Charles County Amateur Radio Club

The 2017 Field Day was another successful event for CCARC. Set up this year was 
again at a section of property provided by Paul (KB3YXS) located in the 
Amberleigh Farms area which actually overlooks Gilbert Run park.

   On Saturday morning about 1000, Rob (N2OMC), Paul (KB3YXS) and Bob (KB3KOW) 
converged on the spot to start getting the site set up. This year the club ran 
as a 2A site, so two radios on emergency power.  The antenna’s used were a 
vertical which had been set up by Paul, and a G5RV with one end strung in the 
trees and the other end to a small portable mast, so it was a bit of a sloper. 
The radios in use were the MK-716 for voice and an IC-718 for both voice and 
digital.

   The operating area was two small tables under a 12x12 pop-up canopy and the 
very quiet Honda generator was several feet away near the shed. It ran so 
quietly we didn't even realize it was on and providing power. We were joined 
this year by Bryan, a Boy Scout from Troop 1780, who wasn't working on any 
Merit Badges but wanted to see what it was all about. During Saturday afternoon 
and evening Bryan and Bob worked 40m on both voice and digital. Bryan was able 
to hook quite a few contacts by calling CQ and seem to be enjoying himself.  
A second set of guests were Kelly and Jake, who participated in the “connector 
day” that was recently hosted by Pam and Jeff. They observed the operations 
and asked some questions.

  Lee (N3YWZ) showed up Saturday afternoon and had a good time catching up 
with him. Lee was able to get on the air and make some contacts while on site. 
Sharon (KB3GHI) was not able to make it, I know she really wanted to though 🙂 
The Field Day site was also paid a visit by Tom Abernethy (W3TOM), the ARRL 
Atlantic Division Director and Deb (KA3VNF) before we shut down for the evening.

  On Sunday morning, Paul and Bob returned at 0600 to get the radios set back 
up and continued to operate for the next 3 hours or so.  Art (AA3RT) was also 
able to stop by and make his customary FD contact.

   All in all another good Field Day for the club. A lot of members had other 
comments so the turnout was low but the weather was excellent and the bands 
were hopping so a good event overall. Many thanks to Paul for the use of the 
equipment and the site, appreciate it sir! And of course thanks to Bob for his 
efforts this weekend and for writing most of this report. If we forgot to 
mention anyone, please forgive us for being old!

73,
Rob - N2OMC

The brief for the Time Domain Reflectometer in .PPT format can be downloaded from

HERE

The NS to Distance Chart can be downloaded:

ns to distance chart

On May 1st, 2017, members of the CCARC helped support the annual March of Dimes “March for Babies” Walkathon. The event is held each year and for the past few years has started and ended at the Regency Furniture Stadium (aka, the Blue Crabs).

On hand to support was Patrick (KB3UYZ), Jeff (KB3SPH), Pam (KB3SWS), Art (AA3RT), Joe (KB3HNP), Paul (KB3YXS) Boy Scout Bob (KB3KOW), Navy Bob (KC3BOW) and ‘short Bob’ (no call yet – hint hint).

The walk, which in the past has had both a 3 mile segment and a 5 mile segment, was only three miles this year. Participants would start at the stadium, walk down Piney Church road and then turn onto St. Matthews road and then down to the community center located in “The Links” condo area and then return. This year the rain held off but the morning did start out at a brisk 43 deg or so but finally started to warm up as the event started.

Patrick supported Spirit Station #1 outside of St. Charles High School and was also able to provide close to 70 photos from his station

Paul was at Spirit Station #2 about halfway up St. Matthew and was assisting the station with handing out drinks and power bars:

Pam and Jeff set up at Spirit Station #3 located at the community center with an impressive station including solar power and a portable mast.

Art, Joe and two of the Bobs helped at net control but then Navy Bob and ‘short Bob’ volunteered use of their truck to deliver supplies to the stations.

The event ended successfully around 10:30 am. Thank you very much to everyone who came out to help and support.

President Mike Tackish (KA3GRW) Activities Manager, Rob Hoyt (N2OMC)
welcomed the members present and introduced this month’s speaker:

