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President's LetterJonathan Pearce, WB2MNFFebruary 2024 |
Our Club was off to a great start this January. Ron Block NR2B gave a fascinating presentation on the characteristics of lightning strikes and how various aspects of tower design affect the characteristics of a lightning strike. More than a dozen participants showed up for the antenna building session at the W2MMD Clubhouse, drop-ins at the Clubhouse on Saturdays have been numerous, and other activities continued even with significant interruptions by bad weather.
Member Renewals
Club leaders and other members of the Club worked diligently throughout the year to provide activities, resources and opportunities for Club members. Now it's up to the members to provide the financial support necessary for all of those activities to occur. Many members have already renewed, but others are still lagging and without a large proportion of our members renewing the Club is not financially viable. If you’re attending meetings or coming to the Clubhouse the easiest way to renew is to give cash or a check to Treasurer John O’Connell K2QA, which avoids the Club incurring credit card or PayPal charges; however, those options are both open if they’re easier for you. If you’re not coming to Club events you can mail your check to the PO box at PO Box 370, Pitman, NJ 08071 or use the “Pay Dues Here” tab on the w2mmd.org website.
It's also gratifying to see the number of members who have included an additional amount with their dues payment to assist in covering the Clubhouse expenses that most other Clubs don’t incur. About two-thirds of members who have renewed to date have contributed an additional $10 or more with their dues payment. Thanks to those who have done so, and we hope that others will follow the same trend.
February General Membership Meeting and Tech Saturday Forum
The February General Membership Meeting will include a presentation on the 2024 Solar Eclipse and how hams can assist in understanding the effects of the eclipse by making contacts during its pass. This rare event promises to be a unique opportunity for hams to contribute to the body of knowledge on this topic.
At the February Tech Saturday Forum session Len Rust W2LJR will present an introduction to voice over IP (VOIP) technology. Although not directly related to ham radio this topic is of interest because of the increasing use of digital techniques for voice communications within the hobby, and a knowledge of the underpinnings of the technology may be useful in understanding how new digital voice protocols work. Len works professionally in this area and will bring some of his cool work toys to show off.
The typical Tech Saturday Forum schedule involves a presentation starting at 9 AM and running for about 60-90 minutes depending on the volume of questions and discussion. Following that session the Clubhouse is open for informal conversations, ad-hoc assistance on technical issues, operation of the various stations and small group project work. Members who aren’t interested in the presentation topic can generally arrive around between 10 and 10:30 for the latter part of the day. Unfortunately the January session went significantly overtime leaving many later-arriving members with no opportunity for other activities. This won’t occur in the future, so please feel free to come at whatever time meets your interest.
Upcoming Activities
Many members have suggested topics of interest for potential presentations at Club events, and the program team has pulled together several sessions on those topics. At the April meeting John Zaruba Jr K2ZA, a frequent Parks On The Air (POTA) participant, will present on his activities and experiences. He’ll follow up on Tech Saturday bringing his POTA gear and answering questions on POTA operations. POTA is a fast-growing area of ham radio and John is an excellent presenter so these sessions should be fascinating.
Other members have asked for more information on antenna-building, so the May and June sessions will be focused there. At the May general meeting we’re planning a ZOOM session with a well-known antenna specialist who will overview many antenna-related topics, with the June meting covering easy-to-construct antennas for beginners or portable operation. Both of these sessions are being set up now with more details later.
The Tech Saturday Forum sessions in those months will also target antenna-building with the May session focused on using a Nano VNA analyzer to tune a simple 70 cm ground plane antenna. Participants will solder a simple ground plan antenna mounted on an SMA connector and will then use the VNA to tune it to a specific frequency. The VNA will also show different characteristics about the antenna including its bandwidth and resonance at different frequencies.
At the June session participants will build a dual-band J-pole twinlead antenna for 2 meters and 70 cm based on a February 2023 article by Ed Fong WB6IQN. Several members have asked for a simple home-based dual-band antenna, and this will fill that need.
Direction-Finding Equipment Build Session
About a dozen participants filled the Clubhouse with solder fumes as they built the first part of the direction-finding kit that Chris Prioli AD2CS designed. In this session they constructed an attenuator device that can be used with an HT to reduce sensitivity to assist in locating a nearby signal source. Subsequent sessions will build a tape-measure Yagi antenna to be used in conjunction with the attenuator to provide a toolkit for fox hunting. These sessions will be followed by an “Intro to Fox Hunting” session by Jim Wright N2GXJ and then by an actual fox hunt on the next weather-permitting weekend.
VHF Contest Operations
The intrepid VHFers, Al KB2AYU, John K2QA, and Frank N3PUU operated the VHF station over the weekend of January 20-21. Conditions weren’t ideal but they did make a significant number of contacts on 6 meters using SSB and FT8. This contest also gave the opportunity to start working with the new Flex 6400 radio in conjunction with the 6 meter amplifier and to understand how all of the contest software components (the Flex software, N1MM logging and WSJT) all fit together and how to display them on screens for optimal operation. Once the VHF room furniture refinishing is done the complete VHF station obtained from the ARDC grant can be installed giving capabilities for all ham bands from 6 meters to 1269. Unfortunately antennas for some of those bands will need to wait until the UHF and VHF towers are installed later this year.
As always please feel free to reach out to me or any of the Club leaders with any comments or suggestions for Club activities. We look forward to seeing you at the meetings and other activities.
