John KX4O & Andy K1RA present VaQP Info

Andy K1RA and John KX4O presented information about the upcoming 2012 Virginia QSO Party. The presentation covered general information including dates and times, rules, categories, changes, contest exchanges and scoring. Highlights included the FARA club and its members past performance to include awards received and various rankings. Finally, contest ‘hints & kinks’ were presented to give members an idea what to do pre-contest, contest and post-contest weekend to ensure they were prepared for the upcoming radio event.

If you missed the meeting or would like to download and review the PowerPoint presentation (12MB) and various VaQP resources, please click here.

Also discussed at this meeting was the upcoming Roving Club Station. This is a work in progress and is expected to be a monthly Saturday event. The event will involve one club member offering up their radio station to new comers and radio-less club members. The idea is to offer direction, the ability to get on the air and make contacts in a controlled mentored environment. Please keep an eye on the web site for further info.

Harv K2PI presents overview of LDE's

Also at the January meeting Harv K2PI presented information regarding Long Delayed Echoes or LDE’s a phenomena that causes radio signals to be returned to the sender after delays of more than 2 seconds. Harv discussed and presented slides covering definitions, history and audio which demonstrated the more common short/normal echoes one here due to backscatter, or EME as well as some documented LDE’s. His presentation sparked interest and comments from the entire club, both in trying to explain and detect the events as well as presenting their own first hand experiences with such strange radio events.

You can download Harv’s presentation here.

Harv K2PI presents info on his DX world travels

This October Harv K2PI presented a pictorial of his DX travels from over 27 yrs. He discussed the challenges of operating from both common and rare DX locations. Harv covered some excellent information including his 7 steps for success when considering operating from abroad.

To download and review Harv’s PPT presentation (4MB) click here.

Mark KD6AKC presents info on various emergency related services

At the September meeting Mark KD6AKC presented information on several amateur radio emergency related services. This included coverage of ARES, Skywarn, RACES, NTS, ARRL, FARA and MARS, which was covered by Larry K4LLQ. Mark presented both the unique aspects and capabilities of each of these services, as well as the areas in which they overlap.

If you would like to download or review the PPT presentation (2MB) please click here.

Energy Losses of Various UHF Connectors (Red) vs. others (Blue)

John, kx4o, presented measurements made on several examples of ‘UHF’ (PL-259 and SO-239) connectors alongside SMA, N, BNC and TNC connectors. The above charts show the UHF connectors in Red, the other connectors in Cyan and a reference baseline in Black. A particular focus is the idea mismatch loss results from the connector’s deviation from 50 ohms which won’t necessarily show up as heat loss… a concept unknown by many hams.

Conclusions include:

• ‘UHF’ connectors perform adequately at 6m, but begin to have measurable issues at 2m and above.
• There is a large variation in tested ‘UHF’ devices.
• N, SMA, BNC and TNC connectors were consistently superior to ‘UHF’ connectors.
• No UHF connector performed near as well as the SMA, N, BNC or TNC connectors.

The ‘UHF’ connectors show some promise in the way some use them at 2m and above. However, the reasons to accept any performance penalty, however small, are made moot by the introduction of the newer, post WWII, N, BNC, TNC, SMA and other modern connectors.

Don helping Scouts with Contacts

Donald R. Maziarz, 61 of Warrenton, VA became a Silent Key on July 25, 2011 at Fauquier Hospital after a courageous battle with cancer. He was born on March 24, 1950 in Utica, NY. In 1974 he graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology as an Electronic Engineer. He began a long and distinguished federal government service career in 1974 with the Department of Defense until his retirement in 2005. He later worked for Decisive Analytics where he retired in March, 2011. Don was an avid general aviation pilot for many years, a member of Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), a lifelong amateur radio operator, member and former president of the Fauquier Amateur Radio Association plus a lifelong member of the Amateur Radio Relay League.

Don was a friend to all in the Fauquier Amateur Radio Association. He loved his club and kept a good watch over us newer folks as we continued the growth of the organization he helped mature.

The above picture nicely sums up Don’s ham activities with our club… sharing amateur radio with others.

He lived life to the very end eagerly participating in Field Day 2011… exactly one month ago. He helped set up Tom’s new aluminum mast for one of the stations. Then, providing his usual superb capabilities on Phone, Don was 4th out of over thirty operators in number of contacts made and 1st in HF Phone contacts.

We rejoice Don is free from the suffering of his illness, but will miss him greatly.

Eric W4EON and John KX4O present SOTA and ATGP info

At the July meeting we were presented information on two ham radio related activities. The first was a presentation by Eric W4EON on SOTA, or Summits on the Air. Eric provided information on several of his personal adventures to local summits as well as information to find and track other SOTA operators around the world. He discussed activators and chasers, the frequencies and the online tools they use to promote their on-the-air events. Eric shared several pictures of some recent trips as well as his backpack containing his portable station including radio, antenna, power and support equipment.

