CRACKLIN’ STATIC Serving the Amateur Radio Community since April 16, 1968 http://www.snars.org RENO, NEVADA JANUARY 2014 PRESIDENT’S VOICE It’s the Start of another year – The Board of Directors for 2014 is as follows: Mike, N7MSK President 2 year term Don, N2MOO Vice-President 2 year term Tony, N7ACM Treasurer 2 year term Scott, KC7STV Secretary 1 year term Jim, KD7DPW Board Member 2 year term Dave, KF7EGU Board Member 1 year term Jim, W6US Board Member 1 year term We will have a lot going on this coming year. The Nevada State Convention, Field Day, lots of training programs (check the web site for listings), special events/races all summer long; we are planning to have a special events station to celebrate the 150th year of Nevada Statehood; presentations at the monthly club meetings, Swap meets, VE exams, and whatever else presents itself. The Tech committee, chaired by John Byerly, N7ROJ is developing a work plan and a budget over the winter for the maintenance that needs to be done, including upgrades to some radios, repeaters and antennas. There will be a repeater on Winnemucca Mtn. as soon as a site is obtained. We have the radio equipment to go up there now. This will provide us a link to Elko which will enable I-80 radio coverage from Elko to Reno. By the time you read this, we will have a D-Star station for all to use. There will be a D-Star class offered soon to get everyone up to speed on using this mode properly. In January there will be a training class for all of our Control Operators. It will provide continuity among all the CO’s so that uniform messages are being sent out to users, and will provide a forum for Q & A’s. Also in January the Nevada State Convention planning committee will be working with the Virginia City Chamber and EOC to finalize some details for the 5/30 – 06/01 convention. At that time we will have more info that we will start using for advertising the convention. Please let Board Members know of any concerns, ideas, suggestions that you have so that we can work on them to continue to improve your club. 73 ------Mike CRACKLIN’ STATIC PUBLICATION SNARS meeting January 4 E-mail……………. [email protected] Cracklin’ Static is the Newsletter of, and sponsored by the Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society. Opinions expressed herein are those of the editors and contributors and should not be considered as official expressions of the Club Officers, Staff or Club Members, or as endorsements by same. Material for publication may be edited to enhance readability or to save space. We reserve the right to use whatever font size or line Jack’s Restaurant, 7671 South Virginia Street spacing may be required in order to publish this Newsletter. Deadline for input to the newsletter is 1500 hours on the Sunday starting at 0730. Breakfast will be available. prior to the 1st Saturday of each month. Cracklin’ Static is e-published in Adobe PDF Format. It may be Aaron Kenneston, Washoe Country Emergency enjoyed at the SNARS web site. Manager from the EOC will speak on Local Government Emergency Preparedness and the role of Amateur radio operators. Amateur Radio License Testing 2014 SNARS, Third Saturday of February, April, June, August, October and December. Testing will be at the REOC located at 5195 Spectrum Blvd., Reno …... Bill Nichols… NN7K SIERA CLUB: Silver State Charter High School, 788 Fairview Dr, Carson City.….. 3rd Saturday of January, March, May, July, September, and November ……Dale Anderson, [email protected] Elko Area: Third Saturday of January, April, July, October. 11:00AM, Northeast Nevada Regional Hospital, 2001 Errecart Boulevard, Elko, NV ……Joe Giraudo, N7JEH [email protected] SNARS, P.O. Box 7727, Reno, NV 89510 SNARS Repeater System Frequencies Membership: $25 Individual, $40 Family Linked System --- Reno, Carson Area OFFICERS 2014 146.610 (-) PL 123.0 President…...............Mike Katz.........................N7MSK Vice President……...Don Seibert……….….. ...N2MOO 443.075 (+) PL 123.0 Trea$urer…..............Tony Marcin………….…N7ACM Secretary…..…….....Scott Brink…………...….KC7STV Director…….............Jim Rosima……………...KD7DPW Lovelock & Black Rock area Director…………….Dave Miles………………KF7EGU Director…………….Jim Shepard……………..W6US 146.925 (-) PL 123.0 Mt Rose Linked System STAFF 2014 By Laws Review Committee……………………...…KE7HLR 147.030 (+) PL 123.0 Virginia Peak Call Sign Badges……………………………………..KB7GNA 147.150 (+) PL 123.0 Mt Rose Club Public Information Officer……………………..KF7IAW Control Operators Manager……………..………….. .N7TGB 147.210 (+) PL 100.0 Peavine Peak Cracklin’ Static Editor……………………….……....WB2AWQ 444.925 (+) PL 100.0 Peavine Peak Digital SYSOP……………………………………….K7JN Meeting Greeters……………………………………..AE7OX 444.875 (+) PL 100.0 Lobdelle Peak History Archivist……………………………………..KF7KTC GSR Linked System SK Estate Advisors……………………………..