TNQP is Sunday, 1 September 2019

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The Tennessee QSO Party is Sunday, 1 September 2019

From TNQP.org:

“The Tennessee QSO Party is an annual amateur radio event which takes place on either the first or second Sunday of September. All amateur radio operators in the great state of Tennessee are encouraged to participate as antennas around the world rotate and point to the volunteer state.

The Tennessee QSO Party is hosted by the Tennessee Contest Group. Each year tens of thousands of QSOs occur between Tennessee amateur radio operators and hams worldwide. Plaques are awarded for category winners.”

More information and the registration form for Tennessee stations planning to take part are here:

https://tnqp.org

Rules and resources:

https://tnqp.org/rules/
https://tnqp.org/resources/

Field Day 2019 – sign up!

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2019 Field Day will be held June 22-23, 2019 and the sign-up sheet for the WCARES 2019 Field Day event is here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSegdZcWWtWK-BdIA7wRvzm84H2S5biWytE2CqUwx6x8QhXaAA/viewform

Field Day is always the fourth full weekend of June, beginning at 1800 UTC Saturday and running through 2059 UTC Sunday.

Building and testing a Windom

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Inspired by the recent presentation on Windoms, Dave, KI4PSR with the help of Jon, KK4AIZ, Rob, KM4SOA , Paul, KM4PT and Doug, W4DML, built and tested the design during this past Tuesday’s Portable Ops. Dave said the SWR was great, just as described by Ted, W3TB.

From Jon:
“Station was Icom 7300, with battery and solar panels. We were able to tune 20, 40, 80, & 17. I made one contact into Western Pennsylvania; on 7.255 – missed NC callsign. Got a 5.6 report!”

Photos courtesy of Dave and Jon:

Windoms – modelling and aiming

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Ted, W3TB gave a presentation at the March WCARES Monthly Meeting on Windom antennas. Ted discussed the use of Azimuthal Equidistant maps for antenna planning and aiming, gave a demonstration of modelling the Windom using the EZNEC demo and discussed building the Windom.

Ted’s presentation files are attached:

1 – the Azmuthal-Equidistant map of the world centered on Franklin
2 – the PowerPoint that Ted used in the presentation
3 – the article from 73 Magazine, Sept 1980, about the Windom (The Internet Archive maintains copies of this magazine: https://archive.org/details/73-magazine )

Additionally, an image combining the Franklin azimuthal map and the antenna plots as shown above is here.

And try out a simple website demo to see how rotating the original antenna plot compares with locations on the map:

https://wcares.org/windom201903-azimuthal-rotation/

WCARES 2019 Winter Field Day pictures

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WCARES members were out in force for this year’s Winter Field Day.

So, a few hours before midnight; 30 degrees at best; Traffic on Moores lane is near zero; the small tent is keeping us warm; On 80 meters; Three portable antennas in the field; The operator (N4CCB) decides to run a frequency (call CQ); I’m logging and chomping at the bit; Tuned up; Boom! …Two, Three, then four contacts a minute; Canada, Wisconsin to Alabama, Ohio, Western New York inbetween.
Talk about a RUSH! The CW station had similar runs at kick-off time.

Photos taken by Jon, KK4AIZ and Paul, KM4PT

Online Spotter Classes – NWS OHX

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To sign up for the spotter classes visit: http://weather.gov/ohx/skywarn

From the National Weather Service:

“Online classes offer all the information that our in-person spotter classes offer with the added convenience of attending in the comfort of your own home!

Classes are FREE and open to people of all ages.
Each class is hosted by a National Weather Service Meteorologist from the Nashville WFO.

Classes run approximately 2 hours including a Q&A session.”

To sign up for the spotter classes visit:

http://weather.gov/ohx/skywarn

Basic Spotter Classes Advanced Spotter Classes
All start at 6PM All start at 6PM
Tuesday February 19 Tuesday March 5
Thursday February 21 Tuesday March 26
Tuesday February 26 Thursday March 28
Friday March 1  
Thursday March 7  

Chokes, Baluns & Ununs

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Dave, KI4PSR gave an informative talk on Chokes, Baluns and Ununs at the November Chew & Chat.

His talk covers some of the history of transmission line transformers leading to the development of baluns, ununs and choke baluns as well as definitions and theory. Some discussion on chosing the right balun included ideas on measuring common mode current, consequences of high- vs. low-power wiring, misconceptions about ratios, use of ladder line with baluns and grounding. Finally Dave walked us through a number of examples based on different antenna configurations including some being used by WCARES members.

If you missed the presentation or just want to review, Dave has provided his slides and text; You can find PDF copies at the following links:

Slides
Text/Script

Common mode current on the feedline of a dipole without a balun

Top 10 for Field Day 2018 – with pictures

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During the preparations for Field Day 2018, Carl KB9DKR had talked about the “moonshot” possibility of WCARES breaking into the Top 10 list in QST Magazine. Well, the results are in and we did it! WCARES placed 9th overall out of 2903 groups participating with a score of 14290 and we were 1st among the 186 EOCs that took part this year.

A HUGE thanks to Cliff, N4CCB and Carl, KB9DKR who inspired us and coordinated and managed our effort this year along with all the station captains – Jeff and Peter (SSB), Tim and Cliff (CW), Phil (Digital), Al (VHF), Janise and Joe (GOTA), Jon and Jason (Satellite), Dave (fantastic Welcome Table) – and everyone who participated or volunteered to help.

We’d also like to thank Commissioner Dana Ausbrooks, of course Bill Jorgensen, Director of Williamson County Office of Public Safety and our EC, Randy Moore, KK4SRO along with the many visitors and GOTA participants for taking part and making this possible.

The December issue of QST has all the 2018 Field Day results, starting on page 71.

Pictures from WCARES 2018 Field Day.

Using WSPR – a presentation by Tim Kreth, AD4CJ

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At the recent October Chew & Chat meeting Tim Kreth, AD4CJ, gave an interesting talk introducing members to WSPR and the WSPRlite. The presentation included discussion on using WSPR to learn about HF propagation, the WSPRlite and related resources. Tim also discussed the calculations necessary and presented a spreadsheet tool useful for converting WSPR signal levels to a relative approximation of what might be needed for other modes such as CW or SSB. The presentation and the spreadsheet are available via the links below:

WSPR Presentation (PDF)

Spreadsheet for Signal level conversion (XLSX)

Does your receiver have an IQ? A talk by Dave Matthews, KI4PSR

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Dave Matthews, KI4PSR gave a talk at a recent Chew & Chat. The talk covered receiver designs over time and included discussion of the Tayloe detector.

Randy Moore, KK4SRO, our EC, has uploaded a video of Dave’s talk to Youtube and Dave’s slides are available as well:

https://youtu.be/ZOvZlDoVlBw

and

Does-Your-Receiver-have-an-IQ.pdf