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THE FEEDLINE
Volume 38, Issue 12 The Voice of the Western Illinois Amateur Radio Club December 2014
From the Desk of the President
In the past month we have had several things happen and have more to look
forward to. One of the things that has happened is more group activity by the club
members. Several of us took a trip to K9CT’s contest station just a few miles west of
Peoria and made a day of it. CQWW SSB saw a few WIARC members operating the club
station, and we had several members help with swapping out the remote antenna tuner
on the tower at the Red Cross. We also have an agreement signed with KHQA for our
repeaters at the KHQA transmitter site.
Was it just me or did it seem like we went from early fall straight into the heart of
winter? Luckily, all we had was some cold temperatures and a little wind; we lucked out
on snow accumulation, unlike Buffalo, NY! On Monday November 8th, we had a great day
to get the tower work we had hoped to do before winter set in, and we did manage to get
the new Heliax pulled up the tower, the wire antenna raised and the automatic tuner
replaced on the tower. Had we waited another couple of days, it may not have gotten
completed until spring.
As our next meeting is December and election of officers for 2015, a nominating
committee was formed at the last club meeting, Chris, NR9Q and Gilbert, KB9ZEN,
agreed to take this task on. If you are contacted by them about serving, please consider
very carefully before you give them an answer. We need new people to get involved in
the leadership of our club; we need fresh ideas and enthusiasm. Positions up for
election are President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and Trustee. All have some
duties; but no one is a lot of work, and each is made easier by sharing the load with
others. I want to thank the officers that have served this past year for their dedication
and work to make things progress as smoothly as possible. We may see some of them
back serving next year, but it would really be nice to have some new faces in these
positions. The nominating committee’s task is to come up with at least one candidate for
each position, and we will also take nominations from the floor the evening of the
election. If for some reason, you do not run for one of the positions, at least make sure
you make the meeting and vote so your voice is heard.
Along with signing an agreement with KHQA for our repeaters, it looks like we
may be able to get the internet back running on the D-STAR system, again thanks to
KHQA. More on that as we learn about the details.
Thanks to Bill, N9UPG, we have set a date and price for the annual dinner meeting
for 2015. It will again be held at The Patio, 133 S. 4th in Quincy on Saturday evening,
January 10. Elsewhere in this newsletter you will find more details. Our program this year
will be a presentation by John Nowack, KA9EYT.
We are in the planning stages of a Technician class to start shortly after the first
of the year. If you know of anyone that may be interested, please have them contact me,
dpease@adams.net or 217-430-2046. The classes will most likely be held on a Saturday
morning and the classes will last about 8 weeks. The FCC introduced a new Technician
question pool as of last July, so all new study material is now available. We will be using
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the ARRL Technician License manual for our study guide. If you have any time available
and would like to help, we will need a few volunteers to instruct a session or two as well.
As I have noted a couple of times, we are well into the winter contest season, and
the club station has seen some activity, both by individuals and by groups. One contest I
would like to see the club do a reasonably good effort in is the ARRL DX contest, SSB for
sure and CW if there is enough interest. The CW portion is February 15 & 16, the SSB
part is March 1 & 2. Pease consider operating at the club station as part of a multi-op
effort, even if you can only be there for an hour or so.
Since we are rapidly approaching the end of the year and all of the activities that
go along with it, I want to take this opportunity to wish you all the best the season has to
offer, and hope for a great 2015.
See you a the meeting, Danny NG9R
Moved and seconded…
Meeting opened by Pres. Danny Pease and everyone introduced themselves. The club
secretary was not able to be here so Jim, KD2JEQ, volunteered to take notes for the
minutes. Laura, KB9ZFG, moved the minutes be accepted as printed in the newsletter,
seconded by Chris, NR9Q. Motion passed.
No treasurer’s report was available.
Repeater board: Ron, AA9GL, reported the power supply on the D-STAR repeater
system appeared to have failed and will need replaced. Ron, KB9YN, offered a rack
mount UPS to use, if the problem is due to voltage fluctuations, this may help. Scott,
KD0DKE has also offered the club a power supply that should be impervious to voltage
fluctuations. Scott is checking on what he has available.
