Category Archives: Zero Beat

HCRA’s monthly periodical is now digital and available to anyone on the web. Here you will see any posts related to content that would have been in “Zero Beat”

May Zero Beat is now available!

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Click here (saves time going to the Zero Beat archive page!

Another good issue this month, please take the time to check out Frandy’s hard work. Thanks also to the authors submitting articles too!

Friday’s meeting should be a good one. The weather is predicted to be perfect for takeing a tour of the MCU (Mobile Communications Unit), then retire inside for a Powerpoint presentation by Bill/W1GTT about the trailer and how their club works with the state of CT to provide emergency communications.

NEAR-fest should be outstanding this year too with good weather predicted for both days! A great place for ham radio bargain hunting.

See you Friday night,

Jim/KK1W

I need articles and photos for Zero Beat!

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Anyone for dropping me an email with photos or articles of interest to HCRA members? If you are tired of seeing SOTA articles you should submit something to me for upcoming issues of Zero Beat — I would like material by early next week. (Sorry, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any more SOTA items!) An article doesn’t have to be fancy — I will take care of formatting, font selection and so on. Send text or .doc to n1fj@arrl.net

73, Frandy, N1FJFrandy, N1FJ

From the Shack – March 2013

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Next Meeting March 1st  - Our annual Show & Tell night!

It is March Madness again at HCRA with our annual Show & Tell event. I’ve heard a lot of members are putting the finishing touches on their projects and expect we will see a grand assortment of ham radio, or not so ham radio, contraptions that will strike fear in your hearts when they reach for the on/off switch!

All kidding aside Show & Tell brings out the best of our member’s creative juices. The spectrum of projects is wide and has touched most areas of amateur radio and beyond over the years. Matt/W1MSW and Frandy/N1FJ have conjured up neat prizes for tonight along with refreshments and maybe a few other things too? Only way to find out is to be there!

There’s still time for YOU to wrap up your project and get it to this Friday’s meeting. But finish reading this month’s Zero Beat first, OK?

KX3 Raffle drawing - Time is running short! 

The drawing will be held March 2nd at the MTARA Hamfest. Tickets are almost gone, if you haven’t purchased yours yet there’s only two opportunities left; tonight’s HCRA meeting or at the hamfest the following day. Be sure to visit the HCRA table, say hello, join or renew your membership AND get a ticket – how cool is that? The drawing will be held at the hamfest around noon. Who knows, you could go home with a brand spanking new KX3 worth $1000 and get on the air that afternoon!

Foxhunting Coming Soon? - Are you ready for some warm weather fun?

February’s Foxhunting/Build-a-Beam meeting was very successful. Fifteen folks went home with a three element beam and we have a dozen people on a potential fox hunting list. There was a lot of interest in the presentation, including building an Arduino controlled Doppler system. (I wonder if one will show up at Show & Tell) The question remains, “where do we go from here?”

First: We will have the sign-up sheet at tonight’s meeting. If you either missed February’s meeting or were too busy to sign up here’s another opportunity to put your name on the list.

Second: I’m hoping a few people will ‘raise their hands’ to spearhead the first few foxhunts. A perfect combination would be an experienced hunter and a novice. They could get their heads together, plan an opening hunt or hunts and really get the ball rolling. Once started, and with the enthusiasm shown at the last meeting I’ll bet it will roll merrily along gaining momentum every month. Please, see if YOU can find an hour or two in a month to help get this started.

Third: HCRA resources such as our Facebook page, Zero Beat, the website and the HCRA mailing list are open and available for use in promoting and coordinating foxhunting. There may be other ways we can help as well, but first we need some folks to step forward, put a little ‘sweat equity’ into the project and create fun for our entire community.

Let’s talk after tonight’s meeting and see what we can come up with, OK?

HCRA Zero Beat Archives - W200NY – what was that? 

Don’t know, check out the March 1988 issue of Zero Beat in the archives. You never know what you’ll come across in our long and varied history. We’re still looking to ‘fill the gaps’ in our Zero Beat collection so I’ll repeat last month’s request.

