Category Archives: Meeting

Field Day, Meeting, Shack

May 26, 2016 Meeting Notes

Audio of the meeting:

Audio Player

Members in attendance:

  • Ryan Noguchi AI6DO
  • Kirk Crawford KK6KC
  • Don Hall KK6DCX
  • Teresa Moore AG6OD
  • Joe Barger N6KK


We had some discussion about the upcoming Field Day. We considered what we could do for a 20 or 40 meter wire beam antenna on top of the parking structure and how we would keep the driven element and the reflector parallel to each other. However, given that we expect very few people to be available to do Field Day with the club, we decided to just stick with the antennas we already have: the CrankIR and Buddipole for HF and the verticals attached to the fiberglass masts for UHF/VHF. We will probably run a 20 m station and either 40 or 15, depending on conditions that day.

On the Wednesday before Field Day, we will put up signs advising people to not park in the travel parking on the 4th floor and the North-East section of the 3rd floor. Cones and tape will be put out Thursday afternoon to block off parking spaces, and tables and chairs will be delivered to the 3rd floor Friday afternoon. All equipment will be moved Saturday morning. Kirk will bring 5 gallons of gas for the generator. We won’t invite any external visitors (like city council, press, etc.)

For general emergency use, we discussed having a 30 m APRS system that can send an email out in case of emergency. Ryan will spec out a system and report back. We will also want to be able to communicate with COS/Chantilly on voice, which can be set up over email via APRS.

Kirk brought up the point that during the A6 evacuation a couple months back, the security radios caused a lot of interference on our standard go-to 2 meter simplex frequency (147.51 MHz). He suggested trying a 440 simplex frequency. We would have to test to see how far we can get with 440 simplex. If there is someone with access to a real antenna, we might be able to relay messages.

It was recommended that we purchase the Yamaha CM500 headsets for the rigs in the trailer and for Field Day use.

Kirk reported that he had asked about putting an A6 shack in an electrical room on the second floor of A6. Maintenance people got upset about us using the electrical rooms in general. We will be cleaning to be sure that we are not blocking any electrical panels in any of our shacks in electrical rooms, especially in A2. Kirk is waiting for approval on the A6 shack but will put together a preliminary list including costs for budgeting purposes.

Joe wants to buy a good Software Defined Radio for the D8 shack.

Budgets are due in July so we should allocate/spend money now.

Field Day, Meeting, Shack

April 2016 Meeting Minutes

Audio of the Meeting:

Audio Player

Slides of the meeting

AEA Amateur Radio Club meeting 4/28/16

Members in attendance:

  • KK6KC Kirk Crawford
  • AG6OD Teresa Moore
  • KJ6QBI Ching Kong
  • KK6WYW Bob Lanahan
  • KK6PSA Phil Martzen


Repeater Status: WB6VMV repeater is fixed, just needs to be connected to the controller, which will happen 4/29/16. We will keep the net on W6HA for Monday and then switch back to WB6VMV on Tuesday May 3.

Field Day: the El Segundo gate is now closed on weekends, so VC1 is not an available location for Field Day. We can use VC2 and/or the parking structure. In the parking structure, we can use pipe clamps or big nylon straps to attach antennas to the wall. At VC2, the trailer would be parked to the north of the building. If only a few people plan to come to Field Day, we will not set up at two locations. The final location(s) will be determined at the next meeting.

Everyone that is bringing personal gear to Field Day should get it ready. Be sure to bring a self-contained system (except for power, which we will provide from the generator.)

Teresa will run the Kenwood HF rig and Kirk will be in charge of the KX3. We may want to set up a 40-m beam.

On May 11 at 11:30 we will meet at the trailer to do an inventory of the five rigs that will be used on Field Day. Then we will make a list of things to purchase before Field Day.

A2 shack: Bob Lanahan was designated at the new custodian for this shack and tasked with inventorying what is there and determining if we need to purchase anything.

Budget: We have $8K in the bank.

Ideas for spending money included:

  • Create an A6 shack
  • Upgrade D8 shack
  • Waterfall display dongles (3) with upconverter
  • Heil headphone sets (5)
  • New microphone for Kenwood
  • Portable tower w/ 20 meter beam so we can hit COS/Chantilly after a big earthquake

 

Meeting

March Meeting Moved to A1/1029 A-B

Our March meeting has been moved to A1/1029 A-B,  (Atlas I and II, x64186, x64187).  It will be next week, March 31, at 11:30 AM.

