Amateur Radio

20210314 Weekly Report

Amateur Radio, Weekly Report

Ham Radio Enthusiasts Weekly Report

Weekly Net
Please join us tonight at 7:00PM for the Five County Ham Radio Enthusiasts net on the Carolina 440 network. You will be able to find your closest repeater at https://www.carolina440.net/440uhf-repeaters/repeaters-on-link.html. If you are not close to the repeater or are unlicensed and you would like to listen on line try https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/34503 Tony Hall (WW4TCH) is our regular net control station.

If you have thought you would like to serve the community during an emergency the best way to get ready is to learn to call a net. Let me know if you are interested in becoming a net control operator.

Thanks to the Carolina 440 net for the use of the repeater. If you would like to help see https://www.carolina440.net/membership/support.html. Tell them FCHRE sent you.

April 3 Exam
Our First Saturday of the month exam is coming up on April 3. It starts at 10:00 AM and has 12 people registered. You must register at https://fivecountyhre.org/registration/. There is no charge for the exam.

Scanner & SWL Sig Monthly Zoom Meeting
For those interested in Short Wave and Scanners the monthly meeting is Monday March 15 at 7:00 PM via Zoom. Please attend the meeting using the Zoom link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87382892945?pwd=aVE2YWlHdmY3bTRpZ3FRQkZBVUx6Zz09

Meeting ID: 873 8289 2945
Passcode: 146640

Thanks to Kelly AE4FG

JARS In-person meeting
The monthly JARS in person meeting is Thursday March 18 Dinner at 6:00 PM. This month it is at the Holt’s Lake – Holt Lake Bar-B-Que & Seafood – 3506 U.S. Hwy 301 S, Smithfield, NC 27577. (I like the fried scallops and shrimp) Stan Disbrow (WA2KQY) will give a history of Land Mobil radios.
If you are interested in emergency communications and the Citizen Emergency Response Team JARS bored of directors has just approved the constitution and bylaws of the JARS Cert team organization. CERT-JARS teams. You must be a JARS member and get the required CERT training. To join JARS you may apply online. If you are interested in more information send me a private message. JARSCom the converted ambulance vehicle will be a part of this endeavor.

FREEDV: Open Source Amateur Digital Voice
FreeDV is a Digital Voice mode for HF radio. You can run FreeDV using a free GUI application for Windows, Linux and OSX that allows any SSB radio to be used for low bit rate digital voice. Is anyone interested in this? See https://freedv.org

DMR Net
Our weekly DMR net is Wednesday at 9:00 PM on the TGIF Talk Group 1870. The net is kind of in a stand by mode. Feel free to throw out your call at any time. A few of us try to monitor that channel.

Mark Gibson (N4MQU)
Team Leader FCVET

We Put Back the Fun in Amateur Radio

Banks Road Testing Club Celebrates 1 Year

Amateur Radio, BRTC, Testing

By Mark Gibson (N4MQU)

Raleigh, NC The Five County VE team celebrates 1 year operating from their new home location.  When the fire departments and the other community facilities closed down for community activities they sought out other facilities to hold their no charge amateur radio testing. Thanks to the owners of Supreme. T-shirts & Apparel Paulette (K4PKD) and Stan (WA2KQY) Disbrow that allows us to use their office in the capital city of Raleigh for amateur radio testing. While some the other established clubs in the area are cutting out the in-person exams in favor of the on-line exams or not doing it all the informal Five County Ham Radio Enthusiasts (FCHRE) clubs VE team FCVET decided to continue to offer regular scheduled amateur radio exams. The group added rules to restrict the number of their applicants to 4 per hour and started scheduling their testing for each applicant to enforce social distancing rules.  They also ask the applicants to take the Coronavirus Self-Checker.  In addition to regularly scheduled exams the group has the ability to offer exams at any times mutually agreed to by the team and the applicant.  They have had several exams during the week when the new amateur radio operator received their call sign before they got home. It has been reported to the group that some applicants aren’t able to meet the requirements of the on-line testing requirements. 

