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ARRL PRESENTS NEW MEMBERSHIP BENEFIT
by Marvin Johnston 16 Sep '08

16 Sep '08

The ARRL newsletter just came out with terrific news for ARRL members!!! ==> ARRL PRESENTS NEW MEMBERSHIP BENEFIT With just a mouse click or two, ARRL members can now access the online QST magazine archive <http://www.arrl.org/members-only/qqnsearch.html>. This new benefit -- a service of the ARRL Technical Information Service (TIS) <http://www.arrl.org/tis/> -- provides PDF copies of all QST articles from December 1915 through December 2004, enabling members to view and print their favorite article, project and more. For many years, the TIS has provided members with assistance researching ARRL periodicals and publications, as well as providing members and non-members with article reprints for a small fee. Access to the new online digital QST archive is free for ARRL members, and is for their personal use only -- material in the archive may not be freely distributed or copied.

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Satellite Demo Space Station Presentation this Friday!
by Ken Owen 16 Sep '08

16 Sep '08

Hi folks: Please join us at this Friday at the SBARC club meeting for a very special presentation on amateur radio space communications, including: A LIVE DEMO OF A HAM RADIO SATELLITE PASS Oscar 50 will make a pass overhead just after 7:30 PM, and we will show you HOW EASY IT IS to "work the birds" with just a handheld radio! After the pass we will have a PowerPoint presentation discussing certain particularly interesting aspects of the satellite hobby. POWERPOINT PRESENTATION AND VIDEO OF OUR RECENT CONTACT WITH THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS) We will give you a behind the scenes tour of our much publicized contact with the ISS, and we'll show you a great video of the boy scouts talking to an astronaut live via ham radio! We will also give you some background on the ARISS program (Amateur Radio on the International Space Program) and discuss why SBARC was given a priority spot to make a contact with the ISS. I will be joined by Christian, WV6N, and we will both demonstrate our equipment in action. COME EARLY, DON'T MISS OUT, IT'S GOING TO BE A GREAT CLUB MEETING! Ken, N6KTH AMSAT Area Coordinator

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Re: New ARRL Service
by mst 14 Sep '08

14 Sep '08

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Tower
by Bill Talanian 09 Sep '08

09 Sep '08

To: ListServer From: Bill Talanian Subject: Tower Enclosed pictures of 60' tubular crank up tower with attached raising fixture. Tower is immediately available and the price is right. For further information please contact me.

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KB6NVH SK
by Bill Talanian 05 Sep '08

05 Sep '08

SK Brian B. Carlin, KB6NVH 22 August 2008 At age 49 of a stroke at Marian Hospital, Santa Maria. Brian graduated from UCSB in 1983 with a BS is Computer Science. He was fluent in many computer languages and was hired by Apple Computer at Cuppertino as a Senior Programmer Analyst. After retiring back to Santa Barbara was a member of the technical staff at SBRC. Brian was widely known amongst the Santa Barbara MacIntosh User's Group where he was a Board member. His skill's with all models of the Apple Computer were widely known and his knowledge was sought out by Mac user's throughout Santa Barbara. His gift of memory and world events was never challenged. A Civil War Historian who could describe each event as though it were yesterday. As a world history buff Brian would always draw from historical military battles going back hundreds of years and compare them to contemporary event's. While not very active in Amateur Radio Brian's close friends were many Amateur Radio Operators. In the early days of the WD6GNG "skunk works" Brian worked closely with Gene Nicholson, W6YJO, and the 145.18 Repeater. Brian was single and leaves his brother Steve, K6PX, of San Diego. RIP Brian B. Carlin, KB6NVH, SK

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World ARD Championships
by Marvin Johnston 04 Sep '08

