Quick Notes:

• Welcome back Dave…thanks to Karen for taking care of Dave.
• The Bouvet Island Dxepedition is planned for early 2018. Bill (N8BR) suggested the club donate money to the dxexpedition. The OCRA Board will discuss financial support options at the next Board meeting.
• This Saturday, October 14, OCRA will hold a testing session at the Orange County EOC.
• Final Field Day results should be published in the next QST.
• Amateur Radio operators have been working diligently assisting with communications in Puerto Rico. The following media outlets have covered these efforts.
  • National Public Radio
  • CNN
  • ARRL

Officer’s Report

Treasurer

• 72 membership dues are current and an appropriate reserve balance is in our accounts

Program Topic – MFJ Enterprise 45^th Anniversary Celebration

During the last week of September, John Green (KX4P) and Nick Szydlek (KA1HPM) and their better halves took a road trip to the deep south. In Birmingham Alabama, John and Nick and spouses visited the Barber Motorcycle Museum. The museum is a building consisting of four floors. At any one time, more than 600 motorcycles are on display in the museum. The total collection numbers over 1,400. They have have many bikes in storage, and museum guests can view this area of the collection during large events and when purchasing a Premium Museum Tour, which features the Restoration Level.

They have have many bikes in storage, and museum guests can view this area of the collection during large events and when purchasing a Premium Museum Tour, which features the Restoration Level.

According to Barber’s Website:

Since the world’s best and largest car collections had already been established, George Barber heeded some wise advice. His longtime friend Dave Hooper—a motorcycle enthusiast as well as the person who ran Barber’s delivery fleet for 27 years—suggested that Barber shift his focus from cars to motorcycles. Being a man of big dreams, Barber seized the opportunity to accomplish what no one else had done… build the world’s “best and largest” motorcycle collection.

The adventure continued as John and Nick visited the Alabama Historical Radio Society. John mentioned that the society was founded in 1989. Don Kresge, a retired General Electric engineer, founded the society to provide an opportunity for people of all ages to pursue their interest and enjoy the history of vintage radios. The museum is housed in an old bank owned by the Alabama power company. The museum holds educational sessions for teaching radio history, and on Saturdays they hold workshops to restore old radios.

From Alabama, John and Nick ventured to Mississippi where they rendezvous with other participants of a Sunday night 80 meter net. Many of the net participants have known each other since childhood and continue their strong relationship through their interest in amateur radio. Their shared interest in amateur radio led them to participate in MFJ Enterprise’s 45^th Anniversary Celebration.

MFJ Enterprises, founded in 1972 by Martin F. Jue K5FLU, is a manufacturer of a broad range of products for the amateur radio industry.

They specialize in station accessories, such as antenna tuners and antenna switching equipment. MFJ now manufactures more amateur radio products than any other company in the world.

Hundreds of representative products and several pages of advertisement can be found monthly in publications like QST Magazine and CQ Amateur Radio.

The team, visited MFJ’s “manufacturing” facility in Starkville Mississippi on September 29 and 30, along with 500 other employees, patrons, and supporters of the company. Nick mentioned very little automation is employed in the facility. Rather, most of the development and production is still done by human effort.

John presented several videos demonstrating the making and testing of equipment. Thanks to John and Nick for sharing a great presentation of their trip to Alabama and Mississippi.

OCRA Membership Meeting Notes – September 11, 2017

Quick Notes:

• Location: Efland Baha’i Center
• Introductions:
• VE Session – 3 candidates
• Hillsborough annual Hog Day this weekend, September 15 and 16.

Officer’s Report:

Treasurer:

• 74 membership dues are current and an appropriate reserve balance is in our accounts
• Please consider using Amazon Smile to support OCRA. Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible Amazon Smile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice. This year, OCRA has received nearly $50 from Smile purchases.