Bob Davidson (KB3KOW) gave a presentation on the PiGate software for
Emergency Comms using a TNC-X connected to a Raspberry Pi 3 WiFi.
Front their web site: “Pi Gate Emergency Email Gateway
When disaster strikes, communication is the most important missing
service. Amateur radio operators have a long history of helping in
disaster situations and this new device was created to assist in that
effort.
The PiGate is a small piece of hardware that can be brought into a
disaster area, connected to an already existing VHF or HF amateur radio
and antenna (like in your car or truck), and used to send e-mail to the
global Winlink2000 system through a Radio Message Server (RMS)
station.
Users connect to the PiGate thru a WiFi port either using a web browser,
or an e-mail application, on their smartphone, tablet, or laptop. From
there they can compose and send e-mail to their family and friends.
The Winlink2000 global e-mail radio service then routes the e-mail to
any address in the world.
The PiGate is very small and has a very low power requirement,
allowing it to be used in disaster situations without relying on any other
services. Except for an external power requirement and a connection to
a HF or VHF radio, It is completely self-contained.”
For more information please visit: www.PiGate.net

Twelve attendees from local area ham radio clubs, the Southern MD Astronomical Society, and other guests, had a connector-fest, hosted at the home of Pam – KB3SWS and Jeff – KB3SPH on Sunday, 4/23/2017.

The festivities started with a short briefing by Jeff demonstrating the various connector possibilities along with the associated required tools. The mantra, “Red Right, Tongue up!,” was preached as the standard way to make-up PowerPole assemblies in order to ensure compatibility with other people’s gear before you plugged in something expensive.

Highlights:

Ken – KA3POX served as the soldering Elmer and demonstrated numerous soldering techniques, including helping a young Scout tackle his first electronics kit, introducing soldering skills.

Charles – AA3WS demonstrated how to make a PowerPole tester using a red/green LED and a pair of PowerPoles.  If the tester showed green when mated with your freshly minted assembly, the polarity was correct.  If it showed red, danger was afoot and the polarity was reversed.  Every attendee got to take home a tester.

Bob – KB3KOW hosted a mini foxhunt to demonstrate RF Direction finding capabilities.

Pam – KB3SWS provided a snack smorgasbord throughout the afternoon, culminating in an evening supper.

Camaraderie was the watchword of the day and even some of the “old dogs” admitted they learned some new tricks.

Charles (AA3WS) showing how to do PowerPole connections.

Jake the Scout getting some soldering training from Ken (KA3POX)

The set up at the QTH

Ahhh, the Food!! And this was just the snack.

It was a short meeting this month. The following items were discussed:

March For Babies at the Blue Crab Stadium on May 7. The CCARC will be supporting the annual event.  Set-up starts at 0700 Hours at the Blue Crab stadium in Waldorf and the event is normally completed around 1200 Hours. The route this year is only a 3 mile loop, so one less Spirit Station.

A Connector Party will be held at the home of Pam KB3SWS and Jeff KB3SPH and the invitation was extended to various clubs in the area. There will be Power Pole building, soldering and other events on Sunday.

CCARC 20^th Anniversary will be celebrated with a Crab Feast at the home of Pam KB3SWS and Jeff KB3SPH on September 23, 2017.  More information to follow.

Field Day is approaching. Field Day will be again held at Paul KB3YXS’s property and a future meeting will cover planning for the event.

A short presentation was also held on the potential for a special event station at St. Ignatius Church which is celebrating their 350th anniversary.

On Saturday, 15 October 2016, area HAMs set up two radio stations at the Thomas Stone National Historic Site (TS NHS) near La Plata, MD.  It was a great day to put antennas in the air and radios in operation. We set-up two stations, operated, and broke down during the park hours of 1000 to 1600 Local Time.

One station activated the TS NHS for National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) with TS NHS designated as site NS70.

NPOTA website – http://www.arrl.org/npota

TS NHS Website: https://www.nps.gov/thst/index.htm

Another station supported Jamboree On The Air for Boy Scouts.

JOTA website – http://www.arrl.org/jamboree-on-the-air-jota

JOTA US Bands/Frequencies page –http://www.scouting.org/jota/operators_guides.aspx

KB3TJR – Joe, NW3M – Bob, KB3SWS – Pam, and KB3SPH – Jeff arrived at 1000 for set-up.  W1BJC – Bob and AA3WS – Charles came later to assist with operations and break down. The TS NHS site has regulations prohibiting ground penetration and securing anything to vegetation or park resources.  No problem for this group of MacGyver-esque members as we used 14 cinder blocks transported from home QTHs and other free weights to hold the antennas and yard canopies in place.  We erected three poles in our antenna field, which supported two HF multi-band antennas, a 2M/70cm multi-element beam, and a 2M/70cm J-Pole.  The two HF antennas were about 200 feet apart and we didn’t notice any interference.  We also experimented with various Hamsticks on a mag-mount. Since no commercial power was reasonably available at our site, we relied on the Sun and deployed two solar panel/battery systems to provide all our wattage.

We completed five contacts for NPOTA and talked to nine scouts for JOTA despite the busy bands with a NY QSO party and other contests on the air.

73

Jeff / KB3SPH

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