The Richardson Wireless Klub > General Meetings

General Meetings

The General meetings occur on the second Monday each month at the St. Barnabas Presbyterian Church in Richardson. The meeting officially starts at 7:00pm but there is a mentoring round table ready to go by 6:00pm.

  • General Meeting – January 2022 – A DIY Battery for Ham Radio

    General Meeting – January 2022 – A DIY Battery for Ham Radio

    This month our own (and outgoing DARC President) Bill Brady KF5ZBL will give us a charge (the battery puns just write themselves) when he talks about battery technology and shows some DIY batteries that you can easily assemble yourself to make a storage pack that is suitable for portable operation or emergency preparedness. We hope you’re not shocked (see, like I said…)!

    Click to view the December Meeting Recording

    View the December Meeting Recording

    Here is Bill’s presentation which contains his links to resources.

  • General Meeting – December 2021 – Parks on the Air

    General Meeting – December 2021 – Parks on the Air

    This month our own Don Weeks N5SKT will get us up to speed on Parks on the Air (POTA). POTA has taken the HF bands by storm and as of 2021, more than 8,000 hams have registered on the POTA website, and over 2 million contacts have been logged. POTA park activators come from all walks of life and all ages, but they all love the outdoors, and they love amateur radio. POTA hunters get to participate in a perpetual contest that always has new rare park DX. So come learn more about POTA and see what fun you’re missing out on.

    You can read more about POTA in this ARRL On The Air article.

    Click to view the December Meeting Recording

    Here is Don’s presentation

    Here is Don’s list of resources from his presentation:

    And a couple more articles on POTA:

  • 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.

    Click the image to view the meeting recording.

    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.

    Click the image to watch the recording

    View the October Meeting Recording here

  • General Meeting – September 2021 – Tri-Band VHF/UHF Antenna Design

    General Meeting – September 2021 – Tri-Band VHF/UHF Antenna Design

    Our guest speaker will be Dr. Ed Fong (WB6IQN).  As many of you will remember from his presentation from Feb 2020, he is the inventor of the DBJ-1 and DBJ-2 antenna that were featured in the February 2003 and March 2007 QST.  The DBJ-1 is a highly effective dual band VHF/UHF base station antenna and the DBJ-2 is the portable roll-up version.   The DBJ-2 won the QST Plaque of the Month Award. Both of these antennas are featured in the ARRL VHF antenna Handbook and also in the ARRL Antenna Classic Handbook.  There are over 35,000 of these antennas in use today and many of the RWK already have a DBJ-1 or DBJ-2 antenna.  His most recent antenna is the TBJ-1 – a triband base antenna that was published in March 2017 QST. This antenna covers 2M/220 MHz/70cm in one 6ft ¾ inch PVC pipe and requires no radials.  

    Ed will give a history on how these antennas were developed and the theory on how and why they work so well.  There is no “black magic” to antennas.  He will explain in a non-mathematical manner to convince you for overall performance and simplicity his approach is one of the most practical. 

    Click the image to watch the recording

    View the September Meeting Recording here.

    Related Video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_IBni6vvMc

  • General Meeting – August 2021 – Remote Ham Radio

    General Meeting – August 2021 – Remote Ham Radio

    This month’s program is from our own David Nathanson K5CU.  Ever wondered how to rag chew or work DX without a home station?  Well David will share how he’s managed to do both.  While living in a rental property in a restricted community, David has no trouble working DX or checking into HF nets using various remote ham radio services.  He will tell (and hopefully show) you how it’s done using just your computer.

    Click the image to watch the recording

    View the August Meeting Recording here. Note: we realize that the audio on the recording is not ideal – we are working on it and hope to have it much improved by the next meeting.

Our Meeting Location

St. Barnabas Church
1220 West Belt Line Road
Richardson TX 75080

Meeting is in the church’s assembly room (Providence Hall). Park in the rear parking lot and enter from the rear.

Click this LINK for the map. 

Beau’s Korner Mentoring

Before the meetings (usually starting shortly after 6:00), we have informal sessions where you can pose questions to seasoned operators or “Elmers” who have plenty of experience and expertise in amateur radio equipment and on-the-air operations. Feel free to come by early and ask questions, or be an Elmer for somebody else.

Upcoming Events

Past Meetings

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