2020 Calendar

We start with pizza in the shack at 6 PM; meeting follows at 6:30 PM.

***As of March 16, 2020, meetings have been moved to the club repeater/Zoom until further notice. Meetings begin at 6:30 PM and, for the time being, don't include pizza.***

Jan 7 - PRESENTATION

Earth Moon Earth Steve Bell (K7JOG)

Steve Bell (K7JOG) will discuss earth-moon-earth (EME) communications

jan - activities

Jan 22 WORKSHOP

QRPGuys DSB Transceiver Build

feb 4 - presentation

AMSAT Cubesat Simulation Frank Karnauskas (N1UW)

Frank Karnauskas (N1UW) will be giving a talk and demonstration on the AMSAT CubeSat Simulator. These CubeSat Simulators are low cost satellite emulators that run on solar panels and batteries, transmit UHF telemetry, have a 3D printed frame, and can be extended by additional sensors and modules.

feb - activities

Feb 6 Club Fair on the mall 10am-2pm

Feb 19 2nd Meeting

mar 3 - presentation

WinLink Mike Bass (WA9TKK)

WinLink is a state-of-the-art communications system which allows radio operators to send / receive emails & attachments, typically on HF frequencies. WinLink plays a key role during national emergencies, transporting message traffic in concert with US government agenceis.

Our presenter, Mike Bass (WA9TKK), is a highly-experienced Extra Class amateur radio operator whose interests include: digital modes, CW, VHF portable contesting, and he volunteers with the American Red Cross. Now retired, his professional work in engineering focused on communications and electrical engineering.

mar - activities

Mar 14-15: Science City ***CANCELED BY EVENT ORGANIZERS***

Mar 18: 2nd meeting ***Held on club repeater***

APR 7 - presentation

***Held on Zoom and club repeater***

Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) Pete Pototsky (NH6BF)

DMR stands for Digital Mobile Radio and uses the Motorola TRBO protocol for communications. The TRBO protocol converts your voice into a digital form, then sends it out via RF using TDMA (Time-Division Multiple Access). It allows you to communicate to other DMR radios and also DMR repeaters, which are networked together around the world via the internet.

Our presenter, Peter Pototsky (NH6BF) has been a ham radio operator since the late 1970’s. His first transmitter was a Heath-kit AT-1 tube transmitter and receiver an Allied AX-190 (Made hundreds of contacts with crystals as a Novice). From there, he advanced to various HF solid-state devices, towers and beams, etc. After a 20-year hiatus from Ham radio to raise kids, he returned to the hobby and has been involved in DMR for about 2 years.

Link to presentation slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HiZxEiXaOSiCSOc3cvcn5tqBUfgxNer3/view

apr - activities

Apr 22: 2nd meeting ***Held on club repeater***

MAY 5 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Frequency Measurement Tests Michael Perret (K7HIL)

Michael Perret (K7HIL) is a local expert and participant in the ARRL Frequency Measurement Tests. Michael will describe equipment and techniques used to measure HF frequencies to significantly better than 1 Hz.

Michael obtained his novice license (callsign KN7HIL) his junior year of H.S. in February 1959 and two months later upgraded to General. After graduation he joined the U.S. Navy, completing Boot camp, electronics technician school, submarine school and finished tour as an Electronics Petty Officer on the USS Growler, SSG-577. After his time in the Navy, he worked his way through College and received his BSEE from the University of Washington. He held many roles (Field Engineer, Systems Test Engineer, Consultant) with a variety of companies (Boeing, Westinghouse, Aeronautical Radio Inc.) from 1972 to 1989. During this time he became an expert in GPS and Internal Navigation Systems which landed him a position with General Dynamic who eventually became Raytheon. He was promoted to Engineering Fellow in 2002 and received the title Senior Fellow soon after. He retired from Raytheon in 2010 at the age of 66.

His HAM activities include

- Net Control for the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) net. Active as NC for both local and national nets. Worked over ten major weather disasters including Katrina and Marie.
- Likes HF the best - decent CW and SSB but haven't got much past PSK in digital
- DXCC - currently around 170 but LOTW down for a year now
- Best Set-up is on QRZ (https://www.qrz.com/db/K7HIL)

may - activities

May 2: 7th Area QSO Party ***PORTABLE OPS CANCELED; members operated from their homes***

MAY 20 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Changes to FCC RF Exposure Rules 2020 Greg Lapin (N9GL)

Since 1998, radio amateurs have been required to take steps to ensure that no person is exposed to more RF energy than the limits determined by the safety standards that had been developed up to that point. The methods that hams have been taught to determine exposure levels are supposed to be used to make sure that no station exceeds the allowable limits.

