ARROW Communication Association

Serving Radio Amateurs in Michigan's Washtenaw & Wayne Counties

Author: KB6NU Page 6 of 8

Dan, KB6NU, is the chair of the ARROW Education Committee, a past ARROW president, and station manager for WA2HOM, the club station at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. He blogs about amateur radio at KB6NU.Com.

UMARC/ARROW rack up more than 2,000 Qs on Field Day 2019

By

On June 25, 2019

In News

We ran four HF stations this year, including two CW and two SSB stations. Also shown in this photo are the GOTA station, the public information table, and the food tent. Photo: Larry Works, KD8MDM.

Dave, N8SBE, our Field Day 2019 head honcho reports:

The U-M Amateur Radio Club and ARROW joined again for Field Day 2019, operating class 4A (four transmitters, no commercial power) and one GOTA (Get On The Air) station. We operated again from the park just north of the Ann Arbor Airport.

The radios included three Elecraft K3s, a Yaesu FTdx5000mp for one SSB station, and the UofM club’s Kenwood TS-590 for the GOTA station.  We used contest filters on all the radios, which all did well in the intense multi-multi setup with minimal co-interference.

Our antennas were held up with 40-ft. masts built up from 10, 4-ft. sections of those surplus fiberglass poles used for camouflage netting in the Gulf wars.  These are handy and lightweight, but require 8 people to put up a mast — four on the guy ropes, one on a ladder to raise and hold up the mast while the sixth guy stuffs mast sections up from under, and the last two to stand about 90 degrees apart and determine when the whole thing looks fairly vertical before tying down the guys.  We use two sets of four guys, one set at the top of the mast, and the other half-way down.  We had two CW dipoles, one a multi-band 80, 20, 15, and 10m (note the absence of 40m), the other a single-band 40m, placed end-to-end to minimize pickup.  Two more antennas for the SSB stations, one an Alpha-Delta CC multi-band, the other a 40m “super-loop”, again placed end-to-end.  It takes six masts total to put up the four dipoles, since we separate the SSB and CW dipoles on either side of the parking area where all the shelters are set up.

When we ‘pulled the plug’ on Sunday at 2pm ET, we had more than 2000 contacts. We worked to obtain as many bonus points as possible, but did leave some on the table, including the visit from an elected official, visit from a served agency, and the satellite contact. We usually manage everything except the satellite contact, although some years in the past, we snagged that one, too.

While totalling up all the points will take some time, I think we did pretty well again this year. Thanks to everyone who helped to make this a fun event.

Here are some photos from Arun, W8ARU:

Don, AC8TO, coaching someone at the GOTA station.

Dinesh, AB3DC, and Arun, W8ARU, enjoying the fine weather.

Stuart, W8SRC, cranking out some Qs, with Don, AC8TO looking on. This was Stuart’s 10th Field Day!

Here are some more photos from Larry, KD8MZM:

WS8U’s generator provided most of the power for this year’s FD.

We tried setting up a Beverage antenna, but results were mixed.

Charles, W8HAX, operates one of the SSB stations.

Dan, KB6NU, operates one of the CW stations.

Going Long: KB8U talks about 630m

By

On June 17, 2019

In Meeting Notes

At our June meeting, Russ, KB8U gave a great talk on how to get on and operate the 630m band (472-479 kHz). Here are his slides:

K1BG on entry-level licensing

By

On March 15, 2019

In Meeting Notes

On Wednesday, March 13, we heard from Bruce, K1BG on the history of entry-level amateur licensing. For those of you who weren’t there, here is his slide presentation:

W8MP goes remote

By

On February 14, 2019

In Meeting Notes

Mark, W8MP, making a point during his presentation.

On Wednesday, February 13, 2019, Mark, W8MP (above), gave a great presentation on Remote Ham Radio. Remote Ham Radio is a pay-for-play service that allows you to access some truly great “super stations” around the country. For example, here’s a video showing the antenna system at one of the stations in Eastport, ME, which Remote Ham Radio claims is the closest that you can get to Europe here in the U.S.:

 

There are stations on the East Coast and West Coast, as well as in the heartland, Puerto Rico, and Haiti.

