Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society
Your Frequency for Tallahassee Amateur Radio
UPDATE Jan 6 2022
DUE TO COVID, THE FRIDAY LUNCH HAS BEEN SUSPENDED AT THIS TIME.
The TARS Lunch Bunch is now meeting for Friday lunch at Kayce’s Country Buffet, 11:30 am.
Come out and join us for food and friendship.
Kayce’s is on N. Monroe St. next to Pep Boys Tire & Auto Center.
See Kayce’s website for additional details: https://www.kaceysbuffet.com
During the April 2021 TARS meeting we were blessed to have Dr. Francisco Reyes – KK4AAV – University of Florida, Dept. of Astronomy talk on Radio Astronomy touching on the following topics:
TARS March 2021 Presentation: More and more spectrum availability to wireless service providers over the years has opened doors to enhanced communication standards and applications. We will see increased throughput speeds, lower latency, and the ability to provide connection support to larger amounts of devices in small areas with increased bandwidth, flexibility in transmission, edge computing, and massive MIMO. At the same time, the telecommunication industry’s infrastructure needs to be built out to be able to support the equipment density needed by the wireless service providers to fully achieve the leap from 4G to 5G.
Crown Castle is one of the leaders in providing that network of communications infrastructure. John Hellmer, Senior RF Engineer from the Crown Castle Nation RF Engineering team, who will leverage over 10 years of RF Engineering testing, design, and optimization experience in the telecommunications industry in leading us through the evolution to 5G.
The Presentation given by Anthony Luscre on “Ideas and Resources for Growing Youth Involvement in Amateur Radio” is now online. The Presentation is at http://tiny.cc/yiar
The presentation given by Paul, KN4TRT on the “JS8 digital mode and JS8Call” is now available online at youtube.
A highlight from the November 2020 TARS meeting was the election of club officers for the forthcoming year. To begin the process, we solicited additional nominations/volunteers for office. Hearing no response, I proceeded to present the slate I had for a vote. The slate was as follows:
A vote was then taken. I asked Net Control to select two members who were paid TARS members. I then asked each of them to vote on the presented slate. After both members voted acceptance on the slate, I asked the assembled membership if any of them wanted to vote against the presented slate. No response was forthcoming. So, based on a 2-1 vote, I declared the presented slate as accepted by the club and concluded my segment on the election of TARS officers.
I would like to congratulate Don, Tom, Todd, Doug, and Chief on their selections to their respective positions. Also, on behalf of the club, I would like to thank each of you for stepping forward to serve TARS for the forthcoming year. Without your support, this club would not be able to continue.
73,
Chuck AI4KA
ai4ka@arrl.net
Roland K3RA is starting a General Class course on Zoom beginning Thursday, November 5, and running for 9 sessions. Due to holiday breaks, the course ends January 21. Sessions will start at 6:30 Easter Standard Time (2330 UTC), and run 3 hours. No charge, of course. These are the classes sponsored by the National Electronics Museum that we have been holding for years. Please publicize this with anyone you know whom you think would be interested. Those wishing to sign up should email Roland at roland.anders@comcast.net.
The presentation Gerry, WA6POZ gave on “Steps to Successful QSLing” is now available online at youtube.
https://youtu.be/WTExTeBMJaM
It’s not a contest, I know, I know, but everyone wants to get as many points as they can on Field Day. Here are some easy points you can rack up without trying hard:
100 points for a formal message to your ARRL Section Manager or Section Emergency Coordinator: It has to be in the form of a standard ARRL Radiogram and transmitted using the radio (no Internet). The easy way to do this is send a radiogram using WINLINK to kk4bfn@arrl.net or k4hbn@arrl.net (7.3.5)
100 points for copying the W1AW Field Day Bulletin. The schedule for the broadcast is at: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Field-Day/2020/4_37-2020%20W1AW%20Sked.pdf (7.3.9):
100 points per transmitter if you are running off of emergency power (if you are operating from your home station that means you are running as a E class not a D class) (7.3.1)
50 points for turning in your entry via the web app at: https://field-day.arrl.org/fdentry.php (7.3.14)
And remember to get your power multiplier. A 100watt station gets a power multiplier of 2 (7.2.4)
It is a good idea to look over the rules at: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Field-Day/2020/1_61-2020%20Rules.pdf to see if there are any other rules that might influence how you operate your station.
If you need help/advise during the event, try calling on the 147.030 repeater
So good luck, be safe and have a great time
73
Tuning Tips for SSB
Stan, K4SBZ
Here are a few random tips for tuning in stations on SSB during Field Day (and during contests). They do not apply to other modes.
Precision. Most stations operate on even multiples of .25 MHz. For example, 14241.000, 14241.25, 14241.50, 14241.75, 14242.00. Some spotting stations will erroneously spot at 14241.1 or 14241.6. .25 and .75 are problems with the DX Cluster. The only report to one decimal place, therefore, they report as .20, .30 .06 or .08. Follow the spot and then correct to the proper frequency or you will be 10 kHz off. (Sometimes stations do try to squeeze in between the .25 frequencies, especially operators that are accustomed to other modes.)
Tuning Step. If your receiver has a tuning step, set it to .05 (50 kHz). Setting it to .100 will make it impossible to tune the .25 and .75 stations precisely. Setting it to .01 will make tuning slow and is unnecessary.
Tuning Upper/Lower Sidebands. Stations operating above 10 MHz will normally use upper sideband (USB); stations below use lower sideband (LSB). When tuning through a band, it is usually easier to tune in stations as you approach them from their operating frequency in the direction of the sideband. For example, approach a station on 7.214 from the upper side down his operating frequency (7.214.2, 7.214.15, 7.214.10, 7.214.05 and stop at 7.214.0). For USB, start low and tune up.
Automatic Gain Control (AGC). Most radios now have automatic gain control (AGC). For SSB, setting you AGC to medium or slow will give the best results. Try it on a loud (but not blasting) signal to see what you prefer.
Bandwidth. Remember that an SSB signal is 2.7 kHz (2700 Hz.) wide. If you have a bandwidth control/bandpass filter, setting it to 3.0 or 2.7 would be normal. With a crowded band, setting it at 2.0 or even slightly lower will partially suppress stations that are near the one you want to copy. Setting it too narrow will distort the sound.
Understanding the SSB bandwidth will guide you on where to try to transmit if you are in the running mode (calling CQ). You should pick a frequency that won’t interfere with other stations and where other stations won’t interfere with you. If someone is on 7.214 MHz, you shouldn’t get any closer than 7.122 below or 7.216 above the station. If you could go a full 3.0 kHz away from him, you would be giving even more room for your 2.7 kHZ signal. You need, of course, to check that there is enough room on the other side of you so as not to interfere with or be interfered by another nearby station. Bottom line is that you need a 4-6 kHz wide opening where there are no signals. You should then ask, “Is this frequency in use?” at least twice before operating.