UTARC News
The Official Journal of the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club
February 1997
The Official Journal of the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club
February 1997
The February meeting of the University of Texas Amateur Radio Club will be held on Thursday, February 20 at 7:30 PM in RLM 5.120 on the UT campus. Talk in on the 147.18 MHz repeater.
The topic for February will be the World Radio Team Championships which was held last July in the bay area of California. It was an on-site contest between the best radio contesters from around the world. A professionally produced video about the event will be shown. UTARC alumni Trey (WN4KKN) and Randy (K5ZD) were both participants in last year's WRTC.
Last Meeting
Greg Jones (WD5IVD) gave a talk on the basics of Spread Spectrum communications. He also gave some late breaking news concerning the SS experiments that will be taking place in Austin and around the country.
Club members voted to join TAPR and sign up to participate in the Spread Spectrum experiments. Club officers were authorized to purchase an appropriate SS radio setup.
The following people have joined UTARC for the 1996-1997 year:
Name CallsignJohn Langridge KB5NJD
Welcome aboard! To join UTARC get in touch with one of the club officers listed later.
de KM5FA
W5EHM participated in the ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes conducted from 1900 UTC 18 January 1997 to 0400 UTC 20 January 1997. We operated in the single operator class, since no one else showed up to help.
Neither 6M nor 2M had a real band opening. Activity from local stations was reasonably high, with the exception of fewer than normal stations to our north and northwest. I worked three new grids for the club on 2M, including EM32 in Louisiana, probably our longest tropo-scatter contact ever on 2M, at about 400 miles. Despite constant monitoring and occasional CQs, no FM simplex QSOs were made.
Before the contest, my informal goals were 100 QSOs and at least 2000 points. We had 97 QSOs during the contest, 26 multipliers, and a total of 2,522 points. (This is the club's highest ever reported VHF contest score! - ed)
January VHF Sweepstakes Results
Band QSOs Grids Score 6M 26 8 2M 71 18 Total 97 26 2,522
Figure 1: George (K5TR) works on the old W5EHM antennas
In an effort to fill the gap between UTARC general meetings the club had decided to meet informally for dinner. The first such dinner took place on Thursday, February 6 at Trudy's North Star.
In attendance were Jill (KC5OJY), Susan (KC5TXQ), Kenneth (KM5FA), George (K5TR), Mary Ann and Robert (KA5WSS). The topic of discussion ranged from VHF to contesting to cordless phones to conspiracy theorists. Any topic is open for discussion so please plan on joining the group in the future.
DX'ing
The huge DXpedition to Heard Island (VK0IR) is finally over. In the end the group made 80,000 contacts with Amateurs around the world. The DXpedition included UTARC alumnus James Brooks (9V1YC). Here in the Austin area the DXpedition was worked by UTARC members Derek (AA5BT) and Kenneth (KM5FA) both from the club station (W5EHM). Also UTARC members George (K5TR) and Trevor (AB5EU) had their calls logged by VK0IR.
Awards
The club received certificates for its efforts in the ARRL September VHF QSO Party and the Western States Weak Signal Society VHF Sprint.
Contests
According to the January issue of QST, placed second in the STX section for multi-ops during the IARU HF Championships. The top STX multi-op station, N3BB here in Austin, placed third in the US and Canada. UTARC alumnus George (WB5VZL) finished first in the IARU HF Championships in the single-op, phone only category.
W5EHM placed 10th in the August 1996 Phone NA QSO Party multi-op category according to the Jan/Feb 1997 issue of NCJ. UTARC member George's (WB5VZL) effort placed 2nd. In addition George also placed 2nd in the CW NA QSO Party.
W5EHM worked a Clean Sweep in the phone Sweepstakes contest last November. Clean Sweep mugs have been ordered for the club station and all individual operators.
The station weathered the January ice storms with no damage to any of the antennas.
Work To Be Done
If you would like to help with some of these items, contact one of the club officers.
Wish List
Do you have any of this type of equipment that you would like to donate to the club? Actually the club is willing to accept most any type of donation. We'll put it to good use and the donation can be tax deductable!
The UTARC web page now has a new tool. Kenneth Harker (KM5FA) modified a public domain BASIC program to calculate near field levels of station setups and placed it on the web. The web enabled program can be used to test your station's compliance with the expected FCC rules concerning RF safety.
The California Amateur VHF Enthusiasts have a VHF information page at:
FlexNet is an Amateur Radio packet network alternative to TCP/IP, NETROM and Texnet. Find out more at:
http://www.th-darmstadt.de/diverses/afthd/flexnet/flexnet.html
Neal (K5RW) has set up an extensive web site devoted entirely to information about telegraph keys.
http://fohnix.metronet.com/~nmcewen/ref.html
The history of Collins Radio (which includes numerous references to Amateur Radio) can be found at:
http://www.cacd.rockwell.com/gen_info/history/
The Ham Radio Puzzle page generates a crossword puzzle based on Amateur Radio clues.
http://www.sarrio.com/sarrio/rscrossword1.html
For links to everything imaginable about Amateur Radio check out:
http://uhavax.hartford.edu/~newsvhf/ham-www.html
Figure 2: WB5NED operates the club station in the early 1980's.
