Author Archives: Orange County Radio Amateurs, INC

Fox Hunt Proposal

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from Aurora, KN4VXB

Fellow Hams,

I mentioned this idea to at the Zoom OCRA meeting today, but I don’t think it got broadcast on the repeater, and I wanted to share the idea with the larger group:

Like many, I was sad that field day won’t be happening as usual, and I was trying to think of a group activity that could be done while maintaining social distancing. As preparation for eventual recovery of my own high altitude balloons, I would like to improve my skills at finding hidden APRS trackers.

The logical combination of these two ideas is a Fox Hunt! For those who don’t know, a fox hunt is a scavenger hunt for hidden radio transmitters.

I am happy to be the organizer for this event, but as I am am new to this, I would like an experienced advisors (or two) who would be willing to assist. I recently ordered a small APRS transmitter that I am willing to let the group use for the event, if needed. I have a few questions:

1. Would you be interested in participating in a club fox hunt?
2. Have you done so before? If so, what did you like/not like about what you did before?
3. Do you have equipment we could use for the event, such as APRS transmitters or extra antennas/HTs for folks who don’t have them?
4. Should we have prizes or simply bragging rights? If prizes, how should that work?
5. Would you be willing to help me organize?
6. Do you think late July or early August would be a reasonable time to do this? (I’m starting grad school in mid-August, so if I’m organizing, I’d like to have this done before then.)

Thanks in advance for feedback and ideas!

05/13/20 Update:
Thanks everyone who gave me feedback on my idea!  Based on feedback I’ve gotten so far I’d like to amend my original proposal in a few ways.  I propose we have TWO events over the course of a day or weekend:

  • Event 1: An early- to mid-morning (before it gets too hot) on-foot search for transmitters at a park or large private property.  From the feedback I got, a 2-m transmitter that sends out a string of Morse code would be better than an APRS transmitter, as I originally proposed.  I think this may be fun to do in teams of 3-4 people to make it more social.  Maybe one experience person and 2-3 newbies per team?  Perhaps a capture-the-flag type event where each team hides transmitters that the other teams have to find?  For public health reasons, team members that are not from the same family must stay more than 2 m apart, which should be easy to do.
  • Event 2:  A late morning thru afternoon fox hunt in vehicles to find a hidden person transmitting from an undisclosed location.  The ideal fox would place themselves in an unlikely place where they can work the repeater, but not be heard on the input.  For 50 minutes out of every hours, the “fox” must answer questions when asked by repeater users on the club repeater.  Since this activity can be done in air conditioned vehicles, this event will allow folks who don’t want to slog through the woods or be out in the heat to participate.
If this sounds ok, I will work on putting together a more fleshed out description of events for the group to review and an online survey to figure out who is interested in doing what.  I will plan to only organize events that people actually want to do, and are willing to help out with preparations for.

Best,

Aurora

OCRA Club Over-the-Air Meeting 442.150 Repeater with Audio Linked Zoom Conference

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Monday, May 11th, 2020
7:30pm to 8:30pm
Description:
Our next monthly membership meeting for OCRA will be Monday, May 11 at 7:30 pm.  Since Orange County still restricts all gatherings to 10 persons or less, the Efland Baha’i Center remains closed.

We will hold the meeting over the W4UNC 442.150+ repeater, PL 131.8

Additionally, we will have a Zoom meeting held simultaneously, so that those who cannot access the repeater may still participate. We have been experimenting with audio links between Zoom and the repeater, so it should work well.

Hope to hear you there!

See the OCRA Club Meeting Notice posted on the OCRA/DFMA groups.io Message Board for the OCRA Zoom Video Conference Log-in Information.

73,

Dave Snyder, W4SAR

========================================

 

 

Bug Refurb – Another Piece from the Old Novice Station

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from Bruce, N1LN

Another piece of the old novice station finished today.   The bug is one that my long ago SK uncle, W2NAD, gave me after I first got my ticket.  Since then I modified it into a paddle to use with a keyer I built from the ARRL book, Understanding Amateur Radio.

Now about 56 years later, it is a bug again!

[c] [y] photo by N1LN, OCRA Inc

I lost the original weights so I made one out of a large galvanized bolt.   I cut the head off with a hack saw, drilled it / tapped it and DONE!

[c] [y] photo by N1LN, OCRA Inc

He also let me borrow his HQ-129X, which is why I purchased one to go with my DX60 / HG10 combo.

 

OCRA Board Meeting Minutes – April 7th, 2020

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Meeting Held by Video Conference

Present:

  • Dave W4SAR
  • Karen KD4YJZ
  • Bill N8BR
  • Nick KA1HPM
  • Dee KU4GC
  • Dan KR4UB
  • Wilson W4BOH

Agenda for Monday April 13th Over-the-Air Club Meeting

  • Monday’s Meeting will take place on the repeater—it will provide membership an opportunity to communicate in a round table discussion. To make it work will require a well-controlled management. Dave will direct the meeting.
  • Dan will review membership. There are now 72 members in the club. 20 are new. A high number need to pay dues, but these folks will not be identified to the club in an open meeting. However, our website will have a corrected current list of paid up members.
  • Nick will comment on the activities of Chatham Auxcom. That organization is on standby with a 48 hour notification of activities. They are not holding meetings at the EOC due to Covid-19 social gathering restrictions.

Following Dan’s enquiry Dee announced that DurHamFest for this year has been cancelled. Durham schools are closed for the rest of the current school year.

Dave announced that VEC duties with exams are on hold for now. This is a good thing since the exam team is in general composed of older folks who are most severely affected by the virus. ARRL is talking about the use of remote testing but in the mean time we will follow local regulations that currently govern meeting location and size of meetings.

A discussion of the current status of field day ensued. As of now the regulations are the same as they were last year, and will remain so until the ARRL makes a final decision. Dave believes the event will likely be cancelled. Discussion ensued concerning the potential problems involved with activities such as decontamination of mikes, keys and operating positions for participating stations as well as maintenance of social distancing issues. Dan will solicit comments on field day from the club.

Dan suggested that he has thoroughly enjoyed the few events that the club has presented by video conferencing, and suggested that we consider using more of this technology to both promote our club to potential new members as well as to better serve existing ones. His comments catalyzed considerable enthusiasm among the group. Specific suggestions that arose from the discussion included using this technology to:

  1. Recruit new club members
  2. Broaden participation at meetings by members living too far away to permit regular attendance
  3. Engage speakers from other clubs and relevant organizations to give presentations at our meetings without asking them to travel long distances.
  4. To present our club members with opportunities to more effectively collaborate with their counterparts in contesting, dxing, operating, public service and other important areas of our hobby.

The foregoing discussions culminated in the unanimous decision by this committee to present the membership with a motion to:

“Empower Dan, KR4UB, our website administrator,

  1. to research the basic strategies our club should use in order to most  effectively interface its mission with current best practice technologies for video conferencing.
  2. supervise the allocation of club funds to acquire the equipment, supplies, and subscriptions needed for the club to be able to utilize these technologies”.

Bill, N8BR – Club Secretary