Special request. Please take a look at the archive list. If you have, or know of someone who has other issues please get in contact Jeff so they can be added to the archive. We can accept them as a .pdf or can scan and return to you. We know there are folks out there with additional issues, here’s a chance to get them preserved and easily accessible for everyone’s enjoyment.

Spots from the cluster: 

Paypal – Jeff is working toward a PayPal interface on our website. Our expectations are soon members wishing to join, renew or donate from the convenience of their couch will be able to click ‘send’. The question rose at the February meeting (thanks Norm), “will we still be able to send a check” and the answer is “yes”. Nothing is changing except we are adding an additional method of payment; we’re not taking anything away with the change. 

Meeting Refreshments – It is apparent our members enjoy having coffee and sweets at the meetings. The rub is nobody seems to feel it should be ‘their job’ to procure them! What’s up with that? Counting family members our club membership is over one hundred people! As I’ve mentioned in the past do you really think all club duties should fall on the nine board members? I don’t believe it should, that’s why I’m tossing out this request once again.

We are looking for one or two folks to pick up coffee & donuts for the meeting. Do you feel you, maybe with a friend, could spend fifteen to thirty minutes and benefits all the folks attending the meeting? If so please see me at the end of the meeting. I’ll fill you in on how easy it is to put smiles on the faces of forty or so people.

New England QSO Party - May 4th and 5th, 2013

Mark your calendars now for a fun weekend of ham radio, New England style. During this weekend YOU become the DX with stations from all over the US looking to work you for fun, glory and the chance to win a lobster dinner.

HCRA sponsors a beautiful plaque for this contest. How do you win it? Easy, it’s given to the highest single operator score submitted from HampdenCounty. Sometimes it doesn’t take many QSO’s to win, it all depends on who is QRV in HampdenCounty for the contest. The contest starts at 4:00 PM Saturday afternoon and after taking a break between 1AM and 9AM Sunday morning goes on to end at 8PM Sunday evening. Usually both our club calls (W1NY and WB1Z) are active in the contest. If you would like to operate under either one get your request in now!

‘73 and don’t forget to pick up your winning KX3 ticket at the meeting,

Jim/KK1W

 

Can you help your fellow members? – Yes you can!

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Did you know YOU can increase the value of HCRA to all its members? How can you do this you may ask? The answer is simple. Sharing of knowledge, especially local knowledge, is how we all learn and expand our appreciation of amateur radio.

If you’ve done something, built something, installed some software, raised an antenna, took photographs of a local event, bought a new rig, attended a hamfest, made a great DX contact or solved a sticky interference problem wouldn’t it be nice if you could share that with the members? Well you can, and very easily too. Why not take a few moments to gather the information, put it in an email and send if off to Frandy/N1FJ along with any photos. Format is not important, Frandy has the skills to make a great article out of it. Besides publishing in Zero Beat or on the website you’ll become an additional source of knowledge for our members.

It’s one thing to read an article in QST but if you have a question are you going to meet the author at the next meeting? Probably not, but there’s a good chance you’ll be able to talk to the ham that organized the foxhunt or built an automatic rotor controller, in person, at one of our meetings.

Let’s do what hams do best, talk about what we’ve done and share information with your fellow hams. If just one or two members a month sent something to Frandy imagine how thick Zero Beat will in a few months!

If you’ve read this far I hope I’ve piqued your interest. We all become better hams when we start sharing our hard earned information with the local community.

Jim/KK1W

Foxhunting Meeting Follow-up

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Hey folks,

Thanks to everyone that braved the cold and turned out for February’s Foxhunting and Build-A-Beam meeting. Jeff did a fine job organizing the beam building and with help from George/KC1V and Doug/KB1ZGL fifteen people went home with a cool, 3 element two meter beam.

Up front the Foxhunting presentation excited over a dozen people to put their name on the list for foxhunts (to start in the warmer weather). Special thanks to Larry/WB1DBY and Rich/N1KXR for helping with the presentation and to Steve/N1EOE and Pete/N1AGV for bringing cool foxhunting gear for a brief Show & Tell after the presentation. This is what HCRA is all about – people helping people get the most out of amateur radio.

