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Elmer Net 1-7-22

Tonights Elmers were Bob KE6JGM and Steve AI6ZW

Attendies:

Tabitha KE6VHQ, Larry KN6PUR, Karen KN6MJS, Bob (Fisherman) KM6UGD, Earl KM6SPY, Rick KN6RBP also Gene K6EMF.

  1. Winter Field Jan 29th at Mary Henly Park, setup 7a, Event 11a, take down by 4p. It’s a great opportunity to see and learn, share, socialize with Elmers and volunteers.
  2. Talked about Earl‘s new backpack with travel radio and handmade antenna with ground plane. He gets out 60 miles with it. Earl KM6SPY a long time ham (don’t let the call sign fool you). He loves to share what he knows and what he’s working on.
  3. And a really great discussion on the meaning of signal quality and 5 x 9. Everyone got in on this topic and I’m patting myself on the back for asking such a simple question.

Elmer Net 12-31-21

Fun net good topics.

Tonights Elmers were Bob KE6JGM and Steve AI6ZW

Attendies:

Larry  KN6PUR, Karen KN6MJS, Bob (Fisherman) KM6UGD, Rick KN6RBP

  1. Antenna grounding, and ground plane best practices. Here is a helpful calculator mentioned during net. The importance of radials in a antenna system. And basic antenna info here and maybe even better info here.
  2. Discussion about IRLP specifically with regard to club repeater.
  3. CW apps. More info on this to come.

First HF Contact

Thanks to Steve…

Steve AI6ZW offered to come over and take a look at what I had going on over here. Turns out I had one completely off band Antana and one that was “supposed to be”a 10 m antenna but in fact didn’t function in any useful way. My antenna tuner very old-school and actually as it turns out pretty good had basically skipped the track and needed to be cleaned up a little bit. Once it was established they what I really needed was a functioning antenna he was offered to let me use one of his for a while. So finally after weeks of effort I am now able to communicate on HF. Now really looking forward to setting up a proper dipole getting a better radio and of course moving on to a general license. Thank you so much do you for your help I was pretty stuck. Now after seeing him troubleshoot my system I opted to purchase a new nano vna. Its overwhelming and wonderful at the same time.