04 Sep '08

Some of you may remember Gyuri Nagy, HA3PA, from Hungary who got his US call at special VE Session at the Red Cross. He legally changed his name to George Neal when he got his US citizenship. And I just got an email that he took 3rd place (Bronze) in the M50 class at the World ARDF Championships being held in Seoul, So. Korea!!! This is the second medal the US has won! I haven't seen the results so I don't know how either Jay Hennigan, WB6RDV, or Scott Moore, KF6IKO, have done. Here is a report from Bruce Patterson from Australia; the Aussie team consists of Bruce and Bryan (Bryan designed and built the popular "blue box" 2M receiver.) The US team and the Australian team met in 2000 in China and we all keep in contact. Bruce also has some pictures up on the Australian ARDF website: www.ardf.org.au -> Calender->World Champs->Images ********** Well this is the first chance I've had to even look at email since my last message. Today was of course the first day of real competition, but perhaps I've got ahead of myself. Maybe perhaps I'll add a bit of suspense by leading up to it via what's been happening yesterday as well, as at the time of writing I can't see the results on the website yet. Yesterday we all trooped onto the buses for the practice event. A map of this will appear in the pictures area of the website at some stage. It is a mix of mainly dark green (jungle) and what appealingly looks like open land (orange) till you check the legend which tells you it's "cultivated land": read mainly rice paddies. This one was largely a matter of sticking to the tracks and making a short excursion off the side right near a transmitter. I found 3 of the 2m ones without too much difficulty, but then my sniffer crashed. I hadn't experienced this particular problem before, but later investigation by Bryan showed it was a combination of flattish batteries and a falling apart battery holder inside the sniffer. Well I guess it's had a fair bit of use ! Easily fixed with new batteries and carefully placed bits of cardboard packing. At the time on the practice event I couldn't un-crash it, so luckily I also had my 80m receiver with me, so I swapped over to that. Turns out 3 of the 5 were co-located anyway, so I ended up going to most locations anyway. Bryan, on the other hand, was having terrible difficulties on 2m. Later on, after he'd given up in disgust and found at least some 80m transmitters, he discovered he'd assembled a "Geoff Special" beam (ie. backwards). The good thing was all these teething troubles ocurred at the practice event, so we could confidently go into the world champs event today with everything fixed (I carried a spare receiver today in my camel back anyway, just in case). The opening ceremony was another bus ride to nearby Suwon University. They issued us with translation receivers (good idea...that should cut down the length of the speeches!) and another Aussie flag (on a pretty pole with a gold ball on the top). Then announced that each country should appoint two people to march/carry the flag. After extensive debate within the team we came to the conclusion that Bryan and I would volunteer for this role. With all the other Ark animals (2 by 2) we were ushered out of the main hall to spend what seemed hours but was probably only 30mins or so for some introductory drumming thing to finish (I'm not quite sure; we weren't there!) and on we marched onto the stage. Australia being of course 1st as this was to the English rather than Chinese alphabet. Noone had told us what we were meant to do, or whether we were meant to be staying on stage till everyone else came on, but it turns out they wanted us to march off again. After all the countries (31?) had their go , it got down to the real entertainment, and I have to admit, unlike many other cermonies, it was actually pretty good. Sort of a mix of traditional Korean musicical instruments, but updated music, singling girls and the B-Boy breakdancers. Speeches...well, all I can say is luckily we didn't have to listen to then twice (Korean & English). On out return we were ushered straight off the buses to the gardens where dinner was served in a garden party setting. Very pleasant in the cooler evening. We were invited over the the Croatian team table and had many discussions about ARDF participation, juniors development and garmin GPS's. Seems they have managed to get some funding through their education department (it wasn't easy) to run schools ARDF programs. Sounds a bit like what Peta does, but more developed within each school itself (so it's self sustaining to a degree; some schools even trying to get competitors into Region 1 junior champs). They don't seem to have as much traditional foot orienteering development; perhaps they got in first. The next world champs are to be in Croatia in 2010. Straight after dinner it was off to a Region 3 meeting to consider the bid from Thailand to run the 2009 Region 3 championships. it's not official yet, but it looks like they could well be happening there in November next year, so keep that free ! We need a bigger them than just 2 of us. Fall into bed after getting everything ready for the early start this morning. Lucky for the 1 hour time difference so for me the 5am start was more like 6am ! Even so sleep was slow coming last night, but spare a thought for the teams (eg Croatia) who have ended up with thin 1cm futons on the floor rather than beds. Luck of the draw it seems. I'm glad we arrived earlyish on arrival day. Well, finally I'm up to the 2m VHF event today. As a mini spoiler I will point out we both finished in time with our required 4 controls (transmitters found). Doing M40 we had to miss transmitter number 5. The early start in the monring is because all competitors have to be bussed to the start. At a championships the location is meant to be a secret, unlike traditional orienteering events. Also, all the receivers have to be impounded at the start before the transmitters can be turned on. Due to some slight mixups in all this (I think we did it better back in 2003) the actual first start was delayed 30mins to 9:30am. My start was 10:20 and Bryan's 12:05pm. It was pretty hot and very humid. The M40 start corridor aimed directly at TX#5; the one we didn't have to get at all. This caused most some confusion. In fact, the quickest way out was to run back through the Start, but we weren't too sure if this was even allowed ! Very messy anyway. My route was to go to a slightly more distant #4 prior to the closer-to-the-start #3 so that I could use a main road at the edge to bypass a lot of nasty looking deep green across the middle of the very elongated map (a little bit longer than A4 long, but narrower). As it turns out, my gamble did work out, and though it may not have been the quickest route, it was easy navigation and running (for some of it). I'm not sure if I'd gone 3->4 if I'd have a better time or not; even drawing out my route later on the map it looked pretty good. After bypassing a range of deep green in the middle, I cut in from the road to #2, which turned out to be on my side of the green range (phew!!). The road was fast running, and the deep green was passable in places, especially on the ridges, but the rice paddies (orange) were often slow as the little pathways amongst them didn't always take you where you wanted. My time was 94mins and 52s, putting me in 14th place out of 46. Bryan zipped out of the start faster than I did and took a different approach, aiming for the road on the far side of the map. He ended up doing the same control order as I did, but suspect considerably more km.(16 or more). Still, he's happy he got the required 4, was back in time (just) and knew where he was on the map nearly all the time. His place was 24th, with time of 115 mins 47s, unofficial results at the finish. Pity the poor competitor I was speaking to just after I finished who was overtime by a mere 5 seconds ! The time limit was 140 minutes.

