Meetings: General | Speakers | 2021-2022 | 2019-2020 | 2017-2018 | 2015-2016

December 18, 2020:

No meeting.

See our Holiday Get-Together below. Merry Christmas. 

Matthew Vurek, N4DLA

Matthew G. Vurek was first licensed at age 15 as Novice class WB3GYL in Maryland in 1977.  He upgraded to General class the next year and two years later was issued N4DLA while a college student in Tennessee.  Matthew joined MDARC in 2007 and was appointed editor of the club’s newsletter, The Carrier, in 2009.  In 2007, he co-founded the Lamorinda Area Radio Interest Group.  N4DLA is also a member of the 10-10 International Net, QRP Amateur Radio Club International, North American QRP CW Club, Straight Key Century Club and the Quarter Century Wireless Association.  An ARRL member since 1977, Matthew was appointed Affiliated Club Coordinator for the East Bay Section in 2018. 

October 16, 2020:
Raspberry Pi
by Patrick Miller, KK6DBX

Details to follow.

Note: This meeting will start at 6:00 PM, to accommodate the speaker's time zone. 

Fortunately, there are various methods that can be used to effectively broadband match these simple antennas.  These techniques use matching elements that may either be part of the antenna feed structure or part of the radiating elements of the antenna itself. VSWR of 2.0:1 may be achieved over the entire 80 meter band, or 1.5:1 over the phone portion of the band. This is generally good enough for most transmitters, although any tuner can easily bring this down to 1.0:1 with very little loss if desired.  This talk will discuss a few of the simplest techniques used and show some calculated and measured performance.  The emphasis will be on practicality and ease of implementation rather than rigorous analysis, with a view to making it easy for the average ham to implement a highly effective 80 meter antenna.

Jim Blodgett, KI6JB

Jim obtained his advanced class license in 1979 on the same day he obtained his first-class commercial radiotelephone license.  He was inactive as a ham until a couple years ago when he upgraded to extra class.  He now has a HF/VHF/UHF station at home as well as one with the same capability in his Jeep Wrangler.  Jim has been an employee of Bell Laboratories and their related spin-offs for most of the last 40 years. He has been granted 19 patents with one pending in the fields of communications, circuit design, system design and antenna design. Jim is also an ATP licensed pilot.

I have read with interest the successes of other systems and they have had differing levels of success. I believe the basis of the system design must promote amateur radio, and not some guys retirement home in Tahoe. Next would be the advancement of the user skills and finally the state of the art of the system. There is little hope of gaining much traction of these types of products which use a system which works but isn't open to innovation. But now I wish to expand on why it is critical to not adopt the technology promoted by other designs and core to the philosophy I started to explain before but stopped short. In this talk, I will expand on the next steps, the what is next. We have a working system, why change it? We have an awesome system now, how could it get any better? You will not want to miss this talk.

Joel Wilhite, KD6W

Joel Wilhite - KD6W works at the corporate office of Harmonic Inc in San Jose and is directly involved with the development and delivery of the next generation television standard, ATSC 3.0. His work there helps him make the case for deploying amateur repeater systems based on off-the-shelf broadcast equipment where broadcast gear evolves in 5 year cycles forcing gear to drop out of the market which ham radio operators can easily leverage. This talk is a not to miss as it is not a rehash of Pacificon. Joel will present all new exciting material and provide MDARC membership some truly cutting information and technology.

Much of California shares the same fire conditions that destroyed Paradise. Alan Thompson and Bob Hess will detail how the El Dorado County Amateur Radio Club is working with local Fire Safe Councils and Community Groups to provide potentially life-saving "Non-Ham" Community Radio programs should a similar disaster occur in El Dorado County. Bob and Alan will also cover why investing resources in non-Ham Community Radio programs has the potential to actually help ensure the sustainability and growth of Amateur Radio Clubs.

Watch our Club business meeting and this presentation on MDARC's YouTube channel, at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHaML_B0SBM

Alan R Thompson, W6WN, PIO, EDCARC

Alan grew up in Placerville, California and still lives there with his wife, Debra. First licensed at age 11 but off the air for several years due to school, work and family, Alan returned to Ham Radio in 2017 after a 35-year career in the satellite communications industry where he still works. In 2018, Alan was part of a Disaster Recovery Team that installed several satellite Internet systems to help restore cell-phone service ten days after the Camp Fire rubbed out Internet and telephone communications in Butte County.

What Alan witnessed there turned him into an "Accidental Advocate" for community fire and communications safety. Since January 2019, Alan has been meeting with Amateur Radio Clubs, Civic Groups, Homeowners' Associations and Fire Safe Councils throughout Northern California and Western Nevada in an effort to alert others to the dangers we face from an over-reliance on vulnerable cell-phone and Internet communications services. Alan currently serves as Public Information Officer of the El Dorado County Amateur Radio Club.