The FCVET has tested118 applicants, issued 68 Successful Completion of Examination (CSCE)  for technician 33 for general, 11 for extra from the Banks Road campus. We conducted our first exam and the Banks Road campus on March 7, 2020.

The VE team members comes from many of the area clubs including, Raleigh Amateur Radio Society, South Wake Amateur Radio Club, Johnston Amateur Radio Society and Franklin County Amateur Radio Club and may be others.

The FCVET will still support the Five County (Central NC) area  of the community as the communities open up to the group to allow the testing. All the Volunteer Examiners are being cross trained to be able to take over each of the area of responsibilities of the VE Team. The team has deputy directors that can do a testing session when the team leader schedules time off.  The team will be able to expand when the eastern communities open up again and keep their home campus. In case you are wondering we take our name from the five county area of Wake,  Franklin, Harnett, Nash, Johnston  and Wilson County in North Carolina.

Thanks to the Laurel VEC for allowing no charge testing. Thanks to the ARRL for promoting amateur radio and allowing all VEC’s to promote their testing opportunities on their website. 

To schedule an exam go to FCVET Registration Page.  If the scheduled exam is not convenient click other and make a comment as to what day of the week you would like to test. The FCVET will respond usually with 24 hours. 

Our History in Photos.

First FCVET function. Tech in a day class. Five out of 9 students passed their technician exam.

Thanksgiving Fire Department

Archer Lodge Fire Department

Contentnea Vol Fire Dept

FCVET Testing at 2020 JARS Field Day. VE KM4TC with one the new amateur radio operator that passed his exam.

20210306 Test Session Report

Amateur Radio, BRTC, Testing

The FCC surprised us by updating their files after telling us there may be delays.
Congratulation to all.

Upgrade to Extra
Samuel Robinson (KN4RWI) of Raleigh
Dennis Oeistreich (KO4IBL) of Raleigh See his story here.

Upgrades to General
Brian Boender (KO4LHQ) of Raleigh
Tyler Mcgee (KO4BZA) of Raleigh
Kenneth Bigley (KO4DHJ) of Durham

New Amateur Radio Operators
Thomas Stacy (KO4NSE) of Raleigh
Kevin Codd (KO4NSF) of Garner
Luke Wilkening (KO4NSG) of Raleigh
Joseph Pirozzi (KO4NSH) of Raleigh
Bryan Daniels (KO4NRU) of Cary

Please be sure to answer their call as they get on the radio. One of our new amateur radio operators will be starting college at UNC Greensboro. (I actually forgot who it was) I suggested they find out if there is a amateur radio club there. Does anyone know any amateurs there or know if there is a club there? I did a google search but didn’t find any.

Our next exam is April 3. Please register https://fivecountyhre.org/registration/

Last nights net
Thanks all for checking in. I don’t know why I wasn’t transmitting when I was closing the net but Thanks to Stan for closing it out for me.
73

20210307 Ham Radio Enthusiasts Weekly Report

Amateur Radio, Weekly Report

Weekly Net

Please join us tonight at 7:00PM  for the Five County Ham Radio Enthusiasts net on the Carolina 440 network. You will be able to find your closest repeater at https://www.carolina440.net/440uhf-repeaters/repeaters-on-link.html.  If you are not close to the repeater or  are unlicensed and you would like to  listen on line try  https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/34503 Tony Hall (WW4TCH) is our regular net control station. 

If you have thought you would like to serve the community during an emergency the best way to get ready is to learn to call a net. Let me know if you are interested in becoming a net control operator.

Thanks to the Carolina 440 net for the use of the repeater. If you would like to help see https://www.carolina440.net/membership/support.html.  Tell them FCHRE sent you.

February Activity

Our total checkins for February was 25. Thanks to all that checked in.  Try to put Five County Net Sunday night on your reminder.