Show and Tell:          

• Over the weekend of September 4^th, Chuck (KW4KZ) placed the Ed Fong orders. The order included 11 radios, 5 antennas, and one 50ft real of coax.  Shipping should occur in the next several weeks.
• Andy (W4KIL) recently purchased a Radiooddity GD-77, a digital mobile radio (DMR), dual band handheld. Andy mentioned Durham DMR is very active, and with this radio and Internet connection, you can make contacts to other DMR repeaters all over the world.
• Wilson (W4BOH) demonstrated a push/pull butterfly capacitor, which contains two stators and a rotor arranged in such a way that turning the rotor will vary the capacitance between the rotor and either stator equally. This has the great advantage that current flows through two series capacitors from stationary plate, across the rotor to stationary plate without any sliding contacts. Wilson’s capacitor was manufactured by Barker and Williamson and would have cost roughly $25 in the early 1930’s, or nearly $500 in today’s dollars. Wilson explained how this capacitor suppresses 2^nd harmonics. For more information on suppressing harmonics, please visit the following site.
• Dan (KR4UB) elaborated on the importance of equal balance, which supports longitudinal balance required for maintaining voice signals along telephone lines, and how perfect symmetry for balance in computers allowed for longer Ethernet lines, thus securing Ethernet as an affordable networking technology.

DIY:

Interested in building your own air variable capacitor, check out the links below.

1. http://www.eham.net/articles/5217
2. http://www.instructables.com/id/air-variable-capacitor-from-scrap-aluminum-sheets/

Emergency Preparedness:

As this day represented the 16^th anniversary of 9/11, and with the recent hurricanes in the Gulf, we felt the need to reflect and discuss the importance of amateur radio and being prepared for emergency events.  Several notable best practices we discussed, included the following:

• The importance of a generator. Gas generator’s work well, as long as there is gas.  The recent events in the Key’s illustrates that gas may be difficult to find and limited in supply. A dual fuel solution, or propane or natural gas may better if power outages are sustained beyond a few day, and one has access to a large propane tank, or existing natural gas line.
• Also, be sure to have cash on hand. If power outage is widespread, banks will be closed. However, during the day, restaurants may have ability to serve food, but may not accept credit cards, if power is out…in this situation, cash is king.
• The Red Cross Hurricane Safety Checklist provides a good starting checklist to follow on hurricane preparedness.

Equifax Breach 

We had a very informative discussion on the recent Equifax breach. Dan (KR4UB) provided a document with links to the various credit rating bureaus. We discussed the values and challenges of credit freezes.  We would encourage people who are interested to research the value of credit freezes and determine if it makes sense given your personal situation.

Adro (KV7D) sent an email (September 18) via the yahoo reflector with helpful information, including malicious websites not to visit and emails to delete.

Please let me know of any errors or omissions.

73, Keith (W1KES)

OCRA Meeting Notes – August 14, 2017

Quick Notes:

• Dan (KR4UB) – Facilitated the meeting
• Quick introduction by attendees
• Joel (KF4KQW) moved to the coast permanently. We wish him well.
• Keith (W1KES) was approved as Club secretary.
• Dee (KU4GC) provided the following Interactive NASA solar eclipse map
• EOC renovations will commence soon. We will most likely hold the September OCRA Membership meeting in the Fellowship Hall of the Efland Baha’i Center.  More details to follow.

Officer Report:

Treasurer Report: current Budget is $13,262.59, with 72 paid members

Kirby Saunders, Orange County Emergency Management Coordinator, stopped by for quick introduction.  Orange County is eager to have active ARES involvement in local emergency training exercises.

Such participation is part and partial to being an amateur radio operator. All OCRA members and active hams are encouraged to get involved in ARES.  The Weekly Orange County ARES Training Net begins on Saturday mornings at 9:30 am on the W4UNC 442.150 MHz PL 131.8Hz repeater.

ARES Report:

Steve Ahlbom (W3AHL): Orange County ARES/AUXCOMM has been requested to participate in a formal shelter exercise at the C.W. Stanford Middle School in Hillsborough on Wednesday, August 16^th from 9:00-12:00 (first shift) and 12:00-1500 (second shift).  The exercise will simulate power outage and establish shelter for 85 people.

This is a great way to learn or refresh shelter exercises.  Typically, one must complete ICS 100, 200, 700, and 800 free online courses from the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and have some ARES experience (training nets, public service events, etc.)  Steve will request a waiver for those who have not completed the courses prior to the exercise.

Incident command training is standardized across the country, which provides a common vocabulary and means of planning and organizing people to accomplish task.  To participate in formal training exercises, one needs to complete the courses listed above.