Bob Hess, W1RH, President, EDCARC

First licensed in the 60s, Bob grew up in California but spent much of his professional life on the East Coast. Returning to California some years ago, Bob now lives with his wife, Karen, in Lotus, California. Bob and Karen are also members of the Coloma Lotus Fire Safe Council. Until his retirement in 2019, Bob enjoyed a distinguished, 37-year career as the Director of Operations, Engineering and IT at KOVR, Channel 13 TV in Sacramento.

Bob is an accomplished, award-winning DXer and Contester. In addition to his duties as President of the El Dorado County Amateur Radio Club, Bob also serves as Vice President & Publicity Manager for the Mother Lode DX / Contest Club, past President of the Northern California Contest Club and was also the Sacramento Valley Section Official Observer Coordinator. Bob is also responsible for installation and maintenance of an advanced, interconnected system of 10 VHF and UHF Amateur Radio and GMRS Repeaters located throughout El Dorado County. He now divides his spare time between his hobby of wine-making, his love of radio, and his dedication to implementing Community Radio programs.

Marcel Stieber, AI6MS

I am an Electrical Engineering alumnus of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. I am currently employed as a Hardware Systems Integration Lead at Amazon Lab126 in Sunnyvale, CA and also serve on the Cal Poly Electrical Engineering Industry Advisory Board. I was former President and am current Industry Advisor to the Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club (www.W6BHZ.org). I am regularly volunteering to help at local repeater workdays as an RF technician and tower climber. I also enjoy helping with community events and providing communications for bike rides and triathlons. I was licensed on Cinco de Mayo in 2008 and received my Extra License in the Summer of 2010. I am also an ARRL Life Member and have used my VE credentials to help license over 673 hams since 2009!

I especially enjoy portable stations and events, APRS, ARDF, and out of the ordinary operating locations (like on a jetski or bicycle!). In 2013, I was appointed to the ARRL Committee on Youth by President Kay Craigie N3KN. I am the Technical Deployment Manager for the Cupertino ARES ARKnet Project which is building up a high-speed wireless intranet for the emergency responders in Cupertino.

I operated portable in Ghana, West Africa as 9G5MS from January-May 2013. I also operated during the ARRL School Club Roundup in February as the first school to participate from Africa.

We have all missed being together to share and swap stories, and we would like to continue to do so at this Friday’s April 17 virtual General Membership Meeting. So with that in mind, the Board is “launching” our first virtual meeting using the Zoom Video Conferencing software. Some Board members use this software as part of their normal work experience while others are just now learning this useful tool. 

Now its your turn if you wish to join us this Friday at 7:00PM……and yes, this is 30 minutes earlier than we normally meet, but I wanted to give us all plenty of time. 

What’s the cost? Free, Zippo, Nada. You either download the software now or at the time you join the meeting. 

So what will be doing at the meeting? We will begin with our business meeting which will include committee reports and then we will follow this up with questions from any of you. Be thinking of things to ask to the past Table Topics, like DX, radio programming, and public service. Think “Open Forum” during this time. 

Since this new to many of us, please be patient as we learn together how to hold these virtual gatherings. 

There are a couple of things you should know when you attempt to join this meeting.

1) You will no be able to join the meeting until I start it. [I will be starting it about 6:45 pm]

2) You will placed in what Zoom calls the Waiting Room and cannot join the group until I, or a co-host, admits you into the meeting.

3) I will be assigning at least two co-hosts to help with the above.

4) When you are admitted into the group, your microphone will be muted (e.g. silenced) and I or the co-hosts will unmute it for you. This will allow us to keep the “noise” and “babble” down.

March 20, 2020

    Our March meeting has been canceled, due to concerns with the COVID-19 virus. Please see our note on the Home page and on the Announcements page. Joel has been rescheduled for our July meeting.

The Next Chapter for DATV in Northern California

by Joel Wilhite, KD6W

January 17, 2020

MDARC's Repeater Systems

by Trevor Hall, WA6JAU

His presentation will explain the basic operation of the South Peak repeaters. He also has a set of pictures showing the repeater equipment.

Trevor Hall, WA6JAU

Trevor has thirty Five years of radio maintenance experience at PG&E. He managed maintenance of analog and digital microwave equipment. He's currently the radio maintenance technician of the W6CX repeater system.

The DX expedition was in West Palm Beach on Roatan Inland for two days before moving to Rus Rus near the Nicaragua boarder for 8 days. Rus Rus DX expedition was done jointly with IHS field work as time & power allowed.

