Welcome To The Richardson Wireless Klub

We serve the Richardson TX community by providing self-supporting special event and emergency communication networks. The RWK also promotes amateur radio to the public in Richardson and the surrounding area as a useful, life-long hobby.

Our club is comprised of over 340 individual amateur radio operators (hams) in Richardson, the surrounding communities, around the state and even out of state, with a wide range of interests and skills. We strive to increase the number and quality of fellowship and amateur radio learning opportunities. Our membership includes hams ranging from teenagers to radio pioneers in their 80s and beyond! The Richardson Wireless Klub has been an ARRL affiliated club since 1952.

The RWK provides many opportunities to assist members to maximize their knowledge and enjoyment of amateur radio through fun, fellowship and unique learning experiences. The Richardson Wireless Klub is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

• General Meeting – November 2021 – Annual Show & Tell Night

  General Meeting – November 2021 – Annual Show & Tell Night

  Our Annual Show & Tell Night allows our members to “show off” to the entire klub something that they’ve been working on – a kit, radio, antenna, modification, or some other cool radio project – over the past year.  In the past we’ve had some really neat things shown off, so you will want to see what our members have for you this year.  Each Show & Tell will be 5-10 minutes.

  We had four presenters for this year’s Show&Tell:

  A Nearly Homebrew Receiver for HF and above – Eric Silverthorn NM5M

  Eric showed a project that he started over 20 years ago from a QST article! He built a receiver from a kit but had trouble getting it to work properly, so he set it aside. 20 years later he found the source of the poor performance and then decided to modernize the receiver with some filtering and a Direct Digital Synthesizer to replace the crystal. The result is a very wide range receiver that performs well up into the VHF range.

  A 3D printed Speaker and Radio Containment Box – Logan McWaters Ki5NON

  Logan showed a 3D-printed custom speaker enclosure and radio holder for a TYT mobile radio with removable front face. The enclosure holds a front-facing 6″ speaker and also has a microphone holder.

  Dual band APRS Digi and Tracker – Andrew Koenig KE5GDB

  Andrew showed a combination VHF/UHF APRS Tracker & Digipeater. Two mobile radios, a small diplexer, a GPS receiver, a Raspberry Pi and some CM108 sound interfaces and you have a box that is suitable for beaconing position on VHF & UHF APRS and also relaying APRS packets from VHF to UHF and even acting as an Igate (when connected to a network).

  Demonstration of the Morserino32 – Nick McCarthy K5NJM

  Nick showed his latest kit build – the Morserino32 – which is a multi-function CW Trainer/Encoder/Decoder with internet and LoRa connectivity.

  

  You can View the November Meeting Recording here.

• General Meeting – October 2021 – Introduction to NanoVNAs

  General Meeting – October 2021 – Introduction to NanoVNAs

  Our guest speaker will be Alan Wolke W2AEW.  Alan is an Electrical Engineer and has been a has been a Field Applications Engineer for Tektronix since 2006 (so he might know a thing or two about test equipment). He was originally licensed in 1980 while in high school, and currently holds an extra class license. He is a life member of the ARRL, and is the Technical Coordinator for the NNJ Section of the ARRL Field organization.  Alan has a popular YouTube channel where he has over 300 videos on ham radio and test equipment subjects (many on how to use NanoVNAs).  

  Alan will explain just what the mysterious “NanoVNA” is and how it can be of use to all of us in ham radio.  The tech heads will appreciate the details on how a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) works – and why they can cost up to $250,000 – and even the most non-technical ham can appreciate how to put this ~$60 device to use in tuning antennas.

  

  View the October Meeting Recording here

Check out the Presentation Archives. There are tons of presentations from Klub meetings over the years. Scan through them and you will be sure to find something interesting.

RWK Newsletter – The Chawed Rag

• The Chawed Rag – November 2021
  As promised (and on schedule!), here’s The Chawed Rag for November 2021. Thanks to all of you that sent me notes on the September relaunch – I appreciate the thanks and the feedback. I’m still interested in what everyone thinks and what else you would like to see. Also, we always need your content so snap some pics of your latest tinkering or if you have seen something that has really helped you in ham radio, send it this way. – KD4C President’s Update Greetings RWK and Happy Thanksgiving! I’d like to thank everyone that participated in our annual Show&Tell…
  Read more

Previous Chawed Rags can always be found here.

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