73 de Jon WB2MNF
Member Renewals
Club leaders and other members of the Club worked diligently throughout the year to provide activities, resources and opportunities for Club members. Now it's up to the members to provide the financial support necessary for all of those activities to occur. Many members have already renewed, but others are still lagging and without a large proportion of our members renewing the Club is not financially viable. If you’re attending meetings or coming to the Clubhouse the easiest way to renew is to give cash or a check to Treasurer John O’Connell K2QA, which avoids the Club incurring credit card or PayPal charges; however, those options are both open if they’re easier for you. If you’re not coming to Club events you can mail your check to the PO box at PO Box 370, Pitman, NJ 08071 or use the “Pay Dues Here” tab on the w2mmd.org website.
It's also gratifying to see the number of members who have included an additional amount with their dues payment to assist in covering the Clubhouse expenses that most other Clubs don’t incur. About two-thirds of members who have renewed to date have contributed an additional $10 or more with their dues payment. Thanks to those who have done so, and we hope that others will follow the same trend.
February General Membership Meeting and Tech Saturday Forum
The February General Membership Meeting will include a presentation on the 2024 Solar Eclipse and how hams can assist in understanding the effects of the eclipse by making contacts during its pass. This rare event promises to be a unique opportunity for hams to contribute to the body of knowledge on this topic.
At the February Tech Saturday Forum session Len Rust W2LJR will present an introduction to voice over IP (VOIP) technology. Although not directly related to ham radio this topic is of interest because of the increasing use of digital techniques for voice communications within the hobby, and a knowledge of the underpinnings of the technology may be useful in understanding how new digital voice protocols work. Len works professionally in this area and will bring some of his cool work toys to show off.
The typical Tech Saturday Forum schedule involves a presentation starting at 9 AM and running for about 60-90 minutes depending on the volume of questions and discussion. Following that session the Clubhouse is open for informal conversations, ad-hoc assistance on technical issues, operation of the various stations and small group project work. Members who aren’t interested in the presentation topic can generally arrive around between 10 and 10:30 for the latter part of the day. Unfortunately the January session went significantly overtime leaving many later-arriving members with no opportunity for other activities. This won’t occur in the future, so please feel free to come at whatever time meets your interest.
Upcoming Activities
Many members have suggested topics of interest for potential presentations at Club events, and the program team has pulled together several sessions on those topics. At the April meeting John Zaruba Jr K2ZA, a frequent Parks On The Air (POTA) participant, will present on his activities and experiences. He’ll follow up on Tech Saturday bringing his POTA gear and answering questions on POTA operations. POTA is a fast-growing area of ham radio and John is an excellent presenter so these sessions should be fascinating.
Other members have asked for more information on antenna-building, so the May and June sessions will be focused there. At the May general meeting we’re planning a ZOOM session with a well-known antenna specialist who will overview many antenna-related topics, with the June meting covering easy-to-construct antennas for beginners or portable operation. Both of these sessions are being set up now with more details later.
The Tech Saturday Forum sessions in those months will also target antenna-building with the May session focused on using a Nano VNA analyzer to tune a simple 70 cm ground plane antenna. Participants will solder a simple ground plan antenna mounted on an SMA connector and will then use the VNA to tune it to a specific frequency. The VNA will also show different characteristics about the antenna including its bandwidth and resonance at different frequencies.
At the June session participants will build a dual-band J-pole twinlead antenna for 2 meters and 70 cm based on a February 2023 article by Ed Fong WB6IQN. Several members have asked for a simple home-based dual-band antenna, and this will fill that need.
Direction-Finding Equipment Build Session
About a dozen participants filled the Clubhouse with solder fumes as they built the first part of the direction-finding kit that Chris Prioli AD2CS designed. In this session they constructed an attenuator device that can be used with an HT to reduce sensitivity to assist in locating a nearby signal source. Subsequent sessions will build a tape-measure Yagi antenna to be used in conjunction with the attenuator to provide a toolkit for fox hunting. These sessions will be followed by an “Intro to Fox Hunting” session by Jim Wright N2GXJ and then by an actual fox hunt on the next weather-permitting weekend.
VHF Contest Operations
The intrepid VHFers, Al KB2AYU, John K2QA, and Frank N3PUU operated the VHF station over the weekend of January 20-21. Conditions weren’t ideal but they did make a significant number of contacts on 6 meters using SSB and FT8. This contest also gave the opportunity to start working with the new Flex 6400 radio in conjunction with the 6 meter amplifier and to understand how all of the contest software components (the Flex software, N1MM logging and WSJT) all fit together and how to display them on screens for optimal operation. Once the VHF room furniture refinishing is done the complete VHF station obtained from the ARDC grant can be installed giving capabilities for all ham bands from 6 meters to 1269. Unfortunately antennas for some of those bands will need to wait until the UHF and VHF towers are installed later this year.
As always please feel free to reach out to me or any of the Club leaders with any comments or suggestions for Club activities. We look forward to seeing you at the meetings and other activities.
73 de Jon WB2MNF
Friday, February 2, 2024
Happy Birthday : February 11, 1847
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Sunday, February 11, 2024
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February 12, 1809
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Tuesday, February 13, 2024
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Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Full Snow Moon - February 24, 2024 @ 0731 Hours
In the 1760s, Captain Jonathan Carver, who had visited the Naudowessie (Dakota) and others, wrote that the name used for this period was the Snow Moon, “because more snow commonly falls during this month than any other in the winter.” The Cree called this the Bald Eagle Moon or Eagle Moon. Bear Moon (Ojibwe) and Black Bear Moon (Tlingit) refer to the time when bear cubs are born. The Dakota called this the Raccoon Moon, and certain Algonquin peoples named it the Groundhog Moon. The Haida named it Goose Moon.
The Cherokee names of “Month of the Bony Moon” and “Hungry Moon” give evidence to the fact that food was hard to come by at this time.
Old Farmer’s Almanac - www.almanac.com