Chippewa Valley VHF Contesters
Date:
April 24th, 2004
Meeting place:
1st Lutheran Church,
White Bear Lake, MN
Time:
9:00 am, CDT
Members Present:
David Aho
N9TTX
Justin Glasener
K9MU
Ray Johnson
W9RAY
John
McDonald
KB9TLV
Robert Rohrssen
KB9PJL
Charlie Betz
N0AKC
Callsign list for club vanity call:
The
callsign of KC9FTJ
has been issued to us as a club callsign. Ugh...horrid
call, anyhow, Here is the list of calls that we have mentioned for possible
vanity calls…not in any order. I would appreciate feedback on your favorites (Please limit
to a list of 15)…please send to direct to my email addy of n9ttx@yahoo.com
or to the club reflector. In a week
I will compile the favorites into a numbered list and then send in the vanity
application with those as the preferred calls.
Also, as points to look at, a call that sounds good on code…good
rhythm, (preferably a call with no
“K” as the last letter for example) and one that has decent phonetics for voice.
Here is the list. Thanks to Justin for going and pulling the lists of 2X1’s
and 1X2’s.
·
NV9V
·
K9CMM
·
WI9D
·
WI9VC
·
WI9VHF
·
N9VC
·
K9CVV
·
K9CVC
·
W9CVC
·
K9BOO
·
N9MWC
·
K9UHF
·
N9VVC
·
KS9B
·
KU9B
·
NM9B
·
AK9C
·
NO9C
·
WO9C
·
KN9D
·
NV9D
·
WO9D
Antennas Tested:
The
following antennas were tested (that I know of) at the ranges at Aurora.
I am not sure as to what antennas were done offhand as I was flitting
from place to place, but these are what I remember…and also IF I remember a
gain measurement. If I get the gain
wrong or forget someone’s antenna, it is because of the being in only one
place at once and by not writing the gains down (including mine) on a separate
piece of paper…mainly the latter. Keep
an eye on the NLRS page for the official results later on.
These are just to give an idea of what was tested and the ballpark of
what we got. The results will be
listed by 1) dBd gain from the reference if remembered, and 2) gain in dBd as
corrected. If I remember right, the
902 stuff is done in dBi not dBd. Here
goes.
Antenna
Member
Results
From Ref. Corrected
144 Mhz
Darrell’s Loop
Tested
- 5 dBd 4.9
dBd
144 Mhz
Dave’s 14 el. Yagi
Tested +3
dBd??
12.9 dBd??
220 Mhz
Al’s yagi
Tested
+4 dBd?? 13.7
dBd??
220 Mhz
10 el ugly HB
Tested
+2 dBd?? 11.7
dBd??
432 Mhz
Darrell’s loop
Tested
- 9 dBd 0.9
dBd
432 Mhz
Darrell’s 17 el.
Tested +4
dBd??
13.9 dBd
432 Mhz
Dave’s 17 el
Tested
+4 dBd?? 13.9
dBd
432 Mhz
Ray’s 21? El
Tested
+9 dBd?? 18.9
dBd
432 Mhz
Dave’s 25 el K1FO
Tested
+9 dBd?? 18.9
dBd
902 Mhz
Dave’s Looper Tested
??????
8.4 dBi??
902 Mhz
Justin’s 16 footer
Tested
??????
17.0 dBi??
902 Mhz
Bob’s 16 footer
Tested
??????
8.4 dBi??
902
Mhz
dish
Tested
??????
8.0 dBi??
Soapbox:
Well
here we go, although there was no hardcore meeting, we did sit around after
lunch and chat a bit about things, and the general feel for Aurora was again
very positive. Here is the day’s
events broke down into 2 sections before and after lunch (Inside and outside).
Outside
The
swapmeet/antenna testing/show & tell session in the parking lot was a bit
confused at first. The church
people apparently had a convention scheduled that morning also, so we were
constantly fighting the people who wanted to drive and park in the middle of the
swap area and antenna ranges. The
weather was decent and, contrary to the forecast, it did not rain.
Although the wind was blowing like crazy, and a bit cool, the day was a
nice sunny one. I set up the porta tower for show and tell and got a lot of
comments and questions about it. I
think it was a hit. The antenna
ranges were set up with 144 Mhz through 432 at Donn’s bench and 902 and above
at Bob Wesslund’s Bench. Although
some of the antennas were a disappointment (my 902 looper and 10 el 220, Bob’s
dish and 16 footer), at least some idea were given for improvement/problem
solving (at least in my case..with different feed elements on both).
The 16 footer 902 that we worked on at Antenna day was tested and
although I cannot remember the measurements, I guess they were very favorable. I never got a chance to get my 1296 stuff out there to be
measured…too busy helping Donn at the other bench. The show and tell session in the parking lot was centered
around the collective vehicles of mine (porta-tower); Mike, KM0T, and his set of
dishes (I think for 2.4 Ghz); and the drool puddles were all over the parking
lot next to Jon, W0AMT, and his rover mobile.
All I can say is “slurp” WOW!!!!!
And he takes it all apart and such 5 times a year.
Inside
The
presentations and the meetings were very entertaining and informational.
The best talk I think was given by Matt (KA0PQW) on power line noise.
He is a very energetic and entertaining speaker…not to mention a guy
who does not hesitate to speak his mind. Here
are the notes I jotted down from his presentation about his problems with power
line noise and how he essentially single handedly took on the job of getting as
he says “Every power pole, transformer, and line in town replaced at least
once.” His tips and such are
here:
Power line noise:
When
raining, the noise goes away or the sound goes away. This usually points toward a ground problem with the power
line system.
A
buzzing may denote power line interference across the whole spectrum.