Public service events are good way to learn about ARES and incident response. There are several ways to keep informed of training exercises…reflector emails, OCRA website, or contact Steve.

Show and Tell:

Dan (KR4UB) provided a reflection of the winter 1996 OCRA Newsletter, which mentioned the initiation of OCRA’s repeaters now known as W4UNC. Tremendous effort was involved to get the repeaters on the air.  A key participant in this effort was John Welton (N4SJW), whom has since moved to Colorado, but was in attendance for this meeting.

John provided a similar recollection on the effort to establish a repeater on the UNC Campus.

John recalled that emergency response played an important part in establishing the repeaters on the Faculty Laboratory Office Building (FLOB), better known today as the Mary Ellen Jones building on the University of Chapel Hill (UNC) Campus.  The UNC hospital, also located on campus, is the largest burn center in the South East.  As such, a means for providing emergency communication coordination with the hospital and surrounding area was needed.

In 1996, with financial assistance provided by the Hospital, Orange County, and Town of Chapel Hill, along with sweat equity from OCRA and DFMA members, the repeater was installed on top of the FLOB.  The repeater still provides Chapel Hill and the hospital wide area communication capabilities today.  John also recalled the challenges associated with RF coverage inside the building, as the structure had very thick concrete walls.  The site leveraged IRLP as the communication infrastructure, as cell phone coverage was not pervasive at that time.

Continuing the conversation on John Welton’s influence on disaster preparedness, Dan shared a 2009 QST article entitled, “When the Big One Hits, South Carolina Will Be Ready!”  The article mentions John, along with fellow University of South Carolina nurse Brian Fletcher, involvement in obtaining funding to establish a statewide Amateur Radio 2 meter and 70 cm repeater system.  The article states, South Carolina is prone to earth quakes, and John and Brian implemented a project at the Medical University of South Carolina to provide hospitals with Amateur Radio communications for redundant communication capacity in the case of hurricane evacuations and earthquakes.  We were glad to have John and Dan’s reminiscing on past experiences and share the role amateur radio operators play in emergency management and natural disasters.

Chuck (K4RGN) – At the July DFMA meeting, Ed Fong (WB6IQN) presented a program where he discussed his antenna designs and his latest, patented, triband antenna, which was featured in March QST 2017.  Chuck brought one of Ed’s TBJ-1 triband antenna to the meeting.  He separated the antenna from the PVC casing and explained the design.  Dan also added commentary on the eloquent helix transformer design.  Ed is selling the antenna for $60.  Likewise, Ed is selling an HF SSB handheld SDR based receiver, and a GP5/SSB for $60.  If interested in any of these items, please contact Chuck at chanoia33@gmail.com

Steve (KZ1X) – Presented a low cost ($59), 40 meter SSB HR rig from HFSigs, based on the popular Bitx40 design.  The rig is shipped built from Indian with digital read out…did I mention it was only $59. This rig is ideal for low power WSJT-X communication modes like JT65 and JT9.  A friend of Steve’s created a 3D mounting for the rig, which is makes a solid rig worthy of addition to any ham shack.

Andy (W4KIL) – Has been active with DMR radio listening to repeater’s out west.  He recently purchased an AAI Impendence Analyzer with graphing function for $150.  The analyzer covers 140MHz~2700MHz, which includes Wi-Fi and maps all S parameters. Nice purchase Andy.

Wilson (W4BOH) – Son and friend reuse computer batteries.  If you have extra computer batteries, let Wilson know and a deal can be made, and they will be used.

Lad (W4ORD) – mentioned that Southern Battery in Kernersville has refurbished batteries at great prices.

Nick (KA1HPM) – Attending the Cape Fear Amateur Radio Society swap in Fayetteville last weekend.  Purchased a DL1000 dummy load.  Tried it out on Sunday, and it worked.  There was no documentation, or any manufacture listed on the product. Nick conducted an internet search and noticed a similar item in a 1980 British publication.  Steve thinks it maybe of Japanese origin.  In any case, it was a good find at an affordable price. Just goes to show you what deals you can find at a swap.

Rick – mentioned that Timber Lake Fire Department will be offering ICS 400 training on August 22, 23, 24.