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Contents

Calendar of Events

Meeting Notice

Prez Mix

November Club Meetings

DX/W6VIO Facility News

Classified Ads

Important Notice

Calendar of Events

December 1

[Fontana Swap Meet, A. B. Miller HS, Fontana]

December 12

Year End Dinner, 6 PM – El Torito, Pasadena

December 15

[CMRA Hamfest, Cal Poly, Pomona, 7 AM]

December 29

[TRW Swap meet, Redondo Beach]

January 5

[Fontana Swap Meet, A. B. Miller HS, Fontana]

January 9

General Meeting, Noon - 238-543

January 19

[CMRA Hamfest, Cal Poly, Pomona, 7 AM]

January 23

Board Meeting, Noon - 233-305J

January 26

[TRW Swap meet, Redondo Beach]

February 2

[Fontana Swap Meet, A. B. Miller HS, Fontana]

February 13

General Meeting, Noon - 238-543

February 17

[CMRA Hamfest, Cal Poly, Pomona, 7 AM]

February 23

[TRW Swap meet, Redondo Beach]

February 27

Board Meeting, Noon - 233-305J

 

Meeting Notice

By Christopher Carson, KE6ABQ

The December General Meeting of the JPL Amateur Radio Club is tentatively scheduled to be held December 12th at El Torito Restaurant, 3333 E. Foothill Blvd., in Pasadena starting at 6 PM.  An e-mail announcement will be sent to the Club e-mail list in the next few days, confirming time and location.

The December JPLARC Board meeting will be held December 26th in 233-305J.  Everyone is welcome to attend. n

Prez Mix

By Bob Dengler, NO6B

For many months now you’ve probably heard about our plans to integrate our primary repeater communications systems into one fully linkable network by moving the 224.08 repeater to Cerro Negro and linking it to our 445.20 repeater.

On Saturday December 1st, Chris Carson KE6ABQ, Bob Stiver KF6PSS, Tigran Karsian KF6PVG, Rob Sweet KG6DKW and I performed this move.  It was quite a chore trying to stuff 2 complete repeater systems into one cabinet that was already pretty tight on space just housing the 220 repeater.  But thanks to some quick layout work by the crew, we managed to get it all in.

Since the 224.08 repeater and duplexer are all known to be in good working order, we tried to once again duplex off of the main Scala antenna with this known combination.  Unfortunately as I write this, I am observing a fair amount of desense on the system, so it’s clear that there is a problem in the antenna system, most likely the ½-inch Heliax feed line.  Since the feed line and antenna are mounted to a telephone pole that is no longer safe to climb, we can only use that antenna for transmitting or receiving.  We’ll have to make another quick visit during the week to put the system back on split antennas in order to recover the lost receive sensitivity.

While at the site, we checked the autopatch line and found it to be working.  According to the site manager, the phone service for the entire site has been up and down lately, but he thinks it will be fixed soon.  In the meantime our phone line has been connected to the autopatch card in the controller, so all that remains before we can once again provide autopatch service to the entire club membership is to program the autopatch settings in the controller.  Stay tuned!

 

I’ve finally found a buyer for the TS-940 that I’ve been having advertised in W6VIO Calling for the past several months.  He found the ad on an internet search engine.  If you have something to sell, you should really take advantage of advertising it in our newsletter.  Even if the readers of the printed version aren’t interested, remember that this newsletter is distributed to hundreds of millions of web surfers every month.  From the stories related to me by club members, I’ve found that our newsletter is a particularly good place to list sells and wants of a long-term nature.

73 and have a happy holiday season.  See you at the club dinner on Wednesday, December 12th.    n

 

November Meetings

By Jonathan Cameron, KF6RTA

General Meeting, November 13

This meeting was held at the JPL Emergency Operations Center (EOC, 310-109).  Those attending the meeting were Phil Barnes-Roberts (AD6PQ), Jonathan Cameron (KF6RTA), Bob Dengler (NO6B), Tigran Karsian (KF6PUG), Jim Lux (W6RMK), Rick McKinney (KA6DAN), Walt Mushagian (K6DNS), Scott Nolte (K6SN), Jerry Person (KK6TS), Bob Polansky (N6DNS), Mark Schaefer (WB6CIA), Rob Smith (W6GRV), and Bob Stiver (KF6PSS).

