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W2CRA
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UP-LiNK THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE CHERRYVILLE REPEATER ASSOCIATION II, INC. “Community Service Through Communication” May 2000 |
BOARD MEETING May 9 8:00 PM CLUB MEETING May 11 7:30 PM
FIELD DAY 2000
Friday afternoon, 2:00 PM set up begins and help is needed through 6:15 PM. Barbecue at 6:15
Saturday 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM set up continues. Stop for lunch at 12 Noon.
2:00 PM On air operation begins and continues for the next 24
Hrs. Dinner is ready at 5:30 PM. Operations continue through the night. Come out and try your fist and/or your phone technique.
Sunday 7:00 AM Breakfast is started. Some of the operators don't stop for any meal so we need people to see to it they get fed. NOON it's time for the famous Chili festival.
2:00 PM Operation ceases! Now comes the hard part, bodies are needed to take everything down and store it away in the club trailer for next year or any emergency that may require its use. Every one is welcome. Stop at the Information booth and sign in each day.
FIELD DAY PINS
George N2VWL has Field Day pins available for last and this year for anyone participating in Field Day activities. They will be available at the meeting.
ELECTION RESULTS
President: N3QDC Rob France
Vice President: KB2DDM Susan MacRae
Secretary: K2YSY, Pete Sneed
Treasurer: W2NCN, Bill Greenhalgh
Board Members at Large:
2 year term N2ZVY Patrick Mauro
2 year term W2CGX Barry Campbell
1 year term W2GD John Crovelli
1 year term N3MSK Ed Kita
1 year term K2PA Roberto Matos
Congratulations to all!
Cherryville Repeater Association Memorial Scholarship Awarded
The Cherryville Repeater Association (CRA), an amateur radio
organization that has been providing communications services at public service
events and during local emergencies in the Hunterdon/Somerset/Warren tri-county
area for over 20 years, announced at their April 14th club meeting
held in Flemington the selection of a Hunterdon County youth as this year’s
recipient of their memorial academic scholarship.
The recipient of CRA's Year 2000 Memorial Scholarship is Maria
Russo of Lebanon Township. The amount
of the scholarship award is $500.00.
Ms. Russo is the daughter of
Peter and Annette Russo. Her father is
a longtime member of the Cherryville Repeater Association. Maria currently lives at home with her
parents, and will graduate from Voorhees Regional High School this June.
Maria displayed both academic
excellence and has participated in many high school and church activities.
These attributes, along with other criteria, were used by the scholarship
committee during the decision making process.
At the May 12th
meeting the scholarship committee will present Maria with her award. On the Scholarship committee are club
members John Crovelli, Elaine Langdon, and Patrick Mauro. The Club President,
Rob France, will present the winner with a scholarship certificate as part of
the award ceremony.
The CRA memorial scholarship
honors the memory of deceased club members.
FIELD DAY JUNE 23-25
BE THERE!
CRA PROGRAM SCHEDULE
MAY 12 "Danger
HIGH VOLTAGE"
Al Saharic (GPU)
JUNE 3 SATURDAY FIELD TRIP 10:30 AM to WWOR TV Broadcast Center, Secaucus, New Jersey.
Call Denis KA2YYB to confirm, directions at May club.
JUNE 9 "Field Day" John Crovelli W2GD, followed by "Transformers, Baluns, and Verticals" Jerry Sevick W2FMI
JULY 14 "Space Communications, OSCAR13, and EME (moon bounce)" Chris Fagas WB2VVV
AUG 11 "Transmitter Hunting" antennae construction and testing Ed N3MSK, Brian N2RDL, Denis KA2YYB
SEPT 8 "The Future of Amateur Radio" Steve Mendohlson WA2DHF
OCT 13 "APRS, theory and practice" Ronald Hepburn N2LCZ and associate
NOV 10 "CRAII Homebrew Show and Tell night" contact Denis KA2YYB
DEC 8 CRAII Awards Banquet
Hamfest Calendar
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May 7 |
Warminster ARC |
Wrightstown, PA |
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June 3 |
Bergen ARA |
Teaneck, NJ |
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June 10 |
Colombia-Montour ARC |
Bloomsburg, PA |
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June 17 |
Raritan Valley RC |
Dunellen, NJ |
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July 2 |
Murgas ARC |
Wilkes Barre(Dallas), PA |
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July 16 |
Sussex County ARC |
Augusta, NJ |
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July 16 |
Mid Atlantic ARC |
Kimberly, PA |
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August 13 |
Jersey Shores ARS |
Bayville, NJ |
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Sept. 16 |
Delaware Lehigh ARC |
Schnecksville, PA |
Note: CRAII is not responsible for typographical errors or spousal
intervention.