Club Station: It was reported the club’s TS-520 has an issue with no audio out, possibly
related to the external VFO plug. The club station was active for CQWW SSB. The club
station was on the air for about 14 hours total. Tower work to exchange the remote
antenna tuner is scheduled for Monday Nov. 10. Motion by Jim, KD2JEQ, to allow up to
$200 to compensate the climber for his time and expense. Seconded by Mike, NA9Q.
Motion passed. Chris, NR9Q, indicated a need for a picture frame to put a world map on
the wall in the club station. Chris will look into prices and availability.
Contest: Reports of logs and other Illinois QSO details were discussed with some
members requested an Excel template to enter their logs into. Awards and donations
were briefly discussed. Mike, NA9Q, had some paper logs he wanted volunteers to enter
into Excel. Chris, NR9Q and Danny, NG9R, volunteered to split them between them. At
least five club members helped with a part time Multi-op two transmitter entry in the
CQWW SSB contest. Upcoming contests club members may be interested in operating
are ARRL Sweepstakes SSB, CQWW CW, ARRL 160 and 10 meter contests. Anyone
wanting to could use the club station or a multi-op effort could be planned for any of
these. Danny, NG9R, hopes to have a good effort from the club station for the ARRL DX
contests.
Old business: Bill, N9UPG, has made arrangements for the WIARC annual dinner
meeting to once again be held at The Patio, 4th and Jersey in Quincy on Saturday January
10. The meal cost will be $15.00 per person, tax and gratuity included. Danny Pease will
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be taking reservations. It was noted the laser etched call sign plaque that Mike, W9MDB,
donated to the club was in the club station and wired up to the 12 volt power supply. It is
a really nice addition to the shack! Last month, Darell, N9DT, asked about the
whereabouts of the club banner. Danny Pease said he talked to Todd, AB9QW and said
Todd was pretty sure it was at the Red Cross, but he would check for it at his work place.
Chris, NR9Q said he would look through the club station storage for it. It had been
discussed taking a trip to K9CT’s contest station at Trivoli, IL. The date has been set for
Saturday November 8. Those wanting to go will need to make the arrangements to
carpool up there.
Application for membership: Connor Buss, KC9ZJI, asked to join the WIARC. Bill,
N9UPG, moved and Ralph, KC9VZD, seconded that Conner Buss, KC9ZJI, be accepted as
a member. Motion passed. It was noted Connor’s dues would be applied to his 2015
dues.
New Business: Technician classes need to be organized., John Simon has already asked
about classes as he knows of two people in his group that may take the class and if that
does happen, John indicated the classes might be held at the Adams County EMA office.
Danny, NG9R, will work on scheduling and organizing the class again this year. The
class will likely follow the same format as last year, 7-8 weeks long, most likely on
Saturday mornings. Since the Technician question pool and tests have been updated, the
club will need to order a new Technician manual and Technician Instructor’s guide. The
class will start shortly after the first of the year.
Net control stations: Dec. 3 N9DT, Dec. 10 N9UPG, Dec. 17 NR9Q, Dec. 24 (open),
December 31 NG9R, Jan. 7 N9DT.
Arlyce, NB9Q, won the 50/50 drawing and donated her share to the club.
On behalf the Secretary, Jim KD2JEQ (NG9R is responsible for any errors)
DX NEWS AND NOTES FOR DECEMBER, 2014
DX NOTES….
As we move into 2015, it may well become known as the ‘Year of the Islands’. As
noted in last month’s column, a Navassa Island (KP1) operation has been announced and
will start early in the year. On the heels of that announcement comes the news that a
Cocos Island (TI9) operation will take place shortly thereafter. In addition, it is strongly
rumored that a Venezuelan group will soon be announcing an operation from Aves Island
(YV0) and that it will take place early in 2015. Although Aves and Cocos Islands are not
among the top 20 or so most wanted by the international DX community, these
operations will still draw a great deal of interest among those DX’ers who have started
collecting entities in the last 8 to 10 years or need band fills (me included). Among the
three, Navassa will still be the gem operation.
