The Koolau Amateur Radio Club Newsletter for June 1999

KARC exhibit, wb6fzh,kh7ho,wh7t,ah6oz

KARC Display at Kailua Intermediate School in April, WB6FZH,KH7HO,WH7T,AH6OZ

-ANNOUNCEMENTS-

NEXT MEETING: Saturday, June 12, 1999, at Ho'omaluhia Park Visitor's Center at 9:30 AM- Be there!

Our Guest Speaker is going to be Francis Blatt, KH6KH, who present a slide show on "Ham Radio in Hawaii Since 1930." We are very lucky to be able to share his view of radio in the islands with us at our June meeting.

4S7RF, Romesh, from Siri Lanka is attending a professional tourism class at Manoa for a few weeks and has been invited to the meeting. How do we rate such visitors?... Romesh found your KARC WEBSITE from home in Siri Lanka.

The Exchange Box full of magazines, catalogs, parts and books will be there. Come and take some of these magazines and items home or donate some for others. "Show and Tell" needs you to bring something from your shack to show those attending, while you tell about it. Remember, you can not win the prizes, contribute your special ideas and catch up on the latest from your ham radio friends if you do not attend.

Thanks to Albert, WH6CVZ, for bringing the coffee & donuts, and those that set-up the meeing room and help keep it clean!

KARC President, Greg Greenwood, WB6FZH, says this is the meeting to turn out for, especially if you have not been to the club in a while. This is Greg's last meeting as president, and he has lots of prizes, guests, and some kind of a secret that he will not even talk about. (Greg, not talk that is worth the trip to see alone...)

-NEWS-Features-CONTESTS-Ham Ads-MINUTES-Articles-PHOTOS-

MINUTES- Here is what you missed at the May 8th Meeting...

FIELD DAY '99- Bring a friend to Field Day

Jerry- WH6BKQ, and Walt- AH6OZ, spoke about the overall plans for Field Day. $100 was voted for FD expenses, and KARC Pres. WB6FZH- Greg, shamelessly pitched (begged) for members to consider FD 99 donations at the June Meeting. Jerry-WH6BKQ expects the local newspaper to provide their usual good coverage.

The KARC single transmitter, battery powered station will be using "NA" as the Logging Program. A nearby guest station for operation under personal callsigns will be provided for members and guests in case the main station is in use.

The plan will be to set-up on the Friday before and have everything in place ready to operate on Saturday. The take-down will be on Sunday immediately after the contest. Mike-AH7R and Walt-KH6OZ are donating new tarps for the sunshade and the weather shields. Thanks!

Contact Walt if you are interested in operating the main station, and contact Jerry or Walt if you can help with any aspect of Field Day. Most important... come to Field Day and bring someone that you think might be interested in Ham Radio.

KARC Members Are "Radio Active" at Fishing Day!

KARC was well represented during the June 5th Fishing Day Activity. This high profile activity goes along way to preserve our special relationship with the Botanical Garden. Len, KH6NFN, a regular for several years at these events was assisted by Greg, WB6FZH/KH6. Jerry, WH6BKQ, is usually found at this and other events, but was called to work and could not attend.

During the Traffic Control, Greg took 5 minutes to assemble the 2 piece dualband beam and plug together the RF cables and preamplifier power. He listened on a portable scanner, while transmitting with a 1 or 5 watt output 2m HT. The satellite showed up on schedule, not with a footprint including the US mainland, but the signals were loud and clear up and back to the AO-27 Satellite on low and high power levels. Greg then put everything back in a small bag and resumed the days activity.

Amateur Radio License Testing

After the May 8th meeting, AH6HH, Sid and his W5YI affiliated group of KARC members; KL7W,KH6BI,WB6FZH & AH6OZ tested several applicants resulting in upgrades, new elements and new licenses. The next test will be following the July 1999, meeting. Contact Sid with your questions about this test or future tests at 261-7916.

KARC is one of the handful of clubs with a link on the Pacific Division Amateur Radio Testing Page at the ARRL PD site. We are ofcourse also on the Pacific Section Site also listing testing opportunities and VEs.

NOMINATIONS & ELECTION- Come Vote & See The KARC Railroad Run...

The KARC Elections are in June. Please give some thought to helping the club by participating as an officer. The present and past officers will do everything to help you. There is plenty to do, appoint your friends to positions of importance, take contributions for your run for office, hire your own interns, if they do too good of a job, just do not confirm them. We have elected postions, appointed positions and many semi-official positions that have exciting titles. See the September '98 KARC News for the list.

SLATE OF OFFICERS

Contact Howard Williams, Program Chairman, or any KARC officer for details. Bring your ideas and enthusiasm to the June meeting!

Remember, as a KARC officer you will be given the secret KARC Officers hand-signal. This carefully guarded secret and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee or juice at most establishements on Oahu.

