Author Archives: Orange County Radio Amateurs, INC

OCRA Club Meeting Monday, April 9th Presentation – The Lurid Details of a W4BOH antenna for Bouvet

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When the Bouvet Island DXpedition was announced, some of W4BOH, Wilson’s DXer friends ganged up on him and urged him to put up a respectable antenna for 160m, since making a contact with Bouvet on 160 would be a real challenge. Or maybe they wanted company in the misery of not contacting Bouvet.

In any case, Wilson exercised his best management skills and recruited expert assistance from two of the DXer friends to help design and erect the antenna, which turned out to be a 57 foot top loaded vertical with four tuned radials. Always looking for a bargain, Wilson got W3AHL, Steve to adjust the EZNEC model to make the antenna potentially useful on other bands and in other configurations by changing the matching arrangement at the base.

Once the design was done, WA4PSC, Howie visited the Land of Magic and made two magnificent shots with his PBTBL (PneumoBallistic Tennis Ball Launcher) to get ropes over some of the highest trees at the OCRA/DFMA Field Day Site. At least the last two shots were magnificent. Steve then helped assemble some strong wire, of unknown parentage, into something resembling his design and helped pull it up into the ether. Of course his skill and analyzer were used to tune the radials to bring the antenna to resonance in the low end of 160m.

You’ll have to come to the OCRA Monday, April, 9th meeting to learn the lurid details of just what the beast (the antenna) looks like and what it can do on the air. Who knows, there might even be another story about getting a suitable amplifier assembled in time to contact (Or NOT) Bouvet some day.

Springtime at Virlie’s

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Springlike weather coaxed eight hams out of their shacks for the weekly breakfast and kaffeeklatsch at Virlie’s Restaurant in Pittsboro this past Saturday. If Spring was in the air, so were tales of LDE’s (Long Delayed Echoes). Nick, KA1HPM and John, KX4P were in a roundtable on 75 meters when they experienced delays of around 1 second on the signals of several of the participants. The phenomenon lasted for about thirty seconds per occurrence. One of the most popular extant theories is that signals are trapped between two ionized layers and are guided around the world several times before falling out of a hole in the bottom layer.

Roy, WA2JLW, loaded up some N1MM contest software and enjoyed playing in the ARRL DX CW contest the previous weekend.

Terry, KK4JGT, has organized our first emergency communications coverage test for Chatham County this Monday evening on the OCRA 440 repeater which the OCRA crew has generously allowed us to use during emergencies and training. Terry also described his copper pipe dual band J pole.

Bill, N8BR, had a motherboard crash, but retrieved the hard drive intact. He is working on also retrieving his old log files from that drive.

Dave, W4INN, is getting into the swing of spring by planning to do some gardening.

Pete, K4PHS, brought his newly constructed 30 meter WSPR beacon. Transmitting with 1 watt and a dipole in the attic, it has been received in Europe and Antarctica.

Herb, N4HA, hopes he’ll figure out how to program his new HT before the repeater test Monday evening.

Please join us for radio fun Saturday mornings at Virlie’s Restaurant in Pittsboro around 8:30 AM.

Herb, N4HA

NC QSO Party – Sunday February 25, 2018

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NC QSO PARTY 2018 (2/25) – The NC QSO Party 2018 will be held on Sunday, February 25, 2018, from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM EST. For further information, see http://ncqsoparty.org/  This year marks the 48th anniversary of this great event.

The South Carolina QSO Party is held on Saturday, February 24 from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM EST. http://scqso.com/

Complete details, rules, categories and county activity may be found on the new NCQP website, www.ncqsoparty.org With 146 counties between the two states, these events are a county hunter’s dream. There are 22 operating categories, each one eligible for beautiful trophies and attractive certificates with some special prizes, including this year’s Spelling Bee. You don’t have to be an avid contester to enjoy these operating events. There is no shortage of casual operators participating, which make these QSO parties very enjoyable for all. Many regulars really look forward to the challenge of chasing our many mobile Op’s, as they travel from county to county in both states, racking up multipliers.

The NCQP continues to grow every year. Whether you operate Phone, CW or Digital, get on the air and have some fun. The North Carolina QSO Party is sponsored by the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society (RARS). … Thanks to Marc Sullivan, W4MPS, NCQP Log Analyst, for providing this information! (sources: NC QSO Party website, W4MPS) ——————————————————————–

ARRL North Carolina Section Section Manager: Karl F Bowman, W4CHX w4chx@arrl.org

February 12th Meeting – The Program is You!

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Our next monthly meeting will be held 7:00pm Monday at the Efland Baha’i Center.

The program is…You! I believe our club is at a crossroads, times and situations have changed since the founding of the club over 25 years ago. At our recent board meeting, concerns were raised that the long-term core membership is aging out, some of us have worked hard over many years and want to avoid burn-out. The greatest concern perhaps, is assuring a succession of the club to newer generations of hams, and the passing on of the club’s knowledge base and technical ability to keep the repeaters running, and to keep a pool of trained communicators available for public service and emergencies in our area. We don’t want to see a malaise and decline set in, but want the club to be fun and vibrant.

So let’s have a serious discussion, we want to hear from you what can be done to revitalize the club. Are changes needed? What can we do to build a technical pool? What engaging, fun things can we get into?

We already have Field Day, probably the single biggest group project we engage in (with the DFMA).
Can we get teams for other contests as well?
What hands-on “clinics” would you like?
What presentations would you like best?

It is your club, tell us what you like about it, what is not working, what you would want to see done.

73,

Dave, W4SAR

Hams & Eggs at Virlie’s

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An octet of hungry hams conclaved at Virlie’s in Pittsboro for the last breakfast gathering of the year this past Saturday morning.

John, KX4P, brought in a broken main frequency dial digital encoder for the group’s examination. It was from a Collins KWM-380 from the 1979-83 era that he recently repaired.

Dave, W4INN, determined to get on the air one way or another, is toying with the idea of just running anantenna wire out the window. Dave likes bees because he likes honey. His daughter-in-law gave him a whole jug of the stuff for Christmas.

Terry, KK4JGT, agrees. He has four hives now and a gardener neighbor who gives him produce in appreciation for his quadrupled yields since Terry became a beekeeper. With perhaps the best eyes in the group, he made several good observations regarding the shapes and orientation of the slots in the rotating disk assembly of John’s encoder.

Nick, KA1HPM, described working back-in-the-day with, and the workings of, the coordinateograph, a beautiful machine which is basically a highly precise Etch-a-Sketch. He is still puzzling out his mysterious loss of power on FT8.

Roy, WA2JLW, commented on the Bouvet Island DXpedition as well as CW and digital operations. He is now getting out of his back yard on 160 with his improved antenna which sports a pair of 30 foot radials.

John, KK4VUR, reports that Elon Musk’s SpaceX will attempt to put a car into heliocentric orbit on its next test launch. Maybe a Tesla? John confessed that he has been listening to HF on his SDR. (Ah, the HF siren beckons.)

Bill, N8BR, suggested that John try a vertical antenna for his HF SWLing. Bill is bracing for Bouvet.

Herb, N4HA, kept busy trying to remember what was being said so he could compose this. Thanks to KX4P for mnemonic assistance and the photo.

We hope you will join us in the new year for some stimulating conversation, friendship, and breakfast. We still meet around 8:30 AM.

Happy New Year to all.

and thanks to Herb, N4HA and John, KX4P for the always interesting reports and photo.