We will have discussion of field day preparations among other things.

 

-Kirk

Meeting

February 2016 Meeting Minutes

2/26/16

AEA Amateur Radio Club Meeting

In attendance:

  • Teresa Moore AG6OD
  • Archie Buchanan KD6OLH
  • Don Putnick NA6Z
  • Ching Kong KJ6QBI
  • Gerrit Sorenson
  • Don Hall KK6DCX
  • Kirk Crawford KK6KC


Kirk gave a repeater report; repeater is fixed and will be installed once the backup battery is purchased.

The club has more Ham It Forward licenses to give out, so if you know anyone at Aerospace that might be interested in getting an amateur radio license then let them know about this free resource.

The D8 shack is being used for contesting, Ryan Noguchi March 19-20 for various contests.  The shack is available to any member who would like to participate.

The HF net to COS occurred in January, but the February net was canceled.  We will try to check in to the March net on March 2 at 9 am in the D8 shack.

Kirk gave a report on the upgrades to the Buddipole.

We are starting preparation for Field Day.  We need volunteers for the following positions:

PR coordinator (Don Hall)

HF Rig 1 (Kenwood) coordinator

HF Rig 2 (KX3) coordinator

VHF Rigs coordinator

Location and Trailer Movement coordinator (Kirk Crawford)

Please let Kirk know if you are interested in volunteering for one of these positions.  We will most likely use VC 1 again as our Field Day location.  We need to figure out what antennas we plan to use.

Tuesday March 15 we will plan to set up the Buddipole antenna and one of the HF radios in the VC1 parking lot and try to make some contacts.

The D8 remote operations plan is still not functional.  There were various problems which were never overcome.

Meeting

January 2016 Meeting Minutes

1-28-16

AEA Amateur Radio Club Meeting

In attendance:  KK6DCX Don Hall, KK6WYW Bob Lanahan, AG6OD Teresa Moore

The daily net has been going well.

Teresa gave a report on the repeater status.  Mike Worshum is working the issue.  Dave Ping repaired the repeater but they still need to purchase a new backup battery which will require a vote from the city council.  In the meantime, we are welcome to use the Hughes repeater.

There was a CERT exercise scheduled for February, Don Hall will check with Jason Bayonne as to the status on that.

It would be good to have a computer for the A3 shack so that the net email can be sent directly from there.  Don will check into that.

No one knew the status of the monthly net with the Colorado and Chantilly offices.

We need to start thinking about Field Day, and schedule some lunchtime practices where we set up antennas and try to make contact.

Field Day, Meeting

Minutes from 5-21-15 meeting

Minutes from 5-21-15 meeting

Five members in attendance: Kirk Crawford KG6MTE, Donald Hall KK6DCX, Ryan Noguchi AI6DO, Phil Martzen KK6PSA, and Teresa Moore AG6OD

Discussed putting a current club inventory and a list of things that can be checked out by members on the web site. Ryan will work with Joe to categorize the D8 shack, including creating a block diagram of how everything is connected and directions on how to use various equipment.

Field Day: 1800 UTC Saturday to 2059 UTC Sunday = 11 am Saturday through 3 pm Sunday

We will use the trailer as a base again this year, and park it at VC1. This year’s goal is to stay longer and make more contacts than we did last year. Don will be our publicity chair and contact the Orbiter and or Aerospace photographer to cover the event, as well as consider external media and inviting distinguished guests. Ryan will bring over equipment from the D8 shack. Kirk and Teresa will work on logistics, including loading the trailer, bringing over equipment from the A2 shack (easy up, banner, antennas, etc.), moving the radios in the trailer so that they are far enough apart that a different person could work each station, coordinating signups, and getting folding tables and chairs for the event. Kirk will coordinate getting the trailer moved after 11 am on Friday.

  • Things that need to be done in preparation for Field Day:
  • load trailer
  • space out radios
  • install circuit board in KX3 (Kirk)
  • buy headphones
  • get permission from Security
  • buy tower
  • look into off-center fed multi-band dipole antenna
  • move solar system over to trailer
  • make sure batteries are charged
  • make sure we have enough extension cables/feed lines
  • order table/chairs to set up under easy up
  • masts for 3 VHF/UHF antennas and one HF antenna
  • guy lines for masts
  • check out mics
  • gasoline for generator


Plan for stations: 2m, 220, 440 in trailer, Kenwood HF rig in trailer, KX3 HF rig, Teresa’s Yaesu FT920

Kirk will bring laptop and logging software

Do we want to try a laptop for digital modes?

