2021 Calendar

feb 2 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Characterization Dielectric Materials Using Terahertz Measurement Systems

Jeff Seligman (K2VNT)

Jeff Seligman completed his PhD at the University of Arizona in 2015 specializing in Spectral Measurement Techniques used for Materials Characterization and for Packaging the ECE Department.

For over twenty he was active as an RF/Microwave Engineer having worked on the GPS satellite. L1/L2 Synthesizer (NAVSTAR) for ITT/Rockwell, and Cassini downlink exciter for JPL and various projects for many other companies.

apr 6 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Solar Cycle 25 and HF Propagation

Carl Luetzelschwab (K9LA)

Carl will give some general information about solar cycles, review past solar cycles (1 through 24), talk about Cycle 25, what to expect on the bands for the next year or two, and finish up with some general propagation information.

Carl started his radio career as a short wave listener in the late 1950s. He received his Novice license (WN9AVT) in October 1961, and selected K9LA in 1977. Carl is a graduate of Purdue University and was an RF design engineer until his retirement in 2013. Carl enjoys propagation, DXing (he’s at the Top of the Honor Roll), contesting (he was NCJ Editor from 2002-2007), experimenting with antennas and restoring/using vintage equipment.

He and his wife Vicky AE9YL enjoy traveling, which has included DXpeditions to Syria (YK9A in 2001), to Market Reef (OJ0/AE9YL and OJ0/K9LA in 2002) and numerous trips to ZF (Vicky is ZF2YL and Carl is ZF2LA). Carl is currently the ARRL Central Division Vice Director. He has received the Bill Orr W6SAI Technical Writing Award, the YASME Foundation Excellence Award and the Indiana Radio Club Council Technical Excellence Award.

AUG 3 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Ed's Antennas

Edison Fong (WB6IQN)

Ed Fong was first licensed in 1968 as WN6IQN. He later upgraded to Extra Class (with full 20 WPM CW) with his present call of WB6IQN. He obtained the BSEE and MSEE degrees from the Univ. of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. from the Univ. of San Francisco. A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, he has 12 patents and over 40 published papers and books in the area of communications and integrated circuit design. Presently, he is employed by the University of California (previously at Berkeley and presently at Santa Cruz- Silicon Valley) as an instructor teaching graduate classes in RF design and High Speed interface design. During his 40 year career he has performed worked for Motorola, National Semiconductor, Phillips Semiconductor, and Advanced Micro Devices.

More info on Ed's Antennas can be found here: https://edsantennas.weebly.com/about.html.

OCT 5 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

Aircraft Scatter

In the talk "Aircraft Scatter 2021" Roger will discuss practical and theoretical aspects of Aircraft Scatter, in order to give the potential user a better appreciation of when it might be the appropriate choice of mode, and how to use it to best advantage when it is chosen.

Roger Rehr, W3SZ, was first licensed in 1968 as WN3JYM. He subsequently held the calls WA3JYM, AA3KQ, and W3SZ. He got his BS in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then received his MD from Albany Medical College. He worked for several years doing basic research in cardiac NMR Spectroscopy and then cardiac NMR Imaging (before the "Nuclear" was removed from NMR) and then spent the rest of his career doing clinical cardiology and cardiac imaging. He found out after the fact that he had been chosen for his academic post-graduate fellowship in large part because he had listed Amateur Radio as his hobby on his application. His NMR work led him to be an early adopter (in the amateur radio sphere) of DSP/SDR receiving techniques, as the use of FFTs had been fundamental to his NMR research. His ham interests since he got back into ham radio in the mid 1990s have involved VHF and Microwave frequencies, at first using satellites, then EME and various forms of scatter using meteors, rain, snow, and aircraft as the scattering objects. His current interests include 10 GHz EME and using aircraft scatter of digital TV stations to probe aircraft characteristics.

DEC 7 - presentation

***Held on Zoom***

THz Astronomy, CatSat and Operating from South Pole

Christopher Walker (K7CKW)

Christopher (K7CKW) is the principal investigator for numerous NASA missions including GUSTO, the Galactic/Extragalactic Ultra Long Duration Balloon Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory, a $35 million project that includes a planned long-duration balloon mission to be launched from Antarctica in 2021. It will map portions of our galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud in terahertz lines of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.

Chris holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering at Clemson University and an Ohio State Master’s of Science in Electrical Engineering. He also has a PhD in Astronomy at the University of Arizona, CalTech Millikan Fellow in Physics.

Walker earned the “2018 Inventor of the Year” in Physical Sciences in the Department of Astronomy and Steward of Observatory. He’s been a professor of Astronomy and an associate professor of Optical Sciences and Electrical Engineering for over 27 years at University of Arizona.

Chris Walker is also the co-founder/Chief Scientist/VP for R&D for FreeFall Aerospace. He is responsible for creating their revolutionary intelligent antennas for space and ground.