REMEMBER...If you do not attend meetings, you might not be there to make your nomination speech or decline. You do not have to be present to win and your mileage may vary.

KH6OS CALLSIGN WILL BE New KARC CLUB CALLSIGN

At the April Meeting, the club voted to change the KH6J callsign to KH6OS, in memory of Tom Hori, longtime KARC member. KH6OS has been used for many years at KARC Field Day. At the May meeting, Greg-WB6FZH/KH6, reported that he had appointed Sid, AH6HH, Extra Class Licensee, interim Trustee (Thanks Sid!) in order to expidite the FCC paperwork. Greg is handling the paperwork at this stage, and when the license is transfered to Sid, the procedure is that the new trustee will file for Tom's Call through the Vanity Program.

Walt, AH6OZ, wants to secure the KH6J callsign for the New Koolau Contest Club if possible. The current FCC rules for vanity callsigns are quite rigid, but Bill Cross (you see his name in QST) at the FCC has been assisting KARC, and made a suggestion that may help Walt to secure the KH6J callsign for the Koolau Contest Club. We will be using KH6J at Field Day this year.

ON THE AIR...

Local TV personality and KARC member, Al Kaopuiki- WH6CVZ, upgraded (again)! and his father in law Eddie Boswell will be shortly on the air as KARC's newest TECH plus member, with the morse code almost mastered.

Sid- AH6HH, and Greg- WB6FZH, have been digipeating off of the MIR space station when it goes by. Greg was suprised by a message in his packet TNC mailbox from Ray, NH6RZ, in Mililani. Ray connected to Greg's mailbox via MIR Space Station while he was digipeating to Sid.. This is the same technolgy that allowed Greg and Sid to digipeat to the US Mainland a few months ago. Figures Greg would be getting messages from outer space..

There is a New Section on KARC Website Homepage... HOT TOPICS It's first topic page is a follow-up to Walt, AH6OZ's PSK31 primer at the May Meeting. Those links that were up on the board, and suggested operating frequencies are listed, along with KARC Sponsored PSK31 contest later this year is all there. More "Hot Topics" to come.

CONTESTS- Check QST & World Radio for details!

JUNE- VHF QSO Party and Field Day!

SWAP, SELL & TRADE- Your FREE Advertisement here!

CONSTRUCTION CORNER- Part 2Planning your Vehicle Pack, Personal Emergency Pack & Home Supplies in July KARC NEWS this issue full!

Thanks to Peter, NH6VB, for his new "Satellite Corner" a regular feature in KARC News...Now...Heeeeeres's Peter!

SPACE & Satellite NEWS- OUT IN SPACE-The Satellite Corner- By Peter Scheller, NH6VB

This is a new column in the KARC Bulletin and is directed to those of you who are the proud recipients of a "HAM TICKET" but under the impression that your privileges end on the local repeater. This is far from the truth. As a "Technician" you are a valuable asset to the Amateur Radio Community with full privileges above 30 MHZ. Sure, VHF and UHF frequencies do not have the "skip" of the HF frequencies and therefore not usable for long distance communication. That used to be true once upon a time. All that changed with a small artificial object circling the earth, emitting beep beep beep and scared the living daylights out of most of us. Especially the politicians. All of a sudden money was made available and the exploration of a possibility having satellites in space has begun. This of course was in the beginning a pure military undertaking with military objectives in mind. But not for long. The amateur community went to work to put a communications satellite into orbit for their own use and a brand new chapter of amateur communications begun. There was success and failures. But mainly success and we are reaping the rewards of the new era, Satellite Communications.

So, what is out there, and how can we use it? What equipment do we need to be part of this exciting aspect of amateur radio ?. Very little. Most of us already have the basic components to receive orbiting satellites. Almost everyone of us has a dual band HT hanging on our belt, and with it the capability to work the repeater in the sky, A-27. A common HF receiver capable of receiving the upper 10 Meter Band (29 MHZ) is all you need to receive the RS series satellites. You have to be able to receive before you can transmit ! .

In the next column we will explore A-27 and the way how to access it. After we have all the basics down we will try to communicate with each other on this wonderful repeater in the sky. See you on the bird. 73 de Peter, NH6VB.

KARC & TRANS PACIFIC SAIL RACE...Lunch, T-Shirt and HF/VHF Marine Radio

KARC V.P. Walt-AH6OZ, needs volunteers to monitor and operate marine communications to the sailboats closing on Hawaii. They will be checking in at 100mi, 25mi, KOKO Head and & Finish Line! The frequencies used will probably be HF4146, HF8294, VHF CH69/71 and others to be announced. This activity will take place about July 7th or 8th. A Commerative T-Shirt, lunch and a parking pass is provided. The primary activity is logging the checkins, monitoring progress and safety. 24hrs of shifts will be covered.