We’re in the process of organizing your desires about foxhunting and will get back to everyone that signed up with some ideas for our first hunt. Were you too busy with other activities to sign up? Not to worry, just drop us a note here on the website and we’ll get you added to the list.

Here’s a list of links from the presentation. This should make it easier to dig into the information about foxhunting. Good luck with your research and maybe we’ll see a few HCRA Dopplers at our first hunt!

Doppler Systems:
http://members.chello.nl/~w.hofman/pa8w/dopplerRDF.htm
http://www.pi4wag.nl/index.php/pseudo-doppler-radio-direction-finder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U9Kz1mveQk – Marcel’s video from Pacificon
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/26512711/PacificonPresentation_2012_RadioDirectionFindingNetworks_AI6MS_v2WM.pdf – .pdf of the above
http://www.pi4wag.nl/images/stories/Flyer%20Doppler-UK1.pdf – PA3BNX’s Super Simple Doppler

General Foxhunting Information Sites:
•http://www.homingin.com/  – this is the best place to start looking!
•http://www.qsl.net/n6qab/ - Another general purpose foxhunting site.

Foxhunting DIY equipment:
•PIC Based TDOA Antenna – http://ka7oei.com/PIC_tdoa.html
•Active Attenuator– http://kb1kix.net/blog/?p=528
Jeri Ellsworth:
For those of you that would like to see some additional videos by Jeri Ellsworth, here’s a link to her YouTube list: http://www.youtube.com/user/jeriellsworth
I don’t know about you but I was jealous of her junkbox!
It was great seeing everyone Friday night. Now stop reading this, follow some of the links and get your project ready for Show & Tell on March 1st (less than 28 days left you know!)

Jim/KK1W

From the Shack – February 2013

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Next Meeting February 1st
Foxhunting presentation and ‘Build a Beam’ Workshop

Meeting number two of the year is another ‘double header’ thanks to the efforts of Jeff/NT1K and Rich/N1KXR. Read on and see what we have in store for you this February. We will be running two concurrent activities Friday night. At the front of the auditorium will be a presentation of foxhunting and at the rear a “Build-a-Beam” workshop.


Local foxhunters Lou/N1LZD and Rob/KA1RBH – with state of the art for 1993 hunters!

“Everyone foxhunting in the area in the early 1990′s can remember the dreading Rob & Lou’s
dedicated foxhunt vehicle. Sporting GPS, Flux gate compass, Doppler DF gear, on board computer and custom programming it was a formidable opponent (but not infallible)!

Foxhunting, what’s it all about? Whether you’ve thought about foxhunting, been on a foxhunt in the past or are interested in participating in future hunts this meeting is for you. We’re gathering up historical data, will present a brief ‘how-to’ that should entice you to try foxhunting this spring and we’ll talk about what foxhunting might look like in the future. If you have anything you’d like us to share from the past or suggestions for future hunts we’re all ears for that too. This should be a fun presentation that will remind us the diversity our hobby provides and take our mind off the freezing cold weather for a few hours or so. Remember, spring is just around the corner.

3EL Beam

Build your own 2m Yagi antenna! In the back of the room Jeff and Rich will be holding a ‘Build a Beam’ workshop. Their students will assemble a pre-cut, three element “tape measure” yagi for 2 meters, solder on the coax and give it a try. The little Yagi is good for portable operations, SOTA and of course – foxhunting. More details about the workshop can be found here. There’s still room for a few more students. If you are interested contact Jeff right away so you don’t miss out. After the beams are built everyone can watch as the happy builders give them a test run.

Show & Tell next month
How’s your project coming along?

HCRA’s March meeting wouldn’t be the same without Show & Tell. This is when YOU, the HCRA builder, get an opportunity to show off what you’ve been working on over the last twelve months. It’s fun for the builders and the audience alike. You never know what type of project will show up. Over the years we’ve seen everything from stop light controllers to Van DeGraaff generators, novice transmitters to remote antenna switches, QRP rigs to kilowatt amps. Wonder what you will see this year? The only way I know of is to show up March 1st for the fun!

