tuesday 9:00PM 146.640- (PL 162.2) Columnist: Art Lee, WF6P FOR MORE INFO SEE: http://www.k6bj.org/freq.html Writer: Ron Skelton, W6WO

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB P.O. BOX 238 SANTA CRUZ, CA 95061-0238