George, N2VWL
NEW SCI FI HAM FILM
The new sci fi
film "frequency" at the local movie.
This film gives an
interesting twist to ham radio, and is sure to appeal to all radio
buffs--especially if you grew up with heathkit equipment (was it an sb303 that
they showed in the movie?). If you
liked the "back to the
future" series of time travel movies--you will really like this new movie. Enjoy!
Skywarn
17 May, 2000 @ 7:30 PM
Somerset County Fire Academy
Somerville, NJ
25 May, 2000 @ 7.30 PM
Vernon Municipal Bldg.
Church St., Vernon (Sussex Cnty.) NJ
Directions to these and other sites can be found at:
http://wx2phi.skywarn.net/skywarn~training.html
George, N2VWL
ATV & SKYLANDS
Marty Focazio is looking to do some work with ATV links in anticipation of the Skylands Triathlon. Anyone with an interest in experimenting with ATV transmission on please contact him by email kc2cxh@qsl.net
A5 Bhutan QRV now!
Jim Smith was issued A52JS and local, Dasho Yonten A51TY are on the air, legit! GL all and lets hope the DX police/LIDS are QRT... GL de Phil W2GE
They will be active until May 12. Operations will be on 160 to 6 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY. QSL via W0GJ.
DXCC DESK ACTION
I received this email just a few days after sending my cards to the League by UPS, thought some of you might find it interesting:
Hi Keith!
I am a fellow NJ Ham (from "down the shore".) I had a few
days off this week so I drove up to Newington CT for the first time to check
things out and to have 113 cards checked for my first DXCC. (Two cards were
duplicate Russian entities, so I wound up with 111 confirmed.) Got my
certificate right there!
Anyway, while Bill was checking my cards I saw your stack on his desk.
I assumed you were from "5" land but then I noticed you were from NJ
so I thought I would e-mail you to let you know your cards are safe and sound
at the DXCC desk!
73,
Tom N2LDE
PUBLIC SERVICE
HORSE TRIALS MAY
13TH
The Buck's County Horse Trials on Saturday May 13 (the day after the meeting). I have approx. 12 people signed up from the last club meeting, but the more the merrier!! George N2VWL will be doing the onsite coordination as I will be grooming for about 4 people. Same deal as last time, I'll have details about start time and directions for anyone who needs it at the meeting. People will probably need to arrive around 8:00 or 8:30. Anyone interested please contact me or George.
73 Susan KD2DDM
Duncan will be a participant in this event, so you get a bonus if you
come out for this event!
4th of JULY
PARADE
The Lebanon 4th of July Parade will be, you guessed it, July 4th in Lebanon. Come join the fun, have some hot dogs and beer (root or regular), see the sights, and show your patriotic and club spirit. 20 people are needed!
MARCH OF DIMES WALKATHON REPORT
A very nice day, sunny and warm, but very very windy. It seemed they had a slightly smaller turnout than I remember in previous years, although this is the first time I have been to it at this location. (Compared to the Triathlon, the parking lot and crowds were very small.)
The event went off without a hitch, the most excitement being one of the ambulances taking a call for a rescue from the reservoir for a boating accident.
CRA Participants: KB5U,W2CG,W2RIJ,KA2TOV,N2ZVY,W2GD,K2YSY
American Lung Association seeks
hams for 2000 ''Big Ride''
The American Lung Association is recruiting ham radio ''communicators'' to assist in its Big Ride Across America 2000. The 2000 ride--only the second to use ham radio operators--is the third annual event to raise money and awareness for the American Lung Association's fight against lung disease.
It's a 3500-mile bicycle trek from Seattle, Washington, to Washington, DC, from June 19, 2000 to August 5, 2000. More than 850 cyclists have raised in excess of $7.2 million during the previous rides.
Details are available at http://www.bigride.com. Volunteers can sign up for the entire Ride or choose from one or more segments of the country. The direct link to volunteer information is http://www.bigride.com/Get/get.html. The Crew Registration Form on that page lists the segment dates and locations.
BOARD MEETINGS
TIME CHANGED
The board and I decided that we need to adjust the time of the board meeting back to 8:00pm.