Everyone should bring snacks/drinks

Other upcoming events: HamCon in Torrance September 11-13

Meeting

October Meeting

The October meeting was held in A1/1026 at 11:30 AM on 10/29/15.

Atendees:

  • Kirk Crawford KG6MTE
  • Archie Buchanan KD6OLH
  • Ryan Noguchi AI6DO

Audio of the meeting:

Audio Player

First we discussed the Fan Dipole antenna system Ryan installed in his attic.  Then we talked about the Sky Loop antenna I am thinking of installing.  We looked up the homes on google maps to see the feasibility of these things.

I suggested that in an effort to attract new members and make more hams, the club should purchase some training courses from HamTestOnline.  This is the company I used recently to study for my Extra license.  They have a program called Ham It Forward.  Where you can purchase the Technician course for $15 each (minimum 5) and we give that away to prospective new hams.  We should also assign a club member to be a mentor and help encourage them or answer questions.  It also comes with a free General course that we could give to some other technician in the club that may need it.  Read more about it at their site.  Since we didn’t have a quorum, we didn’t vote to purchase it.

Archie suggested we might want to make the deal even better.  If the prospective Ham passes the test, we could provide them with a free Baofeng 2m/440 radio.  This would give them the ability to get on the net for emergency communications, and would only cost the club $34.

I used the Buddipole system that the club owns on my last business trip and made several successful contacts during the CQ Worldwide DX SSB contest last weekend.  From this experience and from reading the Buddipole in the Field document, I propose purchasing the following Buddipole accessories to enhance the system and make it able to be used in more configurations:

(* added after the meeting)

We also talked about the morning net.  We aren’t having a net anymore because we don’t have a net control person that can be on at 8 am.  One proposal was to try it at another time.  I will send out an email survey to see if it would work better at a different time of day.

Our next meeting is on November 19.  Note this is a different Thursday of the month due to Thanksgiving.

Our Christmas Party will be held at the Proud Bird on December 10.  It is reserved.  We will do the same thing for raffle prizes this year like we did last year with the winner designating their Ham Radio supplier of choice.

After the meeting, Archie donated three 33 foot fiberglass masts (MFJ-1910)  to the club for future field day use.  They are new in box.  They look like they will be perfect for setting up some dipoles or a Sky Loop on Field day.

 

73,

 

Kirk Crawford KG6MTE

 

Meeting

September Meeting

Audio

September Meeting Minutes

Audio of the meeting:

Audio Player

 

Attendees:

  • Kirk Crawford KG6MTE
  • Don Hall KK6DCX
  • Bob Lanahan


During this meeting Don gave a presentation on SDR use with HAM Radio, and I gave a report from my impressions of the HAMCON 2015.  See the  slides here:

Slides of September Meeting

Don will present more on the SDR at the next meeting in October.

Our Christmas party at the Proud Bird is scheduled.

 

Meeting

August 2015 HAM Radio Club Meeting

11:30 AM 8/20/15 A1-1029

Members in attendance:

  • Don Hall 
  • Kirk Crawford


We viewed the images from Field Day, and then we discussed ideas for club meetings.

  • Shack Demonstration: Meet in D8 contact CO.
  • Satellite Communications Video  Presentation
  • ARRL Videos
  • Free Ham Radio Class
  • Antenna Theory
  • You Tube HAM Radio DXpedition Video
  • SDR
  • APRS Demo Repeat

We agreed that we need to plan ahead so we can advertise and get new members.

September Meeting: SDR Presentation – Don Hall

We need topics for the October and November meetings.

December: Party- Don has made a reservation at The Proud Bird. We will be there on December 10.

No Audio this meeting.

73,

Kirk Crawford

President AEA Amateur Radio Club

 

Meeting

Meeting Location Change

Note: Location Change

Our next meeting will be held on July 30, at 11:30 AM in A1/1735.  This is a new meeting location.  I hope to see you all there, we will go over the field day, and our budget for the next year.

-Kirk

KG6MTE