….…KB7IWT Station Licensee for KR7ENO……………………….WB2AWQ 147.300 (+) PL 123.0 Grand Sierra Resort Control Operators FOR KR7ENO……………………WB2AWQ Station Licensee for W7TA…………..………………K7JN 444.825 (+) PL 123.0 Mt Davidson Control Operators for W7TA…………………………K7JN IRLP: 7873, Echolink:WA7DG/R (581256) Tech Committee Chair..………………………………N7ROJ Chief VE Examiner………………………………..….NN7K Rag Chew 147.390 (+) PL 100.0 (no link) Membership Chairman……………………………......N2MOO 52.580 (-) PL 114.8 (no link or features) Awards Chairman…………………………..…………KB7ZBN Program Chairman……………………………………N2MOO Packet 145.050 Web Master …………………………..…N7ACM & KG7DLF APRS 144.390 Facebook Page Administrator…………...N7ACM & KG7DLF D-Star 444.625 (+) N7NDS B, N7NDS G The Name of the Game Jim Shepherd, W6US ([email protected]) Test Equipment All hams should have some test equipment as it will be world prefer the CRT displays. Those who have to backpack one needed… up the hill to a repeater site like the digital displays as they will usually have the capability to run on 12 volts DC and weigh a The first piece of equipment that you should consider is a good whole lot less. There are tons of excellent used o’scopes handheld digital multimeter. Fluke is the leader in good quality available on Ebay and at swap meets for very reasonable gear, and they are rugged and will last a lifetime with a little prices. HP, Tektronix and Agilent are the best makers, and new care. There are some others that are good, but there is a lot of they may run thousands of dollars—on the used markets they junk available on the web and through discount retailers. can be had for under $200. A lot have plug in modules that Meters should be at least accurate to a hundredth of a volt allow you to expand their use into the UHF frequencies and under 50 volts, and a tenth of a volt above. Even if you don’t even turn them into spectrum analyzers. You can use them to plan on checking anything more than your handheld batteries, check your modulation, measure AC peak to peak voltages, the insulation and ratings on the meter should be good to 600 look at waveforms and many other useful tests. Besides, having volts for your safety. The meter should be able to display one running in the shack hooked to your audio looks impressive negative voltages if you end up with the red probe on the to visitors… negative and the black on the positive—most handheld batteries do not have the polarity marked on the contacts. Antenna analyzers are also a popular addition to your shack. Auto-ranging is a big help when you are testing components on The MFJ units are inexpensive and provide good results. If you the ohm scale. Auto turn-off is handy for preventing dead are going to build your own antennas they are the best way to batteries, as it is easy to leave the meter on by accident. Other tune them without putting a signal out on the air. A number of features that may be included include audio frequency club members have these units and some are willing to help counters, capacitance meters, and amp meters. These will run you check your antennas. The next step up is something like from about $40 up into the hundreds of dollars depending the Anritsu SiteMaster which costs a few thousand dollars. upon features. Signal generators cover a wide class of test gear. They can produce signals from audio up into the microwave frequencies A good in-line SWR meter is probably the second piece of depending upon the units. They can produce various equipment found in most shacks. A cross needle meter type waveforms from sine to square waves and even pulses. They showing both forward and reflected power makes tuning radios can mix frequencies, like putting audio on RF signals and do all to their antennas very easy. It should be usable for frequencies this at a range of signal levels. Again, used equipment can be from 1 MHz up to 500 MHz to allow use on HF and VHF/UHF found on the secondary market for pennies on the dollar. systems. Some do this with separate input/outputs for HF and the higher frequencies, and other have internal circuitry to A dummy load is also useful for working on transmitters make them work. It should have a sufficient power rating for without putting a signal out on the air. Most low cost units are the radios you are using. With these units you are looking at optimistic on their power ratings, so get one that is about twice relative power levels between the forward and reflective as big as the wattage of your transmitter. I have a Bird 2500 power—they are usually have ±20% accuracy on their power watt continuous duty unit that will take a keyed down legal readings. You are more interested in peaking your forward limit transmitter all day long.