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SBARC Space Station Contact
by Ken Owen 22 Aug '08

22 Aug '08

Hi folks: The Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club had a very successful contact with the International Space Station on Tuesday, and I would like to share it with you. If you have not done so already, visit www.n6kth.com/iss to view videos, photos and news stories about the contact. The web site also goes into some detail about how the contact was arranged (it was a bit unusual). We had crystal clear communications, and most of the scouts were able to ask their questions. It was also a great media event for SBARC. Check it out, and check back often, because I am constantly updating it. Many, many thanks goes to those who helped put the event together. I would particularly like to thank Calli Marquez, KD6OVS. Ken, N6KTH www.n6kth.com/iss PS. I apologize in advance for duplicating some of these address.

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Boy Scout Satellite Communication Day Photos
by Bill Hepp 20 Aug '08

20 Aug '08

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Misspelling
by Bill Talanian 18 Aug '08

18 Aug '08

Folks: My apologies for the misspelling of Andrew Seybold's (W6AMS) name. Bill Talanian

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146.790 interference
by Bill Talanian 18 Aug '08

18 Aug '08

8/17/2008 To: SBARC List Server From: Bill Talanian, SBARC Telecommunications Services Subject: Interference on 146.79 system Since last April the LaVigia Hill 146.790 system has suffered from a very low level inter-mod signal on the input frequency of 146.190 which created sporadic and intolerable interference. We have spent hundreds of man hours in determining that our system was free of any orders of signal mixing and spurious radiation. In addition, we went through a number of corrective methods to eliminate any inter-mod source such as antenna, corrosion, tower bolts, fences, rusty hardware, and very near field antennas. Through some very unique testing methods the test team was able to determine the offender signal was an extremely low level signal barely above the noise level. This occurred only when a signal appeared on 146.790. In repeat mode this would reverberate and trash itself regardless of PL. A unique DF arrangement indicated the signal was emanating from the on-site cellular tower which is about 50' away. The dilemma was how we could provide with 100% repeatable assurance to the cellular engineers that something in their system was related to our problem. Meanwhile to reduce the interference problem we transferred the 146.79 system to an alternate and lower antenna which did not excite the source of interference. This antenna did not have the coverage of the main antenna but was adequate. This past Monday while on site I ran into a contractor who was doing work for the cellular company. In our technical discussion I concluded, "well let me show you how it all happens." Much to my surprise the offender signal did not appear. So what changed? Without knowing I left everything connected to our original antenna and for the past several days asked for reports of interference. None came in. For 5 months we had interference and now it was gone. Andy Seibold, W6AMS, made contact with engineering personnel at the cellular company and reports the following: "I determined that they had, in the past few weeks, re-programmed their site on the 850 MHz GSM side and changed channels. GSM channels are 30 KHz wide and some are used for voice and some for data (GPRS and EDGE), they could not tell me if the changes were permanent but they claim that nothing else was done remotely to the tower and they do not believe that anything else has changed." While not conclusive we shall now wait and see what happens. Cellular tower frequencies are way beyond our 2-meter communications spectrum, however, it should not be automatically concluded that interference of an inordinate order is not possible. Indeed we must look beyond harmonically related problems and normal frequency mixes for offenders. These may be just as problematic and much more difficult to find when it involves a cell site. Our THANKS go to the Super Tech Team of Calli (KD6OVS), Bruce (N6OLT), Andy (W6AMS) with side assists from Ken (N6KTH), Mike (N6QD), and Bruce (KF6RAI) and myself. Lastly our thanks go to the great folks at Telewave, Inc. (San Jose) who graciously exchanged our new collinear antenna at no cost for another factory new antenna to help eliminate one potential source. *************************

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