Jon KA1TDQ's homebrew 30 meter transmitter. WB1DBY photograph

This year Matt/W1MSW and Frandy/N1FJ will be running the show. I’ll bet we see some different twists, don’t you? Curious, look for Matt’s Show & Tell article in February’s Zero Beat (and don’t forget to keep working on your project!)


HCRA Zero Beat Archives
15 additional years added!


Click the image and go back in time to February 1978!

Thanks to John/AC1T and Jeff/NT1K we now have an additional fifteen years of Zero Beats added to the archives. John spent many hours scanning his collection and forwarding them to Jeff for inclusion in the archives. Issues have been added from 1976 to 1990. It’s interesting to see a snapshot of what both HCRA and ham radio was like 25 to 30 years ago. Some things have changed a lot, others… You’ll have to see for yourself – just click here and take a ride in the HCRA TARDIS!
Special request. Please take a look at the archive list. If you have, or know of someone who has other issues please get in contact Jeff so they can be added to the archive. We can accept them as a .pdf or can scan and return to you. We know there are folks out there with additional issues, here’s a chance to get them preserved and easily accessible for everyone’s enjoyment.

Amateur Radio License Classes
Four new hams & two upgrades – fantastic!

Over the last three weeks the HCRA Instructor Team held classes for all three levels of amateur licenses at the HMC Auditorium. We had seven Technician, three General and three Extra class students. The final class and test session was held on January 26th

Let’s extend a hearty ‘welcome aboard’ to the following newly minted Amateur Radio Operators:

Technician Class
Cindy Forbes
Tom Isham
Doug McLean

General Class
Eric LaCombe

Upgrade to General
Ralph Gedney/KB1LEW/AG

Upgrade to Extra
Diane Shippee/KB1KST/AE

Thanks to all the instructors that participated; Frandy/N1FJ, Ed/KB1NWH, Jim/KK1W, Steve/N1SR, Rich/N1KXR and of course John/Kx1x for taking the helm and getting it done. Thanks also to our hosts at HMC for allowing us the use of their fine facility. Of course the real fun is seeing the happy faces of the newly licensed or upgraded hams!

Spots from the cluster:

Silent Auction Results: January’s silent auction was a success. Thanks to the many donations folks went home with bargains and HCRA added approximately $400 to our treasury. We’re still thinking of how we can bring back the ‘old style’ auction and welcome any suggestions.

KX3 Raffle drawing is March 2nd. There are still two HCRA meetings and one MTARA meeting offering opportunities to purchase a ticket. Your absolute last chance will be at the MTARA Hamfest on March 2nd. Visit the HCRA table, say hello, join or renew your membership AND get a ticket – how cool is that? The drawing will be held at the hamfest at noon. Who knows, you could go home with a brand spanking new KX3 worth $1000 and be on the air that afternoon!

Notes from the ARRL Cabinet Meeting of January 5th Dave/AA1YW and I attend the NE Division meeting, here’s a few highlights:
There’ could be a new LF band coming soon on 135.7 to 137.8 kHz according to the FCC. Also the ARRL has filed a petition for a low frequency band on 472 to 479 kHz. Follow the links for more details.
The 1900 to 2000 kHz segment of 160 meters could be made ‘Primary’ for ham operators. We’ve been secondary on this segment because it was formally used by the LORAN radio location system. The last LORAN broadcast from the system was from Caribou, ME, September 21st, 2010.
The ARRL National Convention will be held in Hartford on July 20, 21 and 22 in 2014. Hartford was picked for the 2014 location to offer an opportunity to the participants in WRTC2014 a chance to unwind and meet other US hams.

‘73 and see you at the meeting,
Jim/KK1W

From the Shack – January 2013

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Next Meeting January 4th
Silent Auction and Coax Presentation

Our first meeting of the New Year kicks off as a double header. We’ve two very interesting and exciting things for you. An expanded silent auction and an informative presentation about coax. There’s more about the silent auction elsewhere in the newsletter and on the website, here’s the lowdown about the presentation.