However, all will be lead-ins to the main attractions which will come at the end of
2015. First is the Heard Island operation in early 2016. Heard is certainly well up in
everyone’s top 5 lists. This venture has been in the planning for several years and all
seems to be falling into place. It has been well over a decade since the last operation.
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Now comes a second main attraction which will tickle everyone’s interest and that
is a Bouvet Island (3Y) operation of 2 weeks duration starting at about December 15,
2015. The planning and hard work of the Heard Island group is well known and they will
pull that one off. The logistical challenges of a Bouvet operation are quite unique for the
target island and it will be interesting to watch it unfold. At the same time, Mark,
ON4WW, is seeking funding support for his one man, three month operation from this
same remote, inhospitable ice block called Bouvet. He claims to have all necessary
permissions; landing, operating and environmental. He says he simply needs the money
to make it happen. Whether or not he can attract funding and pull this off and survive
three months alone on Bouvet remain to be seen. Check it out at:
http://www.on4ww.be/bouvet2016.html
DX News……
VIET NAM, 3W. Tony, KM0O will be QRV as 3W3O from Da Nang from November 25 to
December 24. Activity is on all bands. This includes an entry in the upcoming CQ World
Wide DX CW contest. QSL
to home call.
MALDIVES, 8Q. Operators Vadim, R9DX, Serge, UA8DX and Igor, UA9CDC will be QRV
as 8Q7DV from Sun Island, IOTA AS-013, from November 24 to December 4. Activity is
on the HF bands with a main focus on the upcoming CQ World Wide DX CW contest.
QSL via R9DX.
GRENADA, J3. Rob, DL7VOA is QRV as J34O until December 6. Activity is holiday style
on 40 to 10 meters using mainly CW. This includes an entry in the upcoming CQ World
Wide DX CW contest. QSL to home call.
SVALBARD, JW. Svein, LA9JKA (ex-JX9JKA), will once again be active as JW9JKA from
Bear Island (EU-027) between (Approx.) December 6th and May 30th (2015). Activity will
be limited to his spare-time, and Svein will be focusing on the bands from 160-6 meters.
Equipment is limited, due to rules of work. Focus will be on 160m during the winter, and
6m in springtime. QSL only direct to his home address (see QRZ.com).
ANTARCTICA. Ron, K6REF is currently QRV as K6REF/KC4 from the US Yesterday
Camp on the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica for about two weeks. QSL via operator's
instructions.
MOUNT ATHOS, SV/A. Monk Apollo, SV2ASP/A, was heard early Sunday morning
(1415z+/-) on 10 meters RTTY (around 28091 kHz). QSL via SV2ASP/A.
INDIA, VU. Datta, VU3DSI is QRV as special event station AU2JCB until December 9 to
commemorate the birthday of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. Activity is on 80 to 6 meters
using SSB and FM. QSL to home call.
SOUTH SUDAN, Z8. Massimo, IZ0EGB is currently QRV as Z81B from Juba. He is active
on 40 to 6 meters using SSB. His length of stay is unknown. QSL to home call.
As always, thanks go to the ARRL DX Bulletin, The Ohio Penn DX Newsletter, and the 425
DX News letter for much of the above information.
73 and good DX, Mike NA9Q
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Western Illinois ARC Annual Dinner meeting announcement
The annual WIARC dinner meeting will be held Saturday January 10 starting about 6:30
PM at The Patio, 133 S. Fourth in Quincy. We will have a social time (with cash bar
available) starting about 6:30 and the meal will be served around 7:00 PM. The meals
have been excellent in the past and we should not see much change again this year. Cost
will be $15.00 per person, tax and gratuity included and you will get salad, 2 entrees (in
the past it has been roast beef and fried chicken), potato, vegetable, dessert and coffee
or tea. The program after the meals will be brought to us by John Nowack, KA9EYT and I
suspect will be pictures and possibly video of some of John’s underwater adventures.
