HuronAmateurRadioMonthly

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Vol. 15, Issue 9 Official Newsletter of Huron Amateur Radio Association Web Site:

www.huronarc.info September, 2011 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2011 OFFICERS

President: Rod, KDØAKN

Vice President: Bob, NØTDA

Sec/Tres Lloyd, WBØULX

Act. Mgr. Jack, KØOH

VQC Net

© net control operators on 147.090 MHz each Sunday at 8:00 PM are as follows:

Lloyd, WBØULX

Sep. 18, Oct 16,

Oct 30, Nov 27, Dec 11

Sam, NØOTB

Sep 25, Oct 23,

Nov 20, Dec 18

Rod, KDØAKN

Oct 2, Nov 6,

Dec 4

Doug, NØNKH

Oct 9, Nov 13,

Dec 25

South Dakota Traders Group

Are you looking to buy or sell amateur radio equipment? Join the South Dakota Traders Yahoo Group and view the action. You can access and join the group by logging on at the following address:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SouthDakotaTraders/

Huron Amateur Radio has placed some of the equipment donated by the family of W0VQC on this site. Why not clean out you closet and put some of your "stuff" on the site.

Find Us on Facebook

• www.facebook.com/ARRL.org -- With almost 20,000 fans, the ARRL's Facebook page is the largest Amateur Radio site in social media.
• www.facebook.com/LogbookOfTheWorld -- A nifty way to follow the latest LoTW news. LoTW is an exciting way for radio amateurs to confirm two-way contacts they have made and use the confirmations as credit toward various ARRL awards.

September 15, 2011 Meeting Agenda

August 18, 2011 Meeting Notes

The meeting was called to order by President, KD0AKN in the Boardroom at
City Hall at 7:05 PM with 7 members present.

Old Business:

Read minutes of
previous meeting and they were approved as read. Reported that L.I.W. event
has generated 105 Qsl requests.

New Business:

Discussed repeater
repairs. KD0AKN wants to hold JOTA Oct 15th at the Girl Scout camp south of
Huron. It would be from 8AM till noon. Also talked about Geocaching and fox
hunting. A work party was planned for the Wessington Springs repeater on Aug
20 -21. Program was Bill, KM0F, explaining his HF mobile installation and
taking questions.

Meeting was adjourned at 8:45 PM.

Simulated ARRL's Simulated Emergency Test

(SET) is October 1 and 2, 2011. This nationwide exercise is the chance to test your emergency operating skills and the readiness of your communications equipment and accessories in an emergency-like deployment. ARRL Field Organization Leaders at the Section and local levels -- along with many other volunteers who are active in public service and emergency communications -- are developing emergency-like scenarios in consultation with a variety of agencies for whom radio amateurs are known to provide service during emergencies.

To find out how you can step up and be a part of the local or Section-level activities, contact your Section Manager. You can find contact information for all 71 ARRL Section Managers on page 16 of any issue of QST. Additional contact information may also be found on the ARRL website. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service^® (ARES^®), the National Traffic System (NTS), the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) and members of the ARRL Field Organization will participate and practice emergency operation plans, nets and procedures.

I’ve been a ham radio operator a long time, and I even have an electrical engineering degree, but I never really knew how the transistor got its name. Well, according to this post on the Adafruit blog, they actually took a vote. The entire memo has been posted to flickr.

While searching around for a picture of the first transistor, I found the video, "Does the first transistor ever built still work?" It explains how it works, and you can actually see the transistor, which is now part of the collection at the University of Illinois Spurlock Museum.

 

From ARRL President Kay Craigie, N3KN:

In a move designed to demonstrate amateur utilization of the 33 cm through 9 cm amateur bands, the ARRL Board established a UHF Band Plan Committee at its July 2011 meeting. This committee, described in Minute 39 of the meeting minutes, has been populated. Vice President Rick Roderick, K5UR will be its chair. Remaining members are ARRL CEO Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, retired ARRL Chief Technology Officer Paul Rinaldo, W4RI, Central Division Vice Director Rod Blocksome, K0DAS and Southwestern Division Vice Director Marty Woll, N6VI.

This committee will work in cooperation with the National Band Plan Threat Assessment committee chaired by International Affairs VP Jay Bellows, K0QB.

As outlined in Minute 39, the committee shall present a preliminary report containing recommended Band Plans at the 2012 ARRL Board of Directors Second (July) Meeting. The general charges to the Committee are:

To determine current band usage in the United States.

To seek input and comments from the amateur community.

To consider international issues.

To look toward emerging technology and projected future usage.

To keep the ad hoc National Broadband Plan Committee apprised of its progress.

To, above all else, be conducive to increasing amateur usage in these bands.

The primary purpose of this committee is to map the use of the 33 cm through 9 cm. band segments by amateurs and to determine how best to expand this usage. As directed in item 2, the committee will obtain input from amateurs on current use as well as of any steps that may be developed to increase our use of these frequencies.

A notice on the Heathkit

website announces that the venerable kit manufacturer, well-known to all Amateur Radio operators of a certain age, will be reentering the kit business in late August. The notice states, in part: "Heathkit will debut their new line of Do-it-Yourself kits for common around-the-house items. The first kit will be a Garage Parking Assistant (GPA). The Garage Parking Assistant kit lets you build your own system that uses ultrasonic sound waves to locate your car as it enters the garage. The system signals to the driver using LED lights mounted on the wall when the car is detected and in the perfect spot for parking.

"The GPA-100 kit consists of two primary assemblies -- the LED Display in kit form and the pre-assembled ultrasonic range module. The kit will include everything you need to complete the project except a soldering iron and hand tools.

"Next on the market will be a Wireless Swimming Pool Monitor kit followed by many more. Heathkit wants to continue to bring to its customers interesting, unique Heathkit products. Heathkit is interested in learning what types of products kit builders would like to build. Kit builders can submit their suggestions through this website using the Contact Us email."

Although there’s no indication that Heathkit Educational Systems is planning to reenter the Amateur Radio market, the St Joseph, Michigan-based company is actively looking for kit suggestions.

After several decades of successful kit manufacturing, Heathkit left the kit business in 1992. Heath sold Amateur Radio equipment, at first only kits and later its own line of non-kit products, from 1954 to 1992. The company has been sold a number of times since its founding back in 1912 as an aircraft company.

Got Advice for a New Ham?

Contribute from the discussion section of the LinkedIn ARRL Ham Radio Operators Group, a new ham asked, "It’s been about 3 weeks since I got my license and I’m nervous of making a gaffe on air. So tell me, what horrible mistakes should I avoid?"

Of course, everyone and his brother jumped in with advice. Here are some of the best ones:

• Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. We were all beginners once, and we learn by trial and error.
• Hams are a forgiving bunch, especially when you’re first getting started! (Unfortunately, not all the time….Dan)
• Listen to what others are doing. Copy what’s good and avoid what doesn’t sound good to you. Ask questions.
• Check out the local ham radio clubs in your area. You can find them on the ARRL website. Find one that is fun and active with young people like yourself. (Are there any that have active young people? :) …Dan )
• Best practice is to get on the air and talk to folks. Personally, I’ve found the HT crowd to be a bit cliquish so don’t be surprised if you run into that. It isn’t that they are unfriendly, just shy.
• It would be a MISTAKE if you didn’t work a FM satellite or two with your new license! (grin) Complete, up-to-date info at … http://www.work-sat.com – you do NOT need 100W nor multiple Yagi antennas.
• Here’s a tongue in cheek article on what not to do on the radio. It’s since been quoted and reprinted all over the internet. You might want to read it to see what to avoid.

Anyone else have some advice for our new ham?