VE Team Report for February

Thanks to the VE’s KK4QEF, WW4TCH, NC4KG, WA2KQY, K9JWS, KI4CFS, N4MQU K7RLH

25 applicants 14 Technicians 5 New Generals,2 Upgrade to General, 1 New Extra, 1 Upgrade to Extra

Groups IO Growth

We had 25 new members sign up in February. For a total of 175 people on the list.  I invite all the new applicants but not everyone accepts.

March 6 Exam

Thanks to the VE’s KK4QEF, WW4TCH, N4MQU, K7RLH and new VE KY4EC

8 new technicians, 1 general, and 1 extra.  Unfortunately the FCC.gov website has the following notice Title: Effective Friday, March 5, 2021 from 10:00 PM to Tuesday, March 9, 12:00 AM: Nightly Batch Processing Down for Scheduled Maintenance.  So they may not be able to get their call signs until after that period.  

DMR Net

Our weekly DMR net is Wednesday at 9:00 PM on the TGIF Talk Group 1870.  The net is kind of in a stand by mode.  Feel free to throw out your call at any time.  A few of us try to monitor that channel.

Mark Gibson (N4MQU)

Team Leader FCVET 

https://fivecountyhre.org/

 

FCVET Statistics for 2021

Amateur Radio, Testing

At $15 an applicant this represents a savings of $840 for our applicants. Not including re-takes.

 

 

20210227 Test Session Report

Amateur Radio, Testing

KG4BBS Timothy Davis Clayton Upgrade General

WD4CMS Paul Smith Cary Upgrade Extra 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Bagley KO4NIN Raleigh New Tech

Richard Thomas Jr. KO4NIJ  Raleigh New General

Stephen Worth III KO4NIK Holly Springs New General

Tim Carter Hurdle Mills  KO4NJD New Tech

Gregory Garretson II KO4NIL Fuquay Varina New Tech

20210228 Weekly Report

Amateur Radio, Weekly Report

Weekly Nets

Please join us tonight at 7:00PM for the Five County Ham Radio Enthusiasts net on the Carolina 440 network. You will be able to find your closest repeater at https://www.carolina440.net/440uhf-repeaters/repeaters-on-link.html. If you are not close to the repeater or are unlicensed and you would like to listen on line try https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/34503 Tony Hall (WW4TCH) is our regular net control station.

If you have thought you would like to serve the community during an emergency the best way to get ready is to learn to call a net. Let me know if you are interested in becoming a net control operator.

Thanks to the Carolina 440 net for the use of the repeater. If you would like to help see https://www.carolina440.net/membership/support.html. Tell them FCHRE sent you.

Our weekly DMR net is Wednesday at 9:00 PM on the TGIF Talk Group 1870.

VE Team Report

We had a great testing session yesterday. Thanks to the VE’s WA2KQY, K7RLH, K9JWS and N4MQU. We had 7 Applicants, testing for 10 Elements. 3 New technicians, 2 new generals and 1 upgrade to extra. They should be getting their callsigns tomorrow. This session was planned at the last minute to help to relieve some of the crowd from the test session next week. A savings of $105 was made for our applicants.

First Contact

Five County’s First Contact program started with yesterdays new applicants. Each new applicant was informed of the new program. Our intention is to follow up with the new applicants until they let us know they have made their first contact and even longer if they need us. I have had several new technicians tell me they were interested ham radio in high school many years ago and got interested in it again this year. I love those stories. Feel free to send me a private message with your story and I will put it on the website.

Have you got on the air yet since you’ve been licensed? Reach out to us if you have questions or just don’t know how.

NC QSO Party
Look for me on the band today. I most likely will be on 40 meters and hope to work a little CW and phone. De n4mqu

20210221 Weekly Report

Amateur Radio, Weekly Report

Ham Radio Enthusiasts Weekly Report

Weekly Nets

Please join us tonight at 7:00PM  for the Five County Ham Radio Enthusiasts net on the Carolina 440 network. You will be able to find your closest repeater at https://www.carolina440.net/440uhf-repeaters/repeaters-on-link.html.  If you are not close to the repeater or  are unlicensed and you would like to  listen on line try  https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/34503 Tony Hall (WW4TCH) is our regular net control station.

