QCWA Peach State Chapter 49 December 2006 Newsletter MEETING NOTICE: SATURDAY December 9, 2006 High Noon Our next meeting will be at our usual location, Fire Mountain Restaurant, Norcross. The restaurant is just west of Peachtree Industrial (141) on Jimmy Carter Blvd (140). FROM THE PRESIDENT: Ga’Day maties, As we get set for antenna work on the coldest and snowy day of the year, the holiday season is upon us. Looking back to August when we were enjoying 100-degree days… the August meeting was a great presentation on World Radio Sport. It sure seems like it was more or World Radio Adventure! John Laney K4BAI, gave us a great presentation on what he went through this year to participate in the event. You can sign up.. But that is not a guarantee you will be able to participate in the event. The competition in getting on the “list” is almost as bad as the contest itself. John had put his name in and did not get on the chosen few list. Through turns of fate, i.e. people not being able to go through a series of events, he was picked at the last minute. So far so good… Now the opportunity of “getting ready and getting there”. This year’s event was held in Brazil. As you may or may not know, Brazil is not the most advanced in the world in transportation availability. John had assorted challenges in getting there. These included getting transport from the USA to south of the equator. Assorted problems were encountered there. After you get in the foreign country, you have to use local airlines. Their “scheduled” air service is not quite “as good” as ours. With best-laid plans of mice and men, the local airline was to going to fly… After much ado looking how to get where he was going, he procured local transportation to the end point to the lower section of the coast of Brazil. Others from Europe were not so lucky.. They were never able to get there at all. After arrival, things went better. Good food and great friends. You were assigned a site by random selection. Some sites were better than others were. However, all the sites were a reasonable distance from one another to give everyone an equal chance to use their best radio skills. After the competition, everyone got together again. Scoring was rather unique. All logs were compared, as you would assume. However, to eliminate any log enhancements, if you were the only station to work another call, that entry was deleted. Inmost cases, the contest stations would work many of the same stations and calls would appear in several logbooks. A unique and good way to eliminate any “enhancements” to scores… At least one of the contest stations was disqualified due the logging rule. A fine time was held by all the participants and the stations that chased them. I guess I will be one of those who chase them next year… 8-) The October meeting program was presented by our own “That’s ME” K4HBI, Mike. His presentation was on “Lightning and its results”. Mikes presentation was GREAT!! To say the least. If you missed it, you missed a lot of wonderful information. The basis or the presentation was based on research Mike did for Bell Labs a few years ago. It seems some people did not understand why damage was occurring with lightning strikes. Hummm, I guess they never personally experienced the action-reaction of a strike… I did at the end of July of this year. Some of the numbers that Mike showed us from his research sort of made your hair stand up on the back of your neck without a leader from a big black cloud overhead… It was previously “assumed” by telecom management that you never see voltages above about 3-400 volts on telephone wires when a strike takes place nearby. WRONG!!! Mike showed where he saw voltages running up to near 20,000 volts!! Proper grounding and protection will help up to a point… that is a point where you are struck or a strike nearby. Nothing will protect you from a direct hit (personal experience here). Mikes presentation will be remembered for quite a while as we reevaluate our personal ground and grounding systems. Remember a SINGLE POINT GROUND… no daisy chaining of equipment. All grounds from each piece of equipment go to a single point and that goes to the ground wire… All equipment goes above ground and back to ground potential at the SAME TIME. This prevents the voltage differential between pieces of equipment with this zero voltage no damage is done. Now that we are in a less lightning prone time of year, it is a good time to revise your grounding system, before next summer’s action. Net activity on 75M SSB has been good to great. Please come join us on 3857.5 KC on Saturday mornings at 9:00 AM. 2 Meter activity has been mostly me, Doug, KT4XF and Mike K4HBI. If you can get on 2 Meters, please join us Wednesday evenings at 8:00 PM on 145.410 MC, MATPARC repeater. The repeater is working great now due to the efforts of Frankie W4BJT. We have had up to 14 stations on the Saturday net. Great and thanks guys. As we get closer to the December 9, 2006 Gift Swap and Holiday meeting, look around and see what you have to swap. I am looking to see all of you there and do not forget, go light on breakfast cuz the food is plentiful at Fire Mountain Restaurant. Also remember if you eat the desert first, you always have room for it 8-).. The best of Holiday Greetings to all of you from my personal family and the QCWA Chapter 49 family. C U at the meeting 12 Noon. Jerry Lofstead W3CDE President Chapter 49 QCWA ------------------------------------------------------------- It's GWINNETT AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY TechFest Time, Saturday January 13th, 2007 at the St Marguerite D'Youville Church, 85 Gloster Rd NW, between Lilburn and Lawrenceville, GA 30044. Church is about 1/3 mile south of Hwy 29, Lawrenceville Hwy on Gloster Rd. The idea of TechFest was first tested 9 years ago when Kevin Berry, KF4RMA expressed interest in an event who's primary function was to expose members of the community to the many facets of Amateur Radio. It is a chance to experience parts of our hobby that we might never have seen. It's a chance to hear the truth about radios and antennas, without the flashy spin that a salesperson might put on it. It is an event that encourages the free exchange of ideas and knowledge. Watch the GARS web site for the latest information on this year?s TechFest. TechFest is an inside event, so unless there is some really strange weather, it should take off as scheduled. http://www.gars.org/sharedborder/Event_Archive/2007/Tech_Fest/techfest.html If you have a special interest in some mode of amateur radio or electronics and would like to share your equipment and experiences with the community, please send a note to Ray, ki4grj or David, ka4kkf via the above web site to arrange for a table to showcase your demonstration. Space is somewhat limited, so go ahead and reserve a table. This is also a good time for our Elmer's to show up and share some tales of HAM radio. Start at 10:00 and serve lunch along with the Great GARS Chili Cook-off around noon. Tailgating in the parking lot will be allowed from 8 to about 10 AM. We hope to demonstrate fellowship, HF, VHF, UHF, QRP, digital communications, CW, antennas, portable operations, PCB drawing, Satellite Communications, electronic gadgets, Club and Ham Services, our association with the ARRL, Gwinnett ARES Emergency Response Vehicle and great lunch of chili and hamburgers. Be sure to invite your non-ham friends. This should be a great family experience and a time for some of our younger citizens to become interested in the Magic of Amateur Radio. ------------------------------------------------- QCWA PEACH STATE CHAPTER 49 Web address: www.qcwa49.org 2006-2007 CHAPTER OFFICERS President Jerry Lofstead W3CDE 770-979-5500 w3cde@arrl.net Secretary/Treasurer David Bruse W4DTR 770-623-0149 w4dtr@arrl.net Executive Committee: Fred Runkle K4KAZ 770-945-6326 runkle@charter.net Frankie Womack W4BJT 404-767-5382 w4bjt@mindspring.com Sandy Donahue W4RU 404-315-1443 w4ru@arrl.org NetManager Jerry W3CDE using the K4VN Chapter 49 Club Call: Chapter 49 QCWA VHF Net Wednesday 2000 145.410- MHz ( MATPARC repeater) Chapter 49 QCWA HF Net Saturday 0900 3.8575 Mhz.