We all use coax around the shack, connecting our rigs to antennas, antenna switches and tuners. Some of us also use coax for interconnecting transceivers to amplifiers or other station accessories. There’s lots of types and sizes of coax available, have you wondered if you chose the correct/best one for the job? That’s exactly what Ed/KB1NWH is going to help us out with tonight.

Ed/KB1NWH will be sharing with us everything you need to know about coax; types available, costs and the best places to use each type in your radio shack. Ed served HCRA for many years as our technical director answering questions like this on an almost daily basis. He’s taken that knowledge, boiled it down and will give us the scoop on everything coax – from tiny RG-174 to hardline and everything in between. After the presentation Ed will take any questions you may have particular to your installation. This will be a good primer for upcoming spring antenna installations or repairs.

KX3 Raffle

There’s still time to purchase YOUR winning ticket for the KX3 transceiver, but time is running short. The last ticket sales will be at the upcoming MTARA Hamfest on March 2nd, with the drawing being held around noon at the hamfest. Tickets will be available at all club meetings and of course at the hamfest. Not sure you want the transceiver? Think about that a minute. You could own one of the most progressive HF transceivers, considered by many to be the equal of almost any transceiver made to date, for a $10 donation. Rated #2 on Sherwood’s receiver testing, all HF bands, built in PSK and more. Read more about the rig and the raffle by clicking here. Thanks as always for your support of HCRA and good luck!

The return of the silent Auction!

Here’s the latest list of donations for the auction, they may be more by time Friday rolls around. Need more details? Click here.

Radio Shack portable scanner
Radio Shack desk top scanner
Sony AM/FM/SW portable radio
Panasonic portable radio
CDE Ham II rotor
Mini Digital TV Stick
Circuit board set for an ARRL wattmeter
HP Netbook computer
Icom 207 Dual band mobile transceiver

This should be really fun – see you Friday night!

Amateur Radio License Classes scheduled for January!

HCRA’s chief instructor John/Kx1x has announced the latest round of classes. Starting January 15 with two evening sessions and ending with a full day class and test session Saturday January 26. Technician, General and Extra classes will be offered. The focus will be on Technician class to get new folks on board. The General and Extra sessions will be more of a ‘study group’ than a formal class. We had fantastic success with this format last year and are hoping for a repeat.

The classes will be based around the ARRL License Manuals, available from ARRL, Amazon and of course regular bookstores. Another helpful resource are the ‘No Nonsense Study Guides‘ written by Dan/KB6NU. These are well written guides designed to help you pass the test. Tech and General guides are free, the Extra guide is a mere $7.99. All are available for download on their website (linked above). I highly recommend using these guides along with the ARRL manuals. Couple that with some study time there’s no reason why we won’t have a 100% pass rate, right?

If you know of anyone looking to become an Amateur Radio Operator please point them to our classes. The classes are free, and if someone is willing to put in two evenings and a Saturday they too can join our fun hobby.

Spot from the cluster:

Gather up your ‘stuff’ and get it ready for the Silent Auction this month. Think of it like a flea market without prices. What a great way to raise some cash or get some bargains! Open to everyone, members and non-members alike. Read more about it here.

KX3 Raffle drawing changed to March 2nd. Drawing held around noon at the MTARA Hamfest. Good luck! Already have a ticket, double your chances and purchase a second!

10 Meter Contest results are posted on the website. I know there were other HCRA operators QRV, please email us your scores so we can add them to the list. Don’t forget the soapbox comments – they’re even more fun than the scores! Have you sent in your log yet? Cut off date for your entry is 0000Z January 9th. (7:00 PM local time)

ARRL Cabinet meeting is January 5th. HCRA will be represented at the meeting. Are there any issues/comments you would like us to put forward at the meeting? If so please email them to me, thanks!

Happy New Year – 73…
Jim/KK1W