Our October club meeting was held on TEAMS and in A3/1607A. I was the only one in the room, but we had several club members on the TEAMS meeting. See below for the slides, a recording, and transcript of the meeting. If you missed it, try to be there next time!
I met with Albert (KD6NSG) this morning on the top of D8 and we went over the antennas that we have there. We saw that the 80M vertical had drooped over quite a bit, and we were able to straighten it up a bit with an adjustment of the guy lines. It does look like there is a kink in it, but it should be better now. It may have also lost one of the rods in the top hat too.
We confirmed that in addition to the above, we have our big beam antenna, plus what looks like a EME setup. It is not hooked up anymore, but it has two long yagis on a Az/El mount and a third Bi Polarized yagi connected to the AZ portion. This may be able to be restored to service in the future.
There is another vertical that seems to be in good service, but the radials should be sorted out better. Based on the height, I suspect it is a 6 or 10M vertical.
73,
Kirk KK6KC
Recording of the meeting:
Our topics included:
Attendees were:
73, Bob Lanahan
Our topics included:
1) Final field day report (Kirk)
2) Tom’s radio support to Boy Scouts Summit-to-Summit Mirror signaling event
3) Kirk’s vacation FT8 setup
4) Shack status (A2, A3)
5) Proposal for a new shack in A10
6) Annoucement of Holiday Party at the Proud Bird on 13 Dec
Audio Recording of the meeting:
Audio Player
Attendees were:
73,
Bob Lanahan
Ten people were in attendance, two of whom joined at this meeting:
The meeting started with a report on this year’s Field Day and a discussion of what we should remember for next year. Then we discussed the budget, including plans for upgrading the A2 shack HF radio and antenna. Finally, HamCon is coming to Torrance this fall, September 15-17. Besides interesting talks, there will be an opportunity for an added cost to tour the radio room on the battleship Iowa. More information on all of these topics is available in the powerpoint presentation, which can be found on the club web site.
The meeting ended with a raffle. All members including the new members received a free raffle ticket. Victor won a Pixie transceiver, Don got the heat shrink tubing, Kirk got a helping hands tool, and Susan got the tape measure.
Wayne volunteered to do a presentation on his project to rebuild a 1928 HF radio. He is on the calendar for the October meeting.
Teresa Moore
We used a shorted SO239 connector to figure out which antenna is which and analyzed the antennas that we could.
The Antenna Cables that go to the shack are:
We connected antenna 8 to the 2m radio used for the morning nets, and the other 2m to the packet setup.
Conclusions:
We need a new HF antenna on A3 to replace the missing one. I recommend a multi-band vertical type due to the limited space on the penthouse. Your recommendations are welcome.
The club should also invest in a multi frequency antenna tester that can cover all the antennas we have. The AA-1400 Antenna Analyzer by RigExpert was recommended by Tom. It is capable of measuring from .1-1400 MHz and costs about $1079 (on Amazon).
73,
Kirk Crawford
EDIT:
Some Pictures of the HF Antenna Mounting point:
Audio Player
Members in attendance:
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.
Audio Player
AEA Amateur Radio Club meeting 4/28/16
Members in attendance:
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:
We are planning another Test of the HF rig on Wednesday the 22nd of April at 11:30 AM. If you want to help out please join us at the trailer. (West of A6.) We will test it with the buddipole and Crack IR antennas to see if they help out.
-Kirk