If you have thought you would like to serve the community during an emergency the best way to get ready is to learn to call a net. Let me know if you are interested in becoming a net control operator.

Thanks to the Carolina 440 net for the use of the repeater. If you would like to help see https://www.carolina440.net/membership/support.html.  Tell them FCHRE sent you.

Our weekly DMR net is Wednesday at 9:00 PM on the TGIF Talk Group 1870.

VE Team Report

Since September 2018

Applicants 224, Exams 351, T 120 G 38 E 20 Savings $3,360 (Not including retakes)

March 6 Exam 24 applicants registered. (Almost full)

Laurel VEC announced that the teams will not have to send paperwork thru the post office a savings of $7.50 for each package we send out.  Thanks to the owners of Supreme. T-shirts & Apparel Paulette (K4PKD) and Stan (WA2KQY) Disbrow for the Banks Road testing facility and the new Printer/Scanner they purchased for our use we now have a turn key operation. I will not have to bring any supplies or computers for the exam.  The VE team discussed the possibility of adding another day to test but the majority opted in for a longer day on the first Saturday of the month and that means we will start at 9:00 AM and end at 4:00 PM.  This does not mean we will not do exams by appointment during the week or other times applicants need us to facilitate at a mutually agreeable time.

 

IRLP History

I talked to a station out of Michigan yesterday on the IRLP.  That brought back some memories of using that back around 2001.  Here is an article in the Repeater Journal http://www.echolink.ru/downloads/seratic1.pdf  You may see a familiar call mentioned in the article.

Member Submitted Article

Thanks to K7RLH Richard Hall for submitting another article for the website A SLIGHTLY OFF-CENTER-FED DIPOLE

Thanks for reading.

A Slightly Off-Center-Fed Dipole

Amateur Radio, Antennas, Contributed Article, Member Submitted

By: Richard Hall (K7RLH)

Dipole antennas are a relatively inexpensive first antenna for HF operation and there are countless books that offer the numerous variations of the dipole that have used by other amateurs over the years. Of course, space requirements/limitations may define what you are able to construct/install at your QTH. The off-center-fed dipole (OCFD) is a very popular and easily constructed antenna for HF operation over a wide range of frequencies.

An article in the September 2019 QST described a variation on the classic OCF dipole antenna for 80-10 meters. If you are an ARRL member, you can access the article on page 30 of the archived edition via their web site. If not a member (I encourage you to become one), then I will try to paraphrase the construction details without all the charts and to describe its function as simply as I can.

Per almost any antenna design treatise, the required length of wire is determined by a formula similar to this: (492 x .95)/3.5 = approx. 136 ft, 2.5 in in total length. The author of the article, Brian Machesney, K1LI/J75Y, has several charts and representations of trials that he went through to determine that a feed point of approx. 45% of length is the appropriate OCF location rather than the classic 1/3-2/3 that most antenna books use for this type of antenna.

Of course, when preparing any wire antenna it’s usually best to make it a little long so that you can adjust for better ‘raw’ tuning before letting most HF rigs use an internal (or external) tuner to finely adjust for best performance. The OCFD antenna will basically have a 200 ohm feed-point impedance that must be reduced using a 4:1 current balun to provide a 50 ohm feed to the transmitter. Thus, the balun is inserted at the 45% length point with the outward ends terminating at an insulator before being tied off in whatever shape you can achieve. Ideally, you would like to have the feed-point be about 30 feet in the air and then, for best RF protection, slope down on both ends to about 10 ft above grade. This is not too critical and is solely dependent upon your environmental constraints.