Using these stations isn’t cheap. Remote Ham Radio offers two plans:

  • RemoteDX costs $99/year, plus $0.09/minute to $0.49/minute. This plan gives you access to ten stations with output power up to 500 W and rotatable beam antennas and wires on the low bands.
  • PremiumDX costs $999/year, plus $0.09/minute to $0.99/minute. This plan gives you access to 21 stations, legal limit output power and large antenna stacks and phased arrays (e.g. four-squares).

Because you operate these stations via a web browser, Mark was able to give us a demonstration of how these stations work. He connected to one of the Eastport, ME stations, took a look at the DX spotting window, and selected a station operating 80m CW from Gibraltar. He clicked on the station, and it automatically tuned to that frequency and mode and set up the four-square array to direct the signal to Gibraltar. After two or three calls, the station came back to him.

After that, the presentation took a crazy turn. Tom, W8TAM, spotted someone doing a Parks on the Air activation in Georgia. We then proceeded to work him from the Eastport, ME station and the KP4 station.

The evening ended with a debate on whether or not this service is worth the money. Those in favor argued that you’d probably spend as much on your own amateur radio station as you would for this service. Others were more skeptical. Since we were having this discussion as we were heading out the door, we left it all up in the air (pun intended).

On March 13, 2019, Bruce Blain, K1BG, will talk (remotely via Skype) on entry-level licensing over the years and the ARRL’s proposal to give more privileges to Techs.

First ARROW Winter Field Day a Success!

By

On January 28, 2019

In Contesting, Events

Our first Winter Field Day was a success!

We made 251 Qs, operating for 16 hrs of the 24 hour contest on 20/40/80 SSB.  The Wegwaas cabin at Brighton Rec Area was a great location with plenty of room for two antennas on the ladderball posts that were off to the side.

The propane heat in the cabin eventually got us up to sweltering temps, and had a nice table for operating from.  Icom 7300 at 100W, LDG Z11Pro 2, Heil HM-12, everything on battery power, and we even brought the foot pedal & boom mic setup!  Big thanks to W8TAM for putting together this portable++ setup!  The 80m inverted V doublet performed very well, as expected.  It is our favorite antenna for portable ops.

W8TAM making Winter Field Day contacts as W8RP.

The Spiderbeams both stayed up throughout the contest and came down easily.  That is not always the case with this piece of kit!  We used the new-to-us technique of taping each joint with 3M Super 88.  Very impressed with this performance of this tape – expensive but worth it for this application.  I am very proud that W8TAM and I were able to install these antennas in the dark in below freezing conditions safely and quickly.   #beastmode

  • Claimed score: 4255
  • Our multipliers:
    • 3x for SSB Qs on 3 bands
    • 2x for 100w or less
  • Bonuses:
    • 1500 pts not at home
    • 1500 pts no commercial power

From the WFD Rules:
QSO Points: 1 point per Phone QSO, 2 points per CW & Digital QSO… Busted exchanges will be penalized by 1 additional point for each missed exchange or call sign. Duplicate contacts (same call, band, and mode) will not be counted, but will not be penalized.

Mode and Band Multipliers: Count 1 multiplier for each mode operated per band. For example, operating CW and Phone on 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters, CW and PSK31 on 20m, FM on 2meters and 440 would be a total multiplier of 12x.

So you can see that we definitely left some points on the table.  Next year we will be soliciting CW ops and we’d also like to nab the 1500 bonus for a satellite Q.

Thanks to Dinesh AB3DC, Gayathri N8GRU and Dave N8SBE for coming by to make some see our setup and contacts.  Mitch, K8UCH we are so sorry we missed you!    Also thanks to John WA8TON for arranging for the space.  It was great!

I had a caller that knew Roy Purchase, and he said how nice it was to make contact with W8RP.  I told him our club was honored to hold the call – always a thrill to call whiskey eight romeo papa.

Take nothing but Qs leave nothing but footprints!

73 Julie K8VOX

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