Direction finding the noise source is an undertaking.
Direction Finding:
AM
radios are NOT a good way to DF. Use
sideband instead. He uses an old
beat up SSB 2 meter rig with a Ľ wave 2-meter whip mounted to the back of the
set…and a portable battery pack. Hold
the antenna horizontal and straight in front of you.
This uses your body as a reflector, and because of the way the antenna is
held, it is very directional. He
noted that the overhead projector was making noise by swinging in an arc, and
the noise got louder as he came near the projector.
Track
at the highest frequency available. 220
Mhz or 2 meters are best. One can
track on 6 meters also, but the antenna is longer and not as easy to handle.
Once you get close to the noise source, if you can switch up the bands to
find the noise…but 2 meters seems to be very easy to use (from his
demonstration).
If
you are walking down the street with your DF gear and the noise is going up and
down, he said this is a propagation issue.
When the noise becomes constant, this is near the noise source.
If you find a pole or some such thing that you think is causing the
noise, use a rubber mallet to hit the pole, or shake the pole or guy wire.
(Be careful…power lines are dangerous you know).
If you hear a major noise change (popping, crackling, change in
pitch/volume), you have most likely found the source.
Possible culprits:
Usually
Insulators, grounding problems, lightning arrestors, or hardware are the
problem, not usually the transformers as is commonly thought.
Streetlights will cause problems. This
includes bad ballasts, and a “shot out” light where the filament is still
activated, but not in the vacuum of the light anymore.
Conclusion:
As
far as dealing with the power companies, if you can, find the source yourself
first, THEN call. Be nice on the
phone, but also be persistent. Do
not threaten, but try and work with them. Try and get past the “script-
readers” on the phone and talk to a tech if you can…if nothing is resolved
go further up the ladder if you can. Go out to the site if you can and help them
find the problem. Remember
also that a lot of the linemen track with an AM radio and may not know a lot
about the tech side of what causes what or DFing in general.
Help them out and be nice. It has taken him 20 years of dealing with the
company there, but now they know that is Matt calls, he knows what he is talking
about and that the issue will be looked into.
Barry,
VE4MA, gave a talk on BPL. What is
it?? BPL is a system that enables delivery of high-speed broadband
data over medium or low voltage power lines.
He works for the Power company in Canada, and being a ham he is
straddling the fence so to speak. I
will not go into any of the details I took down as after talking with him, he
said that for legalities and all that he wanted to keep the talk off public
domain or anything like that. Needless
to say, that tests are being done, and some of the basic past experiences and
studies available are all overseas and due to their configuration of
distribution there, the setup is completely different.
As is pointed out in other sources other than his talk though, right now
BPL is available and is legal to set up…there is just no industry standard
yet. It was very informative from
the Canadian look at things, and the presentation was very good.
Unfortunately, I can only remember some things about it…I couldn’t
write fast enough so I gave up, and he does not want to give copies of his
presentation out…which is understandable in his case.
WB0LJC
gave an interesting talk on radio mobile. Radio
mobile deluxe is a radio propagation and visual mapping freeware by VE2DBE.
The website is at: http://www.cplus.org/rmw/english1.html
The latest version is 5.5. other
info is as follows:
http://www.cplus.org/rmw/howto.html
how to run it.
Look for basic info in the
G8GTZgetting_started.doc file after you have installed it in your computer.
http://www.cplus.org/rmw/getting_started.html
http://pizon.org/rmw/index.html
By using this software I am
gathering you can determine what kind of a chance at a contact you can have
between two points…it uses geographic data and elevations etc…to determine
the possible paths and contacts between two or more stations.
I do have a sheet that I can copy off if anyone wants it. Just
let me know. I should have grabbed
a few as they were being passed around.
Jon,
W0ZQ gave a presentation on antenna modeling.
If I recall the name of the program is EZNEC. I think it costs about $100 for the program, and seems to be
a very powerful program. One can
put a stack of antennas up and see what the performance of the entire system
will do as each antenna interacts with the others.
Verticals, horizontals, (I am guessing quads etc also)…and traps/coils,
& etc… can be utilized and modeled.
Basic
equation for wire dipoles is: Length
in feet = 468/mHz.
Think
in straight wires, not quad or loop when using the program
Gain ends up in dBi…about 2 dB higher than dBd.
Another
Talk was given by Bruce, W9FZ, about the lake Superior 10GHz weekend.
Between the pictures and the presentation, I think interest was sparked
into this band. I think eventually
a few of us here in Eau Claire will be getting up there.
Conclusion:
We
all had a great time at Aurora again this year, and the
information/presentations/show and tells were excellent also.
The mind was definitely spinning in overdrive after the gathering.
After the conference it looks like minds are also getting geared to go up
to 10GHz…as noted by the club order going into DEMI.
As far as the overall presentations and events for Aurora, go to the NLRS
website and more information can be found there, as well and the eventual
postings of the official antenna gain measurements.
As
an aside also, and pertaining to 10GHz and the dish network dishes….Ray, or
whomever, find out the diagram/dimensions for the feedhorn modification for
those dishes, and I will machine them out to what they need to be.
If a bunch of the feedhorn assemblies are gathered up, I can do a small
run setup at work someday…just a thought.
I have one here also, and as far as I know, Ray and Justin have at least
one each, and I think Bob said he has a bunch of them in the yard.
Another note:
Darrell
has applied for and received his new vanity call letters.
He was KB9LVK, and has now officially changed to K9AIH.
So if any of you hear that call out there, it is Darrell.
New Member:
Scott
Littfin
N0EDV
Glad to have you
aboard…*S*
Aurora concluded at about 6pm CDT.