The Chawed Rag – June 2022

President’s Update

Greetings RWK!

I hope you’ve had a fun ham radio month. There has been a lot going on, between Field Day,. the DFW Ham Radio Expo in Lewisville and all the band openings on 10M/6M. I was very happy to see a great turnout for the RWK Field Day this year – 60 members and guests – and I’m still discovering people that missed the sign-in sheet. It’s been far too long since we could all get together at a big Field Day event. You can read my full wrap-up below (and see pictures!).

I wanted to point out another RWK milestone. By all counts and recent history, the RWK now has the most active members that it has ever had!

The chart to the left shows our member count since 2017 (when we started using Ham Club Online to manage our membership). A little behind-the-scenes magic (thanks, Sean), and poof – we have a nice graph that shows how we’ve grown over the last 5 years. You will notice that the last year or so was a struggle – it seems that the quarantine and lack of in-person meetings and activities caused a significant dip in our membership renewals, but thankfully we have been able to make it up with some previous members returning and a lot of new members. I don’t necessarily want RWK to become a huge club, but I do want us to serve the local area, which happens to have a lot of hams! There are over 500 licensed hams in the three Richardson ZIP Codes. So hopefully we are doing a few things right as a club – and we will continue to do more thanks to you!

Thanks for being a RWK Member! – 73 de KD4C (feedback: president@k5rwk.org)

Please share any interesting ham-related stuff you’ve seen or have been doing. Doesn’t matter how raw or badly written, we’ll make you look good and help you show off what you’ve been doing – see the right column for details. With over 300 members, if everyone in the klub sent just one contribution to the Chawed Rag each year, we would have plenty of content for each issue.

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This Month’s Chawed Rag Features

Field Day 2022 Wrap-up

By Chip Coker KD4C

Field Day 2022 is a wrap! RWK had a great event this year. 60 members and 5 guests came to the Richardson EOC to help set up, raise the tower, operate our three stations, log contacts, eat really good pizza, build dual-band antennas, roll up coax and help put stuff away. Jon is still tallying the final score but we completed somewhere around 450 QSOs over the 8 hours of operating.

Read Full Article and See Photos ->

Note: Don’t forget to submit your Field Day entry if you operated from home – deadline is July 26th.

My Path Back to Ham Radio

By Brian Murphy WB8QZM

On a typical hot August day in 2020, I found my path back to ham radio.  I was used to cycling 20 miles a day but for the last two, had experienced unusual shortness of breath.  Upon the advice of my doctor daughter, I went to the Plano Heart Hospital ER.  When I walked in the door and explained my symptoms, things started happening fast.

Tests and an X-ray confirmed I had a large blood clot in my lungs.  A PE, I was told – something many people don’t survive.  I was lucky.  However, the doctor said the X-ray also showed a mass on my pancreas. 

Read Full Story ->

V31XE – W8QH In Belize

Our own Ed Terry W8QH (nee N5XIE) has a place in Belize where he spends a season or two each year. He’s recently got a second station up and running and sent us a few pictures to show his station and makeshift antennas.

“I got here and built a multi-band vertical. Before I could tune it from 20-10m a strong wind storm tore it apart. So from the parts I changed to an endfed with a 9:1 balun.. total length is roughly 65 feet and 20 feet up. I can run on 10, 12, 17, 15, and 20. My SWR is right at 3:1 on 17m but 1:5 or so on the other bands.. yes it looks crazy but it works.

So I have a simple system. I am on a 2.5kw solar system, with a 120vac inverter. If we have 3 days of clouds we have to kick in a generator. We are our own power company. This time I am running the IC-7300 using its internal tuner. One thing I noticed is it reports a higher SWR than a nano-vna and the MFJ. Interesting, at a 3:1 on the 7300 I have worked Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.” – W8QH

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14th Annual 13 Colonies Special Event

The annual 13 Colonies Special Event is returning for the 14th year on July 1-7th. This very popular multi-day event encourages you to work one station in each of the original 13 US colonies, plus a number of special stations. Stations are on the air on multiple bands and modes, so you will be able to snag them all with a little patience.

For a $5 donation, you can get some really nice “wallpaper” for your shack. The artwork is always outstanding and you will be proud to display it. 

Full Rules and Info: http://www.13colonies.us/

VE Testing Update

By Michael Masterson WT9V

Just because we are curious (and a little nuts), we have created an interactive map that shows the candidates that we’ve tested to date (and whether they are RWK members).

As expected, we have had candidates from all around the country (which is common for remote tests – some people just want the next available test session no matter where it is). but the vast majority of our candidates are in the DFW metroplex, which is the way we want it – to serve the local community and support local ham radio (and yes suck people into RWK – the Blue Pins are RWK members!).

In addition to our successful Remote Testing VE program, we have resumed in-person VE testing just prior to the RWK General Meetings at the St. Barnabas Church. This allows those that would rather test in person or people that don’t have video cameras (yes, there are still a few) to get licensed or upgrade. We are testing using tablets using the same system that we use for online testing, as paper tests are being phased out. Grading is instant, accurate and paperless, and the successful candidates can have their license in 2 days!

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Technical Feature

[Editor’s Note: Apologies to Mike Jahrig KG5P for last month’s VNA article – we had some technical difficulties with publishing his graphics so we’ve decided to re-run it this month]

Using Nano VNAs – Band-Pass & Band-Stop Filters

By Mike Jahrig KG5P

Last time we discussed investigating the properties of low pass and high pass filters using the Nano-VNA.  Today we will discuss 2 additional common filter types, the band-pass, and band-stop (sometimes called notch) filters.

Below are the filter use instructions from my Yaesu Ftdx-3000 manual.

As you can see, the band-pass filter on the left can be adjusted to move the IF passband up or down in frequency so it will reject interfering signals like QRM or heterodyne below and above the passband settings.

On the right is the notch or bandstop filter.   This allows you to put a “notch” in the passband somewhere that nulls out an undesired signal but retain the original passband limits.

You probably have one or both of these filters on your HF rig.

Read Full Article ->

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Upcoming Ham Radio Events

These ham radio related events are coming up soon.

14th Annual 13 Colonies Special Event – July 1-7

See above for more info. http://www.13colonies.us/

IARU HF World Championship – Jul 9-10

CW only, SSB only or both in 24 hours.  Great contest to work world IARU member society HQ. http://www.arrl.org/iaru-hf-world-championship

CQ Worldwide VHF Contest – Jul 16-17

6m and 2m worldwide.  Usually the VHF summer condition peaks around this contest.  Good luck in DX. http://www.cqww-vhf.com/

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Pic of the Month

What in the world is Bob Hill KG5WRY doing? Modern art installation? Nope. Creative shipping approach? Wrong again. No, it’s a creative solution to make the RWK meetings cooler. Inside the box is a couple of chemical handwarmer packets that fake the thermostat into thinking the building is too warm. Seemed to work too! Who says hams can’t be creative? Thanks Bob!

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Ham Radio Bits & Bytes

What really happens when you double your power?

If you’ve talked to me, you probably know that I’m not a huge fan of amplifiers (spend the money on your antenna instead!). Callum M0MCX has an interesting way to visualize what doubling your power really does!

Ham Radio 2.0 Does DFW Ham Expo

For those that missed the DFW Ham Expo in Lewisville earlier this month (sponsored by DCARA), here’s a video summary from Jason KC5HWB. It was a good start and definitely has potential to be a good regional event – we’re looking forward to see what’s in the works for next year.