Kittitas County Amateur Radio Club - KCARC
10 meters is hopping! You might be missing out....

If you're a Technician class licensee, or you're not that familiar with HF operating, you might be missing a good opportunity to get some great experience operating on HF. To add a little incentive, according to NOAA, we're on the back side of the sunspot cyle, so propagation will be declining. If you'd like an opportunity to talk to some farther away places, now would be a good time to dip your toes into the HF waters.

10 meters is hopping right now. The band is open to a lot of areas. For example, in one operation, I was able to work Alaska, Hawaii, Brazil and Argentina from one of the parks, running 100 watts into a vertical antenna. In two days, I was able to collect over 110 contacts, with the majority in the US. All of those contacts were made in the Technician part of 10 meters, 28.3 - 28.5 MHz. Also, in case you haven't tried it, 10m SSB works reasonably well in the county. There are a number of clubs that run 10m nets.

There are not many secrets to working HF, and you can do it from home or at a park or some other place. The nice thing about 10m, and really the frequencies above 14 MHz is that wire dipole antennas are fairly short and easy to make. Having a nice, professionally made antenna is good, but it you're looking to try it out to see how you like it, consider building a center fed wire dipole. Buy a 1:1 balun, measure your wire based on the formula 468/f (in MHz), and then cut the wire in half. Connect your feedline to the balun, and the two antenna leads to the output of the balun. You can then string it in a tree as an inverted-V, or even vertical if you can find something tall enough. You should be good to go. There are other antennas that you can buy, but for ease of construction, and not much cost, it's a quick way get on the air and try out the bands.

One of the things I've found operating in the parks is that the bands seem to suffer some fading in the middle of the day into mid-afternoon, and your signal strength, and that of the other stations, can fade or go up in a short period of time. What I've found is that mid-morning seems to work well for a couple of hours.

Also, with the sunspot cycle still being active, there's a lot of times when the suns activity can adversely affect your operation. Early in 2024, there were a couple of times when the bands were so bad, you couldn't work or hear other stations. Other times, communications were open in some directions, but not others. One of the sources that you can check for current information is the Space Weather Prediction Center Radio Communications Dashboard. You're given a summary of the thre major space weather factors, an absortion prediction graph, graphs of each of the three space weather factors, and a map of the sunline and the impact of the current solar radiation. Give it a look.

If you have questions, you can send an email. 73's, -Bob, AI7CS

Learn more about RF Exposure Testing

Back in May, 2021, the FCC established rules for exposure to RF energy, and set limits for exposure. Those rules now include Amateur Radio. To read up on the rules, and find out more information, the ARRL has provided a RF Exposure webpage, leading to articles, calculators, and other resources.

6m Repeater

Just to let you know that we actually have a 6m repeater in Kittitas County, thanks to Randy, K7RHT. It's been around for a while, but it's a well kept secret. Give it a try when you get a chance. Many of today's HF rigs can cover 6m, as well as supporting repeater offsets and PL tones. The repeater information is listed in the right column, under RACES repeaters.

ARRL Propagation Primer

The ARRL has published a good starting article on understanding three of the key factors for HF propagation. As we've seen in the past week or so, even with the increased activity of the sunspot cycle, propagation can be hit or miss. The Propagation image at the top of our home page shows many of the factors related to propagation, which can give you an indicator of whether you'll have a good day or not. For access to the ARRL article, go to Understanding Solar Indicies.

NOAA provides information at the Space Weather Prediction Center website, giving additional indicators for Radio Blackouts, Solar Radiation Storm impacts, and Geomagnetic Storms. Go to The SWPC Website.

For mor information on the Propagation Image, go to the N0NBH website.

Another good site for getting the latest space weather conditions is Spaceweather.com. One of the nice features about this site is the plain language explanation for the upcoming space weather forecasts and aurora alerts.

Parks On The Air (POTA) primer

From Bob, AI7CS: Here's a quick primer on using the Parks On The Air (POTA) website.

POTA makes it easy for hunters (those who want to contact parks). Go to the POTA Spots Page, which lists all of the parks that are currently "activated" world wide. If you're not sure where you are on the website, there is a menu bar at the top, and two of the selections are SPOTS and ACTIVATIONS. SPOTS are parks curently on the air, and ACTIVATIONS are parks that are scheduled to be activated.

By default, for both SPOTS and ACTIVATIONS, you get a page that gives you a very nice and intuitive display of information for each park. Listed are the Activator Callsign, Park ID and name, Location, and most importantly, the frequency and mode of operation.

What makes this helpful is that if you're looking for a specific mode, or state, or park in another country, you can find that information in the tables.

The activators upload their logs to the POTA website, in what is now an automated process. Hunters don't upload their logs, but they do get credit for contacts from the activator's log.

You don't need to be a member of Parks On The Air in order to hunt parks. However, if you become a member you can get a listing of all the parks that you worked, or activated, and can use that information for awards like Worked All States. POTA keeps track of hunter and activator stats, and provides POTA awards for both.

For complete details on Parks On The Air, go to the POTA main website, and read up on getting started with POTA. See you on the air!

Looking to ditch Twitter? Morse Code is Back!

From the Smithsonian Magazine: According to author Larry Kahaner for the Smithsonian Magazine, Morse Code is making a comeback. According to statistics on a 2021 ham radio contest, Morse code participants were up by 10% over the previous year. To read the article and find out more, follow this link.

ARRL Eclectic Podcast

The ARRL has a podcast called Eclectic Tech. The podcast started in Feb, 2020, and drops new episodes every two weeks. The podcasts last about 15 to 20 minutes each, and are on a wide ranging group of topics. For example, in January, 2021, they had a practical discussion on QRM and magnetic fields, and how to them down. Later that month, they had an interesting take on fox hunting, aka "hidden transmitter hunts." Give The ARRL Eclectic Tech Podcast a try, you might find something that peaks your interest.

Bill to Eliminate Private Land Use on Amateur Radio

From Steve, W7JAA: Congressman Bill Johnson (OH-6) introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R.9670) on Thursday, December 22, 2022, to eliminate private land use restrictions that prohibit, restrict, or impair the ability of an Amateur Radio Operator from operating and installing amateur station antennas on property subject to the control of the Amateur Radio Operator.

More information.

Next KCARC Meeting
When:Saturday February 01, 2025 at 08:00 AM
Where:The Palace Cafe in Ellensburg, WA.
N7KGS Repeaters
Output Input Tone
Sky Meadows VHF 147.360 147.960 131.8
Sky Meadows UHF 442.200 447.200 131.8
Ellensburg VHF 146.720 146.120 131.8
Stampede Pass VHF 147.360 147.960 141.3
Stampede Pass UHF 442.200 447.200 141.3
Beverly UHF 442.200 447.200 141.3
Wilson Creek VHF 147.160 147.760 131.8
Acceptable Use Policy
K7RHT Repeaters
Output Input Tone
Sun East VHF (2m) Repeater 147.000 147.600 131.8
Sun East UHF (70cm) Repeater 444.45 449.45 131.8
Sun East 6m - 50 MHz 52.800 51.100 131.8