Bob Dengler opened the meeting at 12:10pm.  This was Tigran Karsian’s first visit so everyone introduced themselves.  Bob Polansky pointed out the HF station that is part of the EOC system.  There was some discussion about the possibility of using this system during Monday emergency nets.

 

Eric trains people on-lab in a wide range of emergency preparedness techniques.  Quite a few JPL personnel have been trained by his team and are available to respond to emergencies at JPL, surrounding communities, and other NASA centers.

Eric offered to have JPL ARC member badges reissued to display the fact that we are part of the JPL Emergency Communications team.  Walt Mushagian will get a list of club members and write a memo requesting this to Eric Fuller.  Mark Schaefer also suggested that we create a badge-size card with repeater frequencies, repeater commands, contact info, etc. on one side and a membership card on the other.

Bob Dengler reminded us that we need to elect new officers.  He also wants to go ahead and do the repeater swap that has been planned for a while.  He wants to get the move completed by the end of February so that we can support the LA Marathon in March.  He would change the downtown system to 224.70 MHz so that there would be two repeaters with good coverage of the downtown area for the marathon.

We were reminded that we need to make arrangements for our Christmas banquet.  We agreed to have the dinner at the El Torito restaurant like we did last year.  Mark Schaefer agreed to set a date and make arrangements for the dinner with the restaurant.  Thanks Mark!

Bob Polansky described facilities in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and told us about the operations that occur in the room during emergencies.  The EOC club station has 220 MHz and HF capabilities and can access the club repeaters.  Bob encouraged us to check in during any future emergencies and provide communications support.  This check-in is very much like the normal emergency net on Mondays.  In a real emergency, members checking into the net might be asked to check conditions at specified locations and report the results on the net.

Bob ordered new QSL cards for the various JPL call signs from a outfit in Germany.

Board of Directors Meeting, November 28

Those attending the meeting were: Eric Archer (N6CV, via telephone), Jonathan Cameron (KF6RTA), Chris Carson (KE6ABQ), Bob Dengler (NO6B), Walt Mushagian (K6DNS), Bob Polansky (N6ET), and Bill Wood (W6FXJ, via telephone).

Bob Dengler opened the meeting at 12:10 with a generous quorum.  Bob reported that the budget is converging but there are some issues to be resolved so it was not presented for further discussion in this meeting.  A few items necessary to achieve closure were discussed including inputs from the treasurer and a final estimate of the EOC budget.

Bob Dengler reported on the move of the 224.08 MHz repeater to Cerro Negro.  Bob has arranged for a work party this coming Saturday (December 1st).  There was some discussion of the details involved in this move.  The 224.70 MHz repeater will be removed.  Note that this means we will not be able to link the 2m repeater to the 220 MHz repeaters.  We should still be able to link the 440 MHz repeater with the 220 MHz repeater.

Bob Polansky reported on progress at the new HF station.  During a recent work party, they got the rest of the hard lines connected.  Bob operated the station during a recent CW contest and everything seemed to work well.  Some work remains to be done, such as connecting the generator, finalizing the grounding, and emptying out the old trailer.  One of the FT-1000s is off-lab being repaired.    n

DX/W6VIO Facility News

By Bob Polansky, N6ET

For the second month in a row I "camped out" in the new W6VIO shack.  This time operating the CQ World Wide CW Contest.  As previously reported, the station performed in an exemplary manner.  I contacted virtually everyone I called and for some strange reason got 599 reports from everyone (standard for contests).  Four new entities on CW were logged and approaching 100 new band-entities made it into the W6VIO log.  Even worked a station in Egypt (rare Zone 34) on 40 meter CW.  The weather was quite rainy during part of the contest and that caused expected rain static.  When it got too bad, I watched football games and listened to how well we were doing in Afghanistan on the shack's Mitsubishi TV set..

A week prior to the Contest, Chris Carson, Walt Mushagian, and Mark Sarrel joined me in accomplishing Phase 1 of the antenna reconfiguration activity.  Thanks to the lightning speed we all worked, Phase 1 accomplished more than expected.  The Phase 2 work party should extend both now spare hard lines to the top of the mesa!

Two more contests before the end of the year;.  The ARRL 160M Contest from 12/7 at 2200Z to 12/9 at 1600Z, and the ARRL 10M Contest from 12/15 at 0000Z to 12/16 at 2400Z.  These should yield lots of new band-entities.