The other presentation was by John KX4O. This included information on the upcoming (July 24th) APRS Golden Packet event. John explained how every year for the past 3 years APRS inventor Bob WB4APR has organized a group of hams carrying APRS equipment to travel to destinations along the Appalachian Trail. Once the hams are positioned in one of the fifteen spots along the trail between Georgia and Maine, they attempt to deliver a APRS data gram packet up and down the coast. John presented information on equipment and frequencies employed, as well as VHF propagation concerns and radio mobile tools used in computing line-of-site and path loss.

To download and review their PPT presentation (5MB) please click here.

Andy and Dylan make QSOs at Field Day

During the last weekend of June, local Radio operators from the Fauquier Amateur Radio Association (FARA) demonstrated short wave and emergency communications at Crockett Park to many citizens including several young visitors. The members rolled out five stations: three shortwave, one high band (VHF) and one station reserved specifically for visitors. FARA was not alone during this event as the scene of antennas galore in fields was repeated at hundreds of other station locations all across the United States and Canada. All the stations were participating in an annual event known as “Field Day.” Field Day is a competitive operating event sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) and has occurred annually since the early 20th century. The competitive nature nurtures a strong spirit among the participants to contact as many other stations as possible within a 24 hour period. The intensity of the pursuit is tempered by the outreach goals built into the event rules. The Fauquier hams focused heavily on exposing the public to ham radio with the roll out of the “Get On The Air” (GOTA) station. Of the 35 radio operators in attendance, 14 visitors operated the GOTA station with the help of a FARA member. The youngest operator, Dylan, worked hard on contacting other stations until 10:30 pm Saturday evening to reach the milestone 20 contacts where the rules kick in a double bonus for youth operators.

Near the GOTA station, emergency radio techniques were in full demo showcasing the latest digital radio techniques. Not tied to any infrastructure, amateur radio regularly demonstrates reliable communications without need of central resources other than the stations at each end point of the communications link.

To see pictures and videos of the weekends event click here and here and here.

FARA performed well beating nine of its previous scores in the last twelve years. The score was helped considerably with a rare radio propagation condition, called an “opening,” to Texas making contacts in the Very High Frequency (VHF) band just like they were next door. The opening lasted from Saturday afternoon till late evening. A VHF opening like this is so rare, it has not occurred on Field Day weekend since 2000.

FARA members enjoyed meeting those who accepted the invitation to come out to Crockett Park to see what Amateur Radio is all about.

Our weekend contacts breakdown by the hour thus…

QSOs by Band by the Hour.

Six meters was an eye opener this year.

QSOs by Mode by the Hour

QSOs by Station by the Hour

Stations this year include:

• Station 1 – Elecraft K3 with 40-10m dipole
• Station 2 – Ten-Tec Omni 7 with 80m-10m OCF Windom
• Station 3 – Icom 756 Pro with Alpha Delta DX-LB+
• VHF – Yaesu FT-847 with 2m, 6m and 70 cm beams
• GOTA – Icom 746 (non pro) with multi-band ZS6BKW
• Natural Power Station – Elecraft K2 (KDSP2, KAT2) using GOTA ZS6BKW and portable solar array.

Solar array used for Natural Power QSOs with Elecraft K2.

The solar array was connected to the K2 with only a regulator inline. The K2 worked FB using straight solar power with no capacitive or other energy storage.

Thanks goes to all members of the Fauquier Amateur Radio Association and, most importantly, all the YLs and XYLs who provided countless resources to make for a memorable and fun Field Day 2011.

FARA President Ross Primrose, left, accepts the Combined Club plaque from the Vienna Wireless Society

In addition to the two club plaques, several members won awards for individual efforts making a total of seven awards for FARA.

Several other individual plaques were won by FARA members. Photo by W4NHJ.

Winning efforts include:

• Virginia Single Operator Low Power – Andy Zwirko K1RA as KW4VA – Note Andy beat out the Single Operator High Power score quite handily.
• Virginia Single Operator Phone/Mixed QRP – Ross Primrose N4RP
• Virginia Mobile Single Operator – Greg Moyers KI4ZKJ as K4G/M
• Single Operator VHF Only – Ross Primrose N4RP
• Single Operator Virginia Counties/Cities Contacted – Andy Zwirko – K1RA as KW4VA

W1RT Rover Sept 2009 ARRL VHF Contest

Andy K1RA presented unofficial Virginia QSO Party results for the 2011 contest held in March. It appears FARA and its members may have earned 7 plaques this year. The tentative plaque breakdown appears to be: Club Combined Score (FARA), Club VA QSOs Only (FARA), VA Single Op QRP Phone/Mixed (Ross N4RP), VA Single Op Low Power (Andy K1RA/KW4VA), VA Mobile Single Op (Greg KI4ZKJ/K4G), Single Op VHF Only (Ross N4RP), Single Op VA C&IC (Andy K1RA/KW4VA). Congratulations to all who submitted scores and look to attend the Manassas Hamfest in June for the official award ceremony.

Andy also provided the club with a presentation on VHF contest roving and ex-FARA member John W1RT and his “Luxury Rover” and its history. The presentation covered ARRL VHF contest rules with specific attention paid to rovers. A pictorial of John and Andy’s adventure in the ARRL Sept. 2009 VHF contest was also presented. You can download the PPT presentation (66MB) by clicking here.