Beginning June 1, 2020 the FCC rules that govern exposure will be reformed, changing much of what hams have learned to evaluate their stations. These changes will be described.

Gregory Lapin, N9GL, was first licensed in 1970 as WN1NUK, later WA1NUK and KD9AZ. Greg received the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering and is a registered professional engineer in Illinois. He was on the faculty of Northwestern University in Evanston, IL studying medical imaging techniques for brain tumor drug perfusion at the time of the first (unsuccessful) lawsuit of a brain tumor patient against the cellular telephone industry. Greg's life in ham radio and research experience with brain tumors naturally led to his research in biological effects of electromagnetic energy. Greg serves as the Chairman of the ARRL RF Safety Committee. He is also a member of the IEEE Committee on Man and Radiation (COMAR) and the FCC Technological Advisory Council (TAC). His ham radio interests include DX, antennas and software defined radio. He works as a consultant and has commercially developed software defined transmitters and receivers for radio fire alarms. Outside, Greg serves on the boards of the Deerfield Park District and the Illinois Association of Park Districts. He spends most of his time in Deerfield, IL and Tucson, AZ

JUN 2 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Summits On The Air Keith Schlottman (KR7RK)

Keith Schlottman (KR7RK) will present detailed information on "Summits On The Air" (SOTA). Keith is a well-known SOTA operator, having activated literally hundreds of summits across the United States.

Keith Schlottman, KR7RK / VA3RRK enjoys both ham radio and hiking, and is a SOTA "Mountain Goat" and "Super Sloth". Keith has served in various leadership roles in many ham radio organizations. He has been the Treasurer of Ten-Ten International Net for over 25 years and works in the financial services industry. Keith graduated from the University of Arizona in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and returned for additional courses in astronomy and physics in the early 2000's.

jun - activities

Jun 17 2nd Meeting

Jun 27-28 Socially distant Field Day; members operated from individual field sites

JUL 7 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

CW Academy Quinton Gleason (NU7Y)

Quinton Gleason (NU7Y) will be giving a presentation on how to learn CW or how to improve your current CW skills. CW Academy is a program put on by the CW Operators’ Club aimed at increasing the number of competent CW operators on the HF CW sub-bands. It addresses all levels of enthusiasts: from those aspiring to become licensed operators who want to learn and use Morse code; to veteran operators who are intent on increasing their CW skills, speed and activity.

Quinton has been licensed for 43 years and CW has been his primary mode of operation. He enjoys QRP, contesting, and is active in Summits on the Air as an activator and chaser. He has been a member of CWops since 2014 and a CW Academy Advisor since 2018. He belongs to the Oro Valley Amateur Radio Club and is also their VE Liaison.

jul - activities

Jul 22 2nd Meeting

AUG 4 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Amateur Television Rod Frtitz (WB9KMO)

Rod (WB9KM) was always attracted to specialized communication modes and has worked virtually all of them. He focuses on amateur television, maintains Amateur Television Network (ATN) repeaters in Santa Barbara and Mesa and enjoys mesh networking, especially Mesh Video. He links ATV repeaters together with microwaves and over-the-Internet, enjoying the challenges and rewards. The technical learning opportunities drive him but Rod mostly values the friends he meets along the way

Rod grew up in Waupun, Wisconsin and is the father of three fine young adults (not hams yet) who live in California. He became a Radio Amateur (now Extra Class) in 1971 while attending Electrical Engineering at UW, Madison where he was a DJ and Chief Engineer at WSRM radio. He maintained computer mainframes in Madison for Burroughs Corporation and passed up a broadcasting career at WMTV in Madison to move to Santa Barbara to prototype and write technical manuals for mini-computers. In the 1980s, he was a pioneer PC and network dealer in California. Switching from hardware to software in the 1990s, he became a database administrator and computer systems analyst for the County of Santa Barbara where he retired after 22 years in 2014. Rod now lives happily in Mesa AZ.

AUG - activities

Aug 19 2nd Meeting

SEP 16 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Introduction to Contesting & the Arizona QSO Party Bill Clark (K6WSC)

It all started for Bill (K6WSC) with the building of a 50-watt Novice crystal-controlled ham radio transmitter with his Dad halfway thru high school, his fascination with radio that is. That first DX contact on the other side of the world with a radio station he had assembled with his own hands had him hooked on a hobby that so far has lasted 51 years. Not only that, but ham radio directly led to his choice of a career, and Bill was soon off to obtain a BSEE from Carnegie Mellon University. His 39-year career as a front-end digital design engineer took him to Long Island, to Los Angeles, to San Diego where he spent most of his career (and raised a family), and finally to Tucson where Bill retired at the age of 61.