The ARRL WRC-99 Planning Committee has recommended sweeping changes to the licensing structure of Amateur Radio in the United States. More information can be found on the ARRL web page but a brief review of the proposals include:
The current Technician (no-code) license would remain the same. The net result of these proposals is an increase in the phone bands for all and far more privileges for the Tech+ licensees. It appears that the Committee may be trying to encourage more HF operation and upgrading by Tech+'s with the expanded privileges.
Note that this is not ARRL policy, nor has the ARRL petitioned the FCC. This is the preliminary report that will be presented to the ARRL Board of Directors. Write to your BOD now and let him know of your opinions.
... you're talking on the phone with a ham buddy, and you end the conversation and hang up the phone with a 'KD1HZ clear'. -- Michael P. Deignan, KD1HZ
...At least you weren't saying grace over a meal with your family! N4TMI clear, er, I mean, Amen... -- Michael Covington, N4TMI
...you end a face-to-face conversation with "dit dit". -- Paul Flaherty, N9FZX
...You spend 2 hours trying to crack a pile up on 20 meters to work a KJ2 station who is portable on Manhatten Island. ...Your wife points out that all of your children were born during sunspot minimums. -- Paul Valko, WB8ZJL
...you're having a Saturday breakfast and you say "call please" so that you can interrupt a conversation to ask someone to pass the salt. -- Dave Bushong, WZ1O
...You answer your phone, "QRZ?" -- Mike Gauland, AA7JF
...And, after you find out who the calling party is, you say "your 59 in Virginia..." -- Ben E. Cline, AC4XO Don't laugh, I know someone who did that with his telephone answering machine. -- Kok Chen, AA6TY
...when you say things like "QSO" and "73" in casual, face-to-faceconversations. -- Mike White, N4PDY
...You go shopping, get to the check-out, write a check, and sign it KE3HO. -- James E. Proctor, KE3HO
...you're talking on an EMS telemetry radio with a base hospital for medication orders and such, and sign out with your callsign... No, I didn't do this, but N5JXS swears he did, and that he got a callsign back... -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC
...To get your ham buddies attention (who lives across the street), you yell 'CQ! CQ! CQ!' from your driveway. ...your wife starts talking to you while your on the phone, and you tell the person on the other end you're getting intermod. ...you've named your brand new German Shepherd puppy 'Radio Flyer' to combine two of your hobbies... (this is true, this is my dog's name...) -- John C. Wren, KD4DTS
...you're talking to somebody face-to-face in a busy place and you say, "Let's QSY my office," and they know exactly what you mean! -- Doug Renze, N0YVW
...u find urself typing in cw shorthand to fellow wrkers on internal email...(I hve found myself doing this too many times)... ...u tell people over the phone "I'm at my work QTH"... -- Fred M. Davis, VA3FD
...When the kids get names related to radio. I'm Robert F. Casey, that's RF, or radio frequency, or go further, radio frequency choke. :-) (my father's a ham, also) -- Robert Casey, WA2ISE
In the continuing musical chairs brought about by the vanity call system, UT staff member Bob Nagy (AA5PB) now has the new callsign AB5N.
de G3PQA from the net
Now a true story about balloons that may amuse and warn you! Richard (G3OQT) and I wanted to enter the 160M WW contest in about 1963 and decided to use a balloon supported 1/4 wave vert.. We bought a 3ft dia. meteorological balloon filled it with helium at great trouble and it rose magnificently into the night sky. Tuned against station earth at G3PQA and had just been given 599 report when heard bang outside and RX went quiet.
Unfortunately it was a full moon, so the balloon was highly visible and had been shot down by an idiot who claimed it was a flying saucer. Next week local paper had photo of deflated balloon pinned to washing line with me by it! Richard and I did not share the joke.
W5EHM was the subject of a Daily Texan photo shoot on Saturday, February 1. In response to Kenneth's press release concerning the club's successful contacts with the Heard Island DXpedition the Daily Texan expressed an interest in giving the club some media coverage. No word yet on when, or if, the material will be used.
UTARC got mention in the January QST South Texas section news. Section manager Alan Cross (WA5UZB) thanked the club for providing web space for the STX web page.
Albert Einstein on radio: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates in exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
President: Tom Orzechowski SQ9DDZVice President: Kenneth Harker KM5FA 467-8724 kharker@cs.utexas.edu
Secretary/Treasurer: Kourt de Haas KB5PRZ 445-4759 kourt@mail.utexas.edu
Newsletter Editor: Robert Barron KA5WSS 837-4051 barron@liant.com
UTARC Web Page URL: http://www.utexas.edu/students/utarc/
Mail Reflector: utarc-l@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
UTARC News is published by the UT Amateur Radio Club, a registered student organization. UTARC News is not an official publication of The University of Texas at Austin and does not represent the views of The University or its officers. This newsletter was not printed with state-appropriated funds.
Newsletter Contributors: KM5FA, G3PQA
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The University of Texas ARC
Box 170, Texas Union
Austin, TX 78713