"Board meeting: Wednesday prior to the second Friday of the
month, 8:00pm at the Hunterdon County EOC. Please note that board meetings
are always open to the general membership."
We want to stress that board meetings are always open and that all members should feel welcome. We'd love to hear from them.
We are not going tho change the general membership meeting time on Friday. The time will remain set at 7:30pm.
Thanks, Rob
CRA II CLUB
INFORMATION
The Cherryville Repeater Association II, Inc. is a non-profit New Jersey Corporation dedicated to Community Service Through Communication. Meetings are held on the second Friday of each month at 7:30 PM at the Flemington Baptist Church unless otherwise announced. Visitors are always welcome! Also, everyone is welcome on the Thursday Night Traffic Net, at 8 PM every Thursday, followed at 9:30 by the Swap-Net, and the ARES-RACES net at 8:30 PM on the first Thursday each month (immediately following the traffic net), all on the 147.375 repeater.
UPLiNK A CRA II Publication
Editors
Articles & Info: KB5U, Keith Burt - kb5u@blast.net
Interviews: K2PA, Roberto Matos - K2pa@arrl.net
Roster & Mailing: W2CG, Marty Grozinski
mjgrozi@postoffice.ptd.net
Many thanks to all those who have contributed articles or
information for this publication, including: The ARRL, ARRL Letter, QST, The
Hudson Loop, N2FF, W9HB(KJ9O), N3QDC, W2CGX, N2ZVY, N2OCW, W2GD, KB2DDM and all
not mentioned for their help. This newsletter is an open forum for
the Cherryville Repeater Association, II Inc. and its members, of general
interest Club and ham radio related interest items. The opinions contained
herein are those of the authors who have contributed their work. The officers
and members if the CRA II Inc. are not liable for its contents. Articles and information are always welcome,
and may sometimes be edited for content, punctuation, grammar, and newsletter
space.
Deadline for submission for
all issues is two weeks prior to the Board meetings.
LOST & FOUND
LOST: Two batteries for the Yaesu FT-50 handi talkie. I believe I took them to an event and apparently left them there. If you have seen them or possibly picked them up and didn't know to whom to return them I would sure appreciate it! One has a belt clip, the other doesn't. Barry Campbell, W2CGX. Ok on the roster or email to barryc@compubell.com
Thanks!
Antenna Construction
New Antenna Conductor Material
for Efficient Very-Small Antennas
One of the all-time favorite topics of discussion among Hams is antennas. Most of us probably think that towers, beam antennas, wire antennas, etc., are rather attractive. Unfortunately, it seems that many of our neighbors don't share in this opinion. In fact, some of them think that antennas are downright ugly and detract from their property values. Also unfortunately, it is a fact that antennas are required for both the transmission and reception of radio signals. Given these conflicting pressures, it is only natural that there is a lot of research being done on how to make antennas smaller, yet not make them inefficient. We can see this in the proliferation of such miniature antenna products as the Isotron, the Super-C, the Crossed-Field Array, the Contrawound Toroidal Helical Antenna, etc. There have been a lot of wild claims made recently about such miniature antennas, however, when put to the test, many of them perform about as well as dummy loads.
Recognizing the great need for a truly high performance miniature antenna, I set out to invent one for myself. Being an engineer, I approached this problem logically and mathematically. There is no physical law that forces small antennas to become inefficient. A very short dipole antenna has a gain just slightly less than that of a conventional half-wave dipole. This is not due to inefficiency, but to a slightly different radiation pattern. In practice, the reason that very short dipole antennas become inefficient is that the radiation resistance becomes very small with respect to the resistance of the metal (Copper, Aluminum, etc.) that the antenna is constructed of. Consideration of this led me to the conclusion that there are at least two ways to go:
1. Increase the radiation resistance of a small antenna, or
2. Decrease the resistance of the metals from which the small antenna is constructed.
I could see no way to attack the first alternative, therefore I decided to investigate ways to decrease the resistance of the metals. Suddenly, the light came on: the reason that the metals used for antennas have significant resistance is that radio frequency currents flow on and near the surface of the metal. In other words, radio frequency currents utilize only a small fraction of the available cross-sectional area of the metallic conductor, and as a result, flow through considerable resistance. It would be nice if somehow, we could attract the current toward the center of the conductor, and utilize as much of the conductor's cross sectional area as possible for the radio frequency current flow. How can we fix this? It is well known that the current that flows in metallic conductors consists of electrons, and that electrons are negatively charged. Negative charges are attracted by positive charges. If there were positive charges in the center of the antenna conductor, then some of the electrons that normally flow on or near the surface would be encouraged to travel nearer the center.