Now, before you permanently affix the insulators, it is best to do some preliminary SWR analysis of the antenna on the bands to arrive at the final antenna length for your situation, i.e., height above ground, soil conductivity conditions, trees, etc. Once you begin analyzing the antenna, you may find that you need to shorten the wire length to bring your SWR within your rig’s antenna parameters for most of portion of the band you plan to operate in. A look at the ARRL band plan for specific modes of operation, within your license class, will help you rough out the required wire length. Before you cut the wire, fold it back onto itself thru the insulator and continue testing until you have reached a suitable SWR reading describe above.
Once you have achieved the desired SWR readings, it is usually desirable to solder the wire near the insulator or otherwise permanently anchor to resist coming apart in high winds, etc. You may find that, by using readily available paracord type material to tie off the insulator, your antenna flexes sufficiently to avoid needing any other form of strain relief.

Components required are: 150 feet of 18-10 AWG stranded wire, 4:1 balun (constructed per the article, or other sources, or purchased), two ceramic or plastic insulators and 100 feet of suitable paracord type rope material, and 50 or more feet of your preferred coax (with PL-259s on each end) to feed the transmitter. The wire and paracord can usually be found at your favorite home improvement store, wood can also be used for the insulators, so you may only need to purchase the balun from other than local sources.

I have one of these antennas on my property and I also have an Eagle One vertical that covers the same frequency ranges. In my opinion, depending upon your specific environmental conditions, you will find them very similar in ‘noise’ level and performance. I have also compared these two against a Wolf River Coil vertical with similar results.

Obviously, sometimes a vertical is better than a horizontal and vice versa. Last year at Field Day was a perfect example; we swapped back and forth depending upon responding to stations that heard our calls and whether or not we were too close/far for one type of antenna to provide the best signal back to them.

This is a hobby and experimentation has always been a key element of enjoying one’s amateur radio privileges. So, just like any other hobby, doing something for yourself is very gratifying rather than purchasing everything ready-made. Have fun, save yourself some money, and use the knowledge you acquired along your path to amateur licensing to enjoy whatever facet of ham radio that ‘lights your fire.’

FCVET First Trifecta and how he did it!

Amateur Radio, Contributed Article, Member Submitted, Testing

 

Duane Cutlip (KY4EC)

 

I learned a new word Saturday. I had heard it before but really didn’t know what it meant.  The word is Trifectaa bettor wins by selecting the first three finishers of a race in the correct order of finish.  In ham radio it is where a person with out a amateur radio license passes their technician, general, and extra exam at the same test session.  We had that happen at our session on February 6, 2021.Duane Cutlip (KY4EC) of Wendell, NC.

From Duane Cutlip (KY4EC)

I work in financial services and my oldest brother has been a ham operator for over 30 years (N8LPZ).  I studied for almost a week every evening using mostly online (and mostly free) resources.  I used Dan Romanchik’s No Nonsense Technician Class License Study Guide.  I found HamStudy helpful because they offered explanations of why the right answer was correct.  I also went through the Roanoke Valley Amateur Radio Club slides and material, which helped flesh out detail and provide more context.  I ended up doing all my practice exams at eHam.net There are probably a lot of options there, but I like the review options of just wrong answers or the whole test, which helped on unsure answers.I tried to take the tests in sets of 3 to gauge my progress since the questions appear randomly and there are so many questions in the pool.  When I felt I had a good grasp of each test, I started taking the 3 tests back-to-back (Technician, General, Extra) to make sure that I could handle the entire pool of questions and to make sure I could complete them all in an allotted time. As I reached a point of comfort, I dumped all my study material into a (very long) Word document.  Then, I would delete sections I felt I had mastered so after each subsequent edit, I was having to peruse less and less material, focusing in on the trouble spots.  Not having a background in electronics or radios left me with some sections that I just had difficulty comprehending and they eventually came down to a memory exercise that I hope I’ll understand more about when I get my hands dirty.  Of course, since you can’t use a radio until you’re licensed, a lot of the information to do with bands, power constraints, and FCC rules just come down to memorization anyway. In the end, I was pretty lucky, so now the real learning begins!

Duane Cutlip (KY4EC)

Thanks to Martin Brossman III (KI4CFS) for the video and Duane Cutlip (KY4EC) for granting the interview.