Summit Sentinel, July 2004
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The Las Cumbres Amateur Radio Club Newsletter Summit Sentinel, July 2004 |
Contents of the Summit Sentinel, mailed to members July, 2004.
| July 2004 Volume 26, Issue 3 "From the Sierra to the Sea, ...This is K6FB repeater" |
Las Cumbres Amateur Radio Club P.O. Box 2415 Cupertino, CA 95015 http://k6fb.com |
Fifth Saturday Breakfast, Saturday, July 31, 2004, 8:30 AM. When there's a Fifth Saturday in any month we celebrate by having breakfast out! Join your fellow members, spouses, kids, and any interested guests, all are welcome! Come to the Hick'ry Pit in Campbell, across the street from the Pruneyard Shopping Center, 980 E Campbell Ave, near Bascom. See the locator map on the back cover of this Summit Sentinel or on the web page. Talk-in is available on K6FB repeaters. Alternate locations wanted! Do you have a favorite breakfast haunt? Let us know or better yet, volunteer to organize the October breakfast!
Pull out your PDA or calendar and note one remaining date for 2004: October 30… and Fifth Saturdays in 205: January 29, April 30, July 30, October 29, and December 31.
Summer Picnic, August 7th, Houge Park Los Gatos, 12:00 noon. See details and map below. Would you like to help plan or provision? Let us know!
If you are receiving this edition of the Summit Sentinel in the mail then consider yourself renewed for 2004. To date, the club roster shows 57 current members. Your renewal keeps K6FB on the air and Summit Sentinels in the mail. With this edition we say a fond farewell to our former members, and we wish them well!
Your club directors are hard at work planning for the Summer Picnic 2004. Plan to join us on Saturday, August 7 at Houge Park in Los Gatos at noon.
The club will provide hamburgers, hot dogs, and cold sodas for all. Plan to bring a picnic salad, side dish, or dessert item to share for 4-6 people. Family members are welcome to attend.
Directions: Take Hwy 85 to the South Bascom exit, just east of Hwy 17. Proceed north from the highway; look for a right turn onto White Oaks Ave. Proceed several blocks east to Twilight, and you should be at Houge Park. Look for cars that have antennas on top, and you're there! Talk-in will be available on K6FB repeaters. See you there!
- Dan, K6PRK
Our 220 repeater had a nagging problem that has been with the repeater for years. It seems that an adjacent channel input signal, if it were strong enough, would desense our machine. If users of adjacent channel repeaters would run enough power, it would knock the sensitivity of our 223.88 machine down and sometimes make it impossible to use. The desense would only happen when a high powered mobile or fixed station was accessing the nearby repeater.
Last month John, KJ6ZL found a Wacom 220 bandpass cavity on eBay. The cavity was obtained for our club. On Friday 06/18, Bob W6OPO, John KJ6ZL and I went up to the repeater to install the cavity. I tuned up the cavity and ran some tests on it. It only has a loss of 1dB at our input frequency and it has a 15 dB attenuation to adjacent channels. This will clear our adjacent channel problems. John fabricated a beautiful mounting bracket that was screwed beside our 220 MHz duplexers on the wall of the shack.
Bob W6OPO had his camera along. Just about the time that John touched the new filter with the jumper coax, Bob snapped a picture. The flash made both and John and I jump! At first I also thought that we had arced something. Bob's timing to snap the picture was perfect!
We finished up with readings of the watt-hour meter rolex replica watches and checking the battery voltages and water level in the batteries.
Upon trying the 220 machine from home, the new cavity filter made no difference in the 220 sensitivity but should eliminate the adjacent channel problems. The price of the cavity was a bargain at $89.00
Mission accomplished.
My thanks to KJ6ZL and W6OPO
Dan K6PRK, TCC
- Bob W6OPO
Treasury: Checking $1870.21 Saving $2867.42 Total $4737.63 Since April: Income: - Dues $1430 Expenses: - Dan PL box $80 - John Sisler 220 cavity $89 - NARCC dues $20 - Phone (2 months) $56 Bank of the West accounts are now closed.
- Dan K6PRK
I recently built a radio based on an article in a November 1943 Popular Mechanics magazine. It was built as close to the original article as possible. The carrying handle on the original article was a funky art deco plastic drawer handle. I made a substitute out of wood. I hope that it looks funky enough. I would have not started the project if I hadn't found a King Edwards cigar box (thanks to K6VIP).
The radio is a regenerative receiver that operates from a single 6 volt DC power supply. There is only 6 volts on the plates of the tubes! The original article used a couple of 6G6G tubes. With the help of a friend, I found 3 of them at the Livermore swap meet.
The radio works perfectly well with the original tubes, but works better with 6K6GT's. The price for this performance is higher filament currents. I got a wild idea and yanked the 12A6's out of a couple of ARC5-5 receivers and raised the voltage to 12 volts. Wow! did that make a large difference. The receiver really sings! I can even pick up a couple of local stations without any antenna at all.
This "technology" by today's standards is quite obsolete, but doing something the hard way is way cool.
(Editor's note: Dan has an interest in crystal set radios. See his web page for links on crystal set radios < http://www.k6prk.com/links_and_resources.htm >)
- Recalled by Bob W6OPO
On our Monday Night Net June 28th, Skip AA6WK, Jerry N6SWC and Roy KF6KVD told of their visits to field day events. Jerry told of seeing NBC Channel 11 filming at one site and later seeing it on TV. I worked a number of Field Day stations from the home station. The band conditions were good on 80, 40 and 20 meters. Signals were found everywhere. I used the "search and pounce" method seeking out stations. It was a pleasure working several YL and XYLs, good to hear their voices on SSB.
Bob W6OPO and Dan K6PRK have spent some time to revamp and update the New Member documents, including the repeater code sheet. If you need a refresher for either of these documents then please contact Bob W6OPO
Two new members have joined our ranks. Please welcome Joe Dixon K6DZO of Portola Valley and Dan Rosa KE6EWA of Pacific Grove. It's great to have you here!
The current club roster is attached. Please place this in a safe place for your future reference. This is exclusively for your use as a club member. Please ensure that this data does not fall into inappropriate hands!
Editor: Jey KQ6DK
2004-05 Club Directors
PresidentKen Carey, KN6CKVoice Repeaters (All are linked)
- K6FB/R: 145.450 MHz (-) PL=100
- K6FB/R: 442.575 MHz(+) PL=100
- K6FB/R: 223.880 MHz(-) PL=100
Packet
- K6FB-1: Digipeater: 145.050 MHz
- K6FB-2: Bulletin Board: 145.05 MHz
- K6FB-7 Node (alias LCARC): 145.050 MHz
- K6FB-5 tcp/ip "losgatos" [44.4.8.1], 145.750 MHz
© 2004, Las Cumbres Amateur Radio Club