This a is a social affair, no club business will be conducted. Feel free to bring friends and
family, you do not need to be a ham or even a club member to attend. Reservations are
needed by Wednesday evening, January 7 and you may make your reservation with
Danny Pease, NG9R at 217-430-2046 or dpease@adams.net
HF Gear For Sale --- Kenwood (TS-570S) 160/6m - Yaesu (FT450D) 160/6m - Alinco (DXSR8) 160/10m - Kenwood TL-922A Amp 160/10m Spare 3-500 . --- EMail for info and
Pictures to rrose@comcast.net
From the ARRL Contest Update for November 19, 2014:
OPERATING TIP
Please copy? Please don't! Imagine this pre-Sweepstakes conversation as Elmer
prepares to hand off the controls to his protégée:
"OK, when the clock rolls over to 2100 UTC..."
"I know - call CQ, right?"
"No, I want you to say "please copy" 500 times in a row."
"What???!!!"
"You might as well get it out of your system. Follow it with another 500 of "You are" and
110 leading zeroes. Then you can call CQ."
"But that will take a half hour!"
"Sure will...but you were going to say it anyway!"
Unnecessary verbiage slows everything down, whether it's a contest or an emergency
communication net. Try to eliminate it from your on the air transmissions. Write down a
script to help you say only what you need to say. The editor fesses up to having a
weakness for adding in an extra "Thanks" at the beginning of a QSO when one at the end
is plenty.
[I stole this because N0AX said it better than I could have….-ed.]
ILQP report: About 230 logs have been submitted, and the committee has begun
processing them. There were eleven WIARC logs received, which is a bit of an
improvement over recent years. It won’t be enough to unseat PRIME ARC, who sent out
numerous county-line and county-corner portable stations and really covered the
southern part of the state. They will have a whopper of a combined score! It looks like
the Kankakee Amateur Radio Society submitted the most logs of any club (14). –ed.
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From The ARRL Letter for November 20, 2014:
"Frequency" TV Series Would Reprise Amateur RadioThemed Movie
Mike Baxter, KA0XTT -- Tim Allen's character in the "Last Man Standing" TV show on
ABC -- may be getting some competition on the ham bands, as NBC appears poised to
launch a television series based on the 2000 movie Frequency, in which ham radio -aided by some spectacular solar phenomena -- plays a central role in the sci-fi thriller.”
If you have not seen the original movie “Frequency”, I’d recommend it for anyone except
small children. A bit of violence involved, but certainly entertaining for anyone
interested in either ham radio or fire-fighting. –ed.
Congratulations to W0KT, Rick Wilson, 50 years a ham!
Rick was first licensed as WA0KST on November 17, 1964, in Storm Lake IA. A
celebration was held at Fasoli’s in Bellevue NE on Sunday, November 16. Rick offered to
foot five bucks of the bill for anyone attending. I’m sorry to say I wasn’t able to be there,
but I’ll bet he made good on the offer! -ed.
Borrowed from KB6NU’s monthly news article:
“Are knobs and buttons toast?
By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU
In a recent column on EETimes (http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?doc_id=1324283),
an old colleague of mine, Martin Rowe, says, “Knobs and buttons are slowly on their way
out. Get used to it.” He’s referring to the controls on oscilloscopes, but if he were a ham,
he might just as well be talking about amateur radio transceivers, too.
We already see this happening in amateur radio. FlexRadio, and a couple of other
companies, already make transceivers with no front panel controls. You must have a
computer to use them.
Might we even start to see this with handheld and portable equipment? For example, how
much cheaper could they make a Baofeng if to use it, you had to also have an Android or
iPhone app to act as the human interface?
To be honest, I haven’t really thought about this much myself. I’m enough of a dinosaur
to still prefer buttons and knobs, but having to use on-screen controls certainly doesn't
turn me off. Rowe claims, however, that “as the old-timers retire (or in our case as older
hams become SKs), younger engineers (or young hams) will expect every user interface
to function like a phone or tablet. Don’t believe me? Just wait.”