Now for some DX specifics:

AFGHANISTAN - If you hear YA5T, work him!  Apparently ON6TT, who does UN work, is currently in Afghanistan and has secured permission (by the Northern Alliance) to operate in the ham bands.  Not sure he's going to have lots of time to do that in the near term, but it's been many years since there was a legal operation form this entity.  YA/ON6TT/M, YA/F6EKD, and YA0NU are also calls awaiting written permission to operate.

DUCIE ISLAND - The Ducie Island DXpedition got within 80 nautical miles of the island, but were turned back to Pitcairn due to extremely bad weather (resulting in ten foot waves and forecasts of waves three times that high).  Ducie will count as a new DXCC entity as soon as an operation from that island takes place.

LIBYA - Abubaker, 5A1A, will soon be leaving Libya to go to school for an advanced degree in Germany.  For many years, he has been the only source of Libyan QSO’s.  He advises that three other hams have recently been licensed in Libya.  They are 5A1ASC, 5A1HA, and 5A1TA.  All have QSL managers outside Libya and have been reported on 20 meters.

MONGOLIA - Look for JT1CO sporting new antennas on 80 and 160 meters, thanks to help by the visiting K4ZW.  He's quite hearable/workable on 80 meters and a number of the locals have made contacts on 160 meters.  His best time for the Los Angeles area starts at about 1300Z for several hours. His operating frequency is 3504 kHz give or take a bit, listening around 3513 kHz.  It was nice to get JT1/K4ZW in the W6VIO log book on 80 meters during his now completed visit to JT-land.  It appears that JT1CO intends to do lots of operating on the low bands.

NORTH KOREA - P5/4L4FN is a "regular" now, currently on SSB only.  He comes through daily on 28575 kHz and works USA up 10 to 20 kHz.  The station claims to have verbal permission to operate and has been promised written permission by the end of the year.  If that happens, hopefully the permission will be retroactive to the first of November, because lots of the guys, including me, have been making contacts.  He has a local W5 QSL manager.

Everything else I have in my collection of DX hopefuls is dwarfed by the above items so I will terminate this article for the month.  Enjoy!!n

Classified Section

Wanted:

Your want-ad or article for inclusion in a future issue of W6VIO Calling.  Submit to Bill Wood, W6FXJ, 31094 Hemlock Ave, Barstow, CA 92311; or email w6fxj@earthlink.net

For Sale:

Gillette Gen-Pro 12.5 Kw Diesel Generator, 21Hp DUETZ RUGGERINI air cooled diesel, Electric start, 8 gal fuel tank, Low hrs.  Can be viewed at http://home.att.net/~n7hd/Gen.jpg.  Cost $7800, sell for $3100.  Contact Buddy, 626-584-4645 days, 661-944-3864 eves, Lv msg.

Kenwood TM-G707A 2 meter/440 dual-band mobile (single band receive).  50 W 2 meters/35 W 440, CTCSS decoder modified to eliminate falsing problem common with all G707s & V7As.  Original/only owner, asking $260.  Contact Bob at 909-396-0991 or no6b@rptrlist.w6jpl.ampr.org.

QST 1990-1994 CD-ROM set, new.  $25 (ARRL price $39.95) Skip, W7NWY, 818-354-9674

Icom UT-40 Tone Squelch Option Board (CTCSS) for HT models 2GAT, 4GAT, 12GAT, 32AT or for mobiles 228, 448, 901, 1201, 2400 and 2500.  Cost: $80 (AES Catalog)  Sale for $40.  Contact Scott Nolte, scott.nolte@jpl.nasa.gov or 818-354-9724 n

Important Notice:

Starting next month “W6VIO Calling” will be distributed via the Internet and direct email.  Each issue will published using Acrobat 5.0 and transmitted to each member with an email address.  The Acrobat PDF copy will be available on the club web site for those who do not wish to use email.  If you want to continue to receive a paper copy of “W6VIO Calling,” notify Scott Nolte, at 1 818 354-9724 or M/S 306-392.

 

Newsletter Deadline:

Friday, December 28 for the January issue of W6VIO Calling.  Your articles, ads, photos, diagrams, letters to the editor, or technical material should be submitted to the editor via email (w6fxj@earthlink.net) or regular mail to: Bill Wood, 31094 Hemlock Ave, Barstow, CA 92311.

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Posted December 2, 2001