QCWA Peach State Chapter 49 February/March 2008 Newsletter MEETING NOTICE: SATURDAY April 19, 2008 High Noon