I had my lab assistant construct a special conductor for use in high frequency radio antenna construction. This conductor was made in a way similar to how ordinary electric fence wire is made. The difference was that the inner portion of the wire was made from a highly p-doped semiconductor material (similar to what is used for the bases of NPN transistors), rather than the Steel material used in electric fence wire. This then was coated with a Copper layer. The ratio of the semiconductor radius to the thickness of the Copper layer was about 1:1.
By now, you probably have grasped the basic concept: the RF current that flows in the central portion of the special conductor is composed of positive charges, which is the mechanism by which current flows in any p-doped semiconductor material. At the same time, the RF current that flows in the outer Copper layer is composed of the usual negatively charged electrons. Since the positively charges flowing in the center attract the negatively charged electrons that are simultaneously flowing in the outer layer, this attraction causes the electron flow to spread more deeply into the Copper, and the resistance of the conductor at radio frequencies is dramatically reduced.
I wanted to give this material the ultimate test. Therefore, I built a center-fed dipole from it, and cut the length of the dipole to 1 foot. I then mounted this dipole on top of the mast that already existed on the roof of my house. It was about 35 feet off the ground. I tried transmitting with it on 160 Meters, but the SWR was outrageously high! However, my trusty antenna tuner soon took care of that minor problem, and I was successfully delivering 100 Watts of RF power to a nearly invisible 1 foot long dipole antenna on 160 Meters! I waited until it got dark, and then I held the key down. I sent my XYL outside to look at the little dipole. It did not start glowing red or melting! Therefore, I decided to jump in the pile-up for the Clipperton Island DXpedition. They came back to me on the very first call with a 599! Wow! That's the real proof-of-the-pudding, eh? I am uncertain whether to market the material, or the antenna. Please send me your opinion as soon as possible.
73, Cornelius Crank, Ham, Meritorius
Article submitted by Robert Stedman K9PPW
OO notice
The following actually on a repeater in central Jersey a few weeks ago. One ham was telling another how he had missed his chance for the upgrade sessions on April 15th. There was a third party listening to the conversation. The calls are left out to protect the innocent…
Ham: 'oh screw it, maybe next time'
OO: I am an OO and you just crossed the line
Ham: what do you mean?
OO: you said the S word
Ham: I did not say the F word, I said screw it
OO: not the F word, the S word and you just did it again.
Ham: I said what?
OO: the S word
Ham: you mean screw it?
This went on for a few more rounds, getting more incredulous. A few days later the Ham received an official post card from the OO for his 'infraction' of FCC rules.
For those who are not aware, OO stands for ‘Official Observer’. OO’s are hams who volunteer to watch over the ham bands for infractions of FCC rules. On the HF bands, they often watch for people operating out of bands for which they are licensed, or out of the bands altogether. Many contesters and DXers have received an OO post card for operating too close to the band edge.
What a difference an antenna mistake can make!!!!
I thought I was RF challenged down in this canyon ( I get absolutely no FM radio reception here) so I didn't think much about my 40 meter dipole having a BAD feed line configuration.
I cut some nyties and set it up again and then WOW...... reception increased 100 fold. My RFI problems also stopped and my computers stopped crashing when I keyed more than 10 watts.
So... I edged up to 50 watts and made a contact in New York. New York was always off limits before...I never get New York. I think it worked. I had worked CUBA with 6 watts so I really didn't mind running low power because higher would blow my computers up.
Are conditions absolutely gangbusters tonight ? or was I always supposed to hear CW on every frequency between 7.105 and 7.120 and 7.010 and 7.058 at 1AM in the morning? suddenly ...... I feel like it’s crowded here.
HAMFEST TALK-IN
W2CRA CHERRYVILLE HAMFEST 2000 TALK IN
BY W2CGX, BARRY CAMPBELL
AN OLD HAM RADIO JOKE...
Ham 1: Hey did you hear that ol' Smedrick KB3ZZZ died last week?
Ham 2: No! That's too bad...what did he have?
Ham 1: Oh, an FT1000, an Alpha 77, a TH6 and two elements on 40....
EASY WEATHER
If you want to find out what the weather is expected to be in some sensible detail there are a couple of websites which do the job pretty nicely.
For west of the creek:
http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/iwin/pa/state.html
For east of the creek:
http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/iwin/nj/state.html