Clay Couger, N5YJZ

Clay Couger was licensed in 1992 as N5YJZ and was active in amateur radio throughout the 90’s while in college at Oklahoma State Univ. He severed one term as president of W5YJ OSU amateur radio club. Clay officially joined the Okie club by moving to California in 1999 and fell away from the hobby as he got caught in the Silicon Valley rat race. He became active again in 2016 due to a renewed interest in disaster support (wife says he needed a new reason to shop). He prefers to build things than get on air but has found FT8/FT4 to be wonderful mode as it can be run in the background while doing other things at the workbench.

International Health Services is actively re-crewing for the Feb 2020 mission on February 14 to February 28. IHS is looking for licensed medical (DDS, DDO, MD, RN, OD, Dental Ass’t, NP, LPN, RDH, PA, CRNA, RPh, Pharmacist, Paramedic and EMT) professionals, amateur radio operators (General Class license and above), translators (Spanish, Garifuna, Miskito, Sumo, Pech, and Jicaque). We encourage spouses to join as there is always a need for next extra hands need to support the teams. For more information on IHS see their website at http://www.ihsmn.org/.

Kristen McIntyre, K6WX

Kristen has been interested in radio since she was about 5 years old.  She started in Amateur Radio in 1979 getting her ticket while at MIT.  Kristen has worked in many diverse areas from analog circuit design to image processing to starting and running an ISP.  She is currently working at Apple in Core Networking, and spent many years at Sun Microsystems Laboratories where she was researching robustness and emergent properties of large distributed computer systems.  She is a long time denizen of Silicon Valley and has worked at or consulted for many of the usual suspects.  Kristen is an active ham and loves to chase DX on HF with her Elecraft K2 which she built while visiting her mother in Florida.  She is ARRL Pacific Division Vice Director, president of the Palo Alto Amateur Radio Assoc., the Q&A columnist for Nuts and Volts magazine, and is active in many local clubs.  Kristen was recently inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame.

Ed Muns, W0YK

Ed entered CW and SSB DX contests initially in the early 1970s as a way to work new band/mode-countries for DXCC.  His interest rapidly evolved from DXing to contesting with his early learning at the K0RF multi-multi.  Today, CW and RTTY contesting dominate Ed's operating time.  His local contest club, the Northern California Contest Club (NCCC), mounted an effort for the club competition gavel first offered in the 2004 ARRL RTTY Round-Up where Ed reluctantly (kicking and screaming) learned how to setup RTTY and ultimately won the Pacific Division SOHP plaque.  He ironically enjoyed that induction into RTTY so much that he now includes all the major RTTY contests in his contesting schedule.  With his P49X call sign, Ed holds the world SOHP record in ARRL RTTY Round-Up, having broken the record eight times, and the world SOHP record in CQ WPX RTTY, having broken that record seven times and set a world SOHP record in the 2010 CQ WW RTTY.  Ed is the contest manager for the NCJ NA RTTY Sprint and the contest director for the two CQ RTTY contests, CQ WW RTTY and CQ WPX RTTY.  He and Don, AA5AU, sponsor the Ten-Meter RTTY Contest which they initiated in December 2011 with nearly 700 logs submitted.  In 2018, it became the FT8 Roundup with over 1200 logs using ARRL RTTY Roundup rules.  He was inducted into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame in May 2014.  This is his twelfth year at CTU delivering the two Digital Contesting presentations and Q&A.

Marcel Stieber, AI6MS

I am an Electrical Engineering alumnus of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. I am currently employed as a Hardware Systems Integration Lead at Amazon Lab126 in Sunnyvale, CA and also serve on the Cal Poly Electrical Engineering Industry Advisory Board. I was former President and am current Industry Advisor to the Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club (www.W6BHZ.org). I am regularly volunteering to help at local repeater workdays as an RF technician and tower climber. I also enjoy helping with community events and providing communications for bike rides and triathlons. I was licensed on Cinco de Mayo in 2008 and received my Extra License in the Summer of 2010. I am also an ARRL Life Member and have used my VE credentials to help license over 673 hams since 2009!

I especially enjoy portable stations and events, APRS, ARDF, and out of the ordinary operating locations (like on a jetski or bicycle!). In 2013, I was appointed to the ARRL Committee on Youth by President Kay Craigie N3KN. I am the Technical Deployment Manager for the Cupertino ARES ARKnet Project which is building up a high-speed wireless intranet for the emergency responders in Cupertino.

I operated portable in Ghana, West Africa as 9G5MS from January-May 2013. I also operated during the ARRL School Club Roundup in February as the first school to participate from Africa.