Bill’s career as a design engineer paralleled the evolution of modern day electronics from TTL logic, early microprocessors executing software to perform functions previously relegated to hardware, early FPGAs thru complex FPGAs serving as a system on a chip, and all the way thru to 90nm full custom ASICs. Design entry methods along the way transitioned from pencil & paper using logic templates, schematic capture programs, assembly language, C, Verilog, and to VHDL. Design verification transitioned from a lab bench touching real hardware to complex simulation methodologies performed on a computer workstation. From startups in garages to the world’s largest electronics companies, individual contributor to management, Bill has seen it all.

Much of Bill’s career centered around preparing information to be transmitted thru imperfect communication channels in the presence of noise and the recovery of that information at the receiving end of the channel. Along the way, Bill designed systems to add PSK data to public service radios, CPM computers that preceded the IBM PC, magnetic tape drives, CD-ROM mastering hardware, arbitrary wave form generator, sound card, cable TV decoder, address lookup engine in a gigabit Ethernet switch, Fibre Channel ASIC, and cell phone modem ASIC design. These are just a few of the product areas that saw Bill’s designs. Bill is a named inventor on several CDMA patents.

Enough of that, let’s get back to ham radio. The 51 years mentioned above is the length of time Bill has been continually licensed. The first two years of being licensed were well spent in that Bill became proficient in Morse Code. Career and family along with an interest in flying took a bite out of the next 37 years wherein Bill was almost never on the air. That all changed thru a somewhat random series of events in 2008 when Bill entered the IARU HF World Championship on a whim and won the single-op mixed low power entry category in the San Diego Section. That was it. In that single 24-hour period, Bill got hooked on the sport of amateur radio, contesting. He was a little rusty with the CW, but once learned well, CW is a lot like riding a bicycle in that the skill stays with one for life. Bill has been an avid CW contester ever since. Speaking of a bicycle, mountain biking is another one of Bill’s hobbies.

Bill’s QRZ page has an extensive list of his contest accolades and lots of station and antenna pictures. Bill is a member of the ARRL, Arizona Outlaws Contest Club, Catalina Radio Club, Radio Society of Tucson, and the Southern Arizona DX Association (President 2018). He is the Arizona QSO Party Chairman.

SEP - activities

***Held on Zoom***

Sep 1 - Remote System Control Design Review for K7UAZ Shack

Sep 19-20 - Collegiate QSO Party

OCT 6 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Southern Arizona Rescue Association

Scott Clemans (N7HMN)

Scott (N7HMN) has been a member of the Southern Arizona Rescue Assn. since 1965. He will be discussing the evolution and role of Amateur Radio in Search and Rescue in Pima County.

Scott has participated in over 1400 calls in Southern Arizona and is still active (any excuse to hike!). He is currently serving as SARA’s PIO, Vice President of the Board, and is a long time member of the Communications Committee. Scott is a licensed ham, and has held his current callsign N7HMN (formerly KA7SKQ) since 1980. Scott’s parents were both in military communications. His mother was an Army radio operator who spoke CW as a second language, and his father (W7VBA) set up military radio stations. He also managed the MARS station on DM for many years. Apparently, the love for radio is genetic. Scott holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the U of A, and is a Raytheon retiree.

OCT - activities

Oct 10 AZ QSO Party

Oct 21 2nd Meeting

***Held on Zoom***

Oct 19-23 School Club Roundup

NOV 3 - presentation

Zoom Check-In Meeting and round table discussion of how members have been active in the hobby recently.

NOV - activities

Nov 7-9 ARRL CW Sweepstakes

Nov 18 2nd Meeting

Nov 21-23 ARRL SSB Sweepstakes

DEC 1 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Elecraft Products and Technology

Eric Swartz (WA6HHQ)

Eric Swartz, WA6HHQ, is Elecraft's Chief Operating Officer, a co-designer of Elecraft's K4, K3S, K2, and other transceivers, and co-founder of Elecraft in 1998 with Wayne Burdick, N6KR. Licensed 49 years, he credits his early interest in Amateur Radio with leading him to a career in electronic design and management. He received his B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and has been involved in a number of successful Silicon Valley startups. Prior to Elecraft, Eric was co-founder and President of Verisys, a test equipment manufacturer of high-performance protocol analyzers for the mass storage market.

Wayne and Eric have both been inducted into the QRP Hall of Fame, and also jointly received the ARRL's Technical Excellence Award in 2001 for their Elecraft designs.

DEC - activities

N/A

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