QRP COLUMN- Will Return in July, space Permitting!

Thanks to Warren- KH6WM, for his first of many future articles to appear in KARC News! Now...Heeeeeres's Warrren!

WHAT IS THIS NVIS STUFF ALL ABOUT ANYWAY ??? Warren-KH6WM

NVIS stands for "Near Vertical Incidence Skywave Communications" and refers to the idea that HF (3 - 30 Mhz.) radio communications at moderate distances (up to several hundred miles or so) can best be accomplished by the use of horizontally polarized antennas such as dipoles or inverted-V's mounted relatively close to ground.

Why is this so ? As we hams have long known, this is so because such an antenna system will radiate in a high vertical non-directional pattern so that the energy reflected back from the ionosphere will strike fairly close to the transmitter location. Now we hams also realize that such an antenna is not so good for faraway contacts, and generally go with the dictum that "higher is better" for HF antennas. But higher is definitely not better for HF communications at moderate distances, such as within the Hawaiian island chain.

The "bible" on NVIS is a book by Fiedler and Farmer, both Signal Corps officer types (see reference at end of article). This fine book was driven by the Army's need for better HF radio communications at distances out to several hundred miles. These gentlemen realized that the vertical antennas in common use by the Army just didn't work very well at moderate distances, and after doing considerable testing, wrote and published a long series of articles in military publications recommending NVIS. The book is basically a compilation of these articles with a few added tidbits and is an excellent read without being very technical. My copy is available on loan for anyone interested.

For those with Internet capability, a good summary article on NVIS can be found at http://prairie.lakes.com/~jstanley/NVISPAT/nvispat.html/. This is a excellent article by Farmer and is about 10 pages long. I can print off copies of this article if requested by KARC folks. And please contact me if the URL doesn't work.

After reading the Fiedler and Farmer book, I put up a 40 meter antenna aimed at Hawaii inter-island communications (Friendly Net at 9 AM on 7290 and Hawaii Afternoon Net at 4 PM on 7088). It is a full-sized dipole but bent 90 degrees at the center because of space problems. It uses the NVIS principles (horizontal polarization and close to ground) and works out quite well. At present, the ends are about 6 feet off the ground, and the center is about 12 feet high.

But theory does not tell the full story !! I found 2 difficulties which are worth mentioning. First, as a dipole is brought closer and closer to ground, the impedance drops drastically. The only way I can match the relatively low impedance of this particular antenna is to run my antenna tuner backwards, since this particular tuner doesn't "match down" very well with the normal input and output. Backwards it apparently doesn't realize it's matching "downhill"...

Second difficulty is that matching to the antenna changes with the amount of moisture in the soil (I have to re-tune after every rain). The change required is quite noticeable - of course this is no big deal, but it took me awhile to figure out what was going on.

It's fair to say that the "NVIS bible" touches on both these difficulties, but is a little light on solutions. One suggestion is to run a slightly-longer-than-half-wave wire just above ground directly underneath the dipole antenna. I tried this and it seemed to want to act as a 2 element yagi, with the lower wire acting as a reflector. This would be OK, but in true Yagi fashion, the antenna impedance was dragged further down (lower) and I no longer could match well with the tuner available. So I just live with re-tuning when the soil conductivity changes after a heavy rain up here on Aiea Heights.

DISCLAIMER: there are some generalities in this summary of NVIS in the interests of producing a non-technical article. Please excuse. I will own up to any inaccuracies if challenged at the next KARC meeting hi hi.

In closing, I should note that Ed Farmer is amateur AA6ZM (California) but actually owns a condo in Kaneohe where he does spend some time. Maybe we can catch him to be a guest speaker at KARC ? Should I go after him, Mr. Program Chairman ?

REFERENCES:

KARC WEBSITE SERVER MELTDOWN!

Walt, AH6OZ, emailed Greg, WB6FZH, that the reason he could not upload the newsletter for printing is that the server suffered a massive failure. Greg mailed disks with files to Walt at UH so the site can be uploaded when the server is back on line. Greg will check for missing files and get the pages squared away after Walt finishes surgery on the computer. I wonder if your Chemistry homework is gone from the UH computer does that mean you do not have to do it? The newsletter was uploaded and printed from AOL.

KOOLAU AMATEUR RADIO CLUB

CLUB OFFICERS

DIRECTORS

PROGRAM CHAIRMAN- Howard, WH6LF 247-0775

NEWSLETTER

CLUB MEETINGS

MEMBERSHIP CHAIRMAN- Jerry Mulherin, WH6BKQ, 235-3042, email:jerham@aloha.net

MAILING ADDRESS- KARC c/o J.Mulherin, 45-145 Mikihilina St., Kaneohe, HI 96744

VEC TESTING

2 METER ACTIVITY

CLUB CALL: KH6J

KARC WEBSITE