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The Carrier |
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Complete Editions |
The Carrier - Official Newsletter of the Mt. Diablo Amateur Radio
Club Selected Articles from the Carrier President's QRM I wish I could say it’s an April Fool’s
joke, but sadly, we got notification from Riley Hollingsworth with the
FCC: reduce power output on ATV by 64dB. That puts our allowed output
power at roughly 20 microwatts. Unfortunately, that means the signal
itself is not receivable anywhere off the mountain itself. As of writing
this, we haven’t had our tech committee meeting to discuss our options
moving forward, but there are some possibilities on the table. Till then, Profile of a Ham In 1997, I was a teenager living in Macon, Georgia. I had a friend named Ian, who always carried a radio on his belt. I had always had an interest in radio communication, so one day I asked him about it. He told me about his interest in electronics and his hobby as an amateur radio operator with the callsign KF4AON.He explained how he always monitored the local repeater, and thereby kept contact with his dad and other friends. He also told me about autopatch capabilities, worldwide HF communications, and other fascinating aspects of the hobby. In the early days of cell phones, it was fascinating to hear about these capabilities—without paying for airtime!
A friend and I were driving through an intersection in Knoxville, when two other vehicles collided, almost head-on at about 40 mph. We were the only witnesses to the accident, and so we quickly assessed the damage. In one of the vehicles was a lady with three young children. Although the vehicle was totaled, and they were very shaken up, there were no serious injuries. I used the repeater to contact a local ham who was able to make a 911 call. Then I used the autopatch so the lady could call her husband to inform him of the accident. Although the accident was tragic, no one was seriously injured, and I was excited to see the reliability of radio communication during a time of need. For several years, due to the activity of college life, getting married and having our first child, and working a fulltime+ job, I did not do much with the radio beyond occasionally chatting with a friend on the repeater. After moving to California, I wanted to become more active. In the Bay area there are a number of repeaters with consistent activity, which were a great help, but I wanted more—it was time to upgrade! I studied the code, passed the necessary exams, and upgraded to General. The HF bug had bitten. My first HF contact was to VY1YT, Martin, in Yukon Territory, Canada while mobile. There is a certain magic involved in radio propagation that I haven’t gotten over. I enjoyed working stations in Asia, Europe, and South America. One fateful night, I was tuning through 40 meters, listening for a CQ
to answer. But there was no activity in the General portion of the band.
As I tuned down below 7225 kHz, the band was hopping with QSOs. That did
it; I wasn’t content with the bandwidth I had—I wanted to be able to
transmit everywhere on the hambands. The only solution was to pick up a
copy of Gordon West’s Extra class study guide. Two weeks later, I passed
the Extra exam, and upgraded to my current callsign,K6BQ. In the car, I am using a Yaesu FT8900 quad band mobile with a quad-band antenna, and an FT-857 all-band mobile with 100 watts through Hustler resonators on 17, 20, and 40 meters. I also have a Tarheel screwdriver antenna, which I hope to install soon (if you’ve done this before, I could sure use your help!), allowing me the use of all HF bands while mobile without changing resonators! My current home station is a Kenwood TS-530 running 100 watts through
an MFJ tuner to a bent dipole in theattic. Although I have SSB
capabilities, I operate almost I also enjoy building kits, and have completed several, my first being a Rockmite QRP CW transceiver for 7040 kHz that works very well! Currently, I am working hard to finish my Elecraft KX1 for portable QRP operations. I have much to learn about electronics and radio theory, but am
enjoying the opportunities to communicate with what I already know.
Amateur radio is a great hobby providing many hours of relaxation and
opportunities to meet interesting people. Catch you on the air! |
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