I got several interesting replies to this idea on my blog. Bill, AD8BC says, "What would
be fun would be an open-source mobile radio. I picture an RF deck with a Raspberry Pi
and touch screen for control, the Pi would simply tell the RF deck where to tune and
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handle the interface and scanning functions, it would ship with a stock app, but you
could make your own. Built in support for SDR stuff, packet, APRS, remote operation…."
Most commenters, however, even the younger guys, still seem to prefer analog controls.
Lucien, DH7LM, says, "I’m a newly licensed ham and I like both – experimenting with
advanced computer stuff like SDRs and the great feeling a real radio provides!" Grant,
KJ6ZZD, says, "Knobs perform some tasks better than a screen can. Knobs provide
some tactile feedback that a screen just can’t."
So, what do you think? Are knobs and buttons toast, or do you think there's still some
life left in analog controls?”
[I remember when KB9FIN bought one of the first IC706 radios in the area. I asked Dave
how he liked it. “It’s a good radio, but I have to get the book out every time I use it!”
That was my impression of my FT900 (more or less retired now…) and of my IC746-Pro.
Anything that is highly menu-driven is a challenge for this old-timer. However, with
about 90 minutes to read the manual and play around, I actually managed to program two
new Pofung handhelds last weekend…. –ed.]
Sweepstakes report and LoTW de N9JF
ARRL Sweepstakes has the most complicated “exchange” of any contest of which
I am aware; that perhaps is a turnoff for some people. Yet this contest is annually one of
the most popular. If one understands that there is a reason for the exchange elements, it
becomes logical and more attractive. The exchange was fashioned after the “preamble”
of an ARRL Radiogram. My first “SS” was in 1965, and I have participated several
dozen times since though sometimes only casually. Some of the more memorable were
the years my brother Dave (WY0L) and I journeyed to Nebraska to activate a somewhat
“rare” ARRL section. Perhaps we’ll do that again now that Dave has retired and we only
have to work around one 8-5 schedule….
One of the challenges of Sweepstakes is the “Clean Sweep” that can be
accomplished by logging all of the ARRL/CRRL sections. There are now 83 of them
(Ontario is now three sections). A fairly casual effort from the N9JF station this year
found 78 of them on CW and 60+ on SSB. It takes something special to keep my rump in
the chair for a phone contest….
I also shamed myself into getting back into Logbook of the World. I had begun
this on-line logging/confirmation process back about 2004 and got side-tracked. With
renewed vigor (?), I uploaded a bunch of my more recent logs. I now have just under
11,000 QSO’s in the system, and about 40% of those have “matches” with QSO’s in other
submitted logs. There are 28 DXCC entities that I can “claim” via LoTW (mixed), 39
entities on CW and 7 on phone, 31 on 160 meters, and various others available.
It really wasn’t difficult to get going on this. If you are using a contest logging
program that will output an .adi file, it is ridiculously easy to upload the logs. Putting
regular calls from a paper log into the system….welll…not so much. Anyone who is
active at all on HF or VHF might as well get in on the fun. Thanks to NA9Q and NG9R
who nudged and coached!
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W9AWE – W90AB
The Western Illinois Amateur Radio Club, Inc.
WIARC homepage: http://www.w9awe.org e-mail to w9awe@qsl.net
WIARC email reflector: wiarc@mailman.qth.net
Sponsors of
Voice repeater W9AWE/R on 147.630/.030 Quincy
Voice repeater W9AWE/R on 146.340/.940 Quincy
Voice repeater W9AWE/R on 448.900/443.900Quincy
All voice repeaters use 103.5 sub-audible tone
D-STAR repeater W9AWE on 147.795/.195
ILLINOIS QSO PARTY
Newsletter input due by the 20th of the preceding month
Editor Jim Funk N9JF
jfunk@fossnorthamerica.com or n9jf@arrl.net
Western Il. Amateur Radio Club
PO Box 3132
Quincy, IL 62305-3132
December meeting: Wednesday, December
3, 2014
Adams County American Red Cross
Building, 24th and Koch’s Lane, Quincy (west
½ block from intersection then north on
driveway)
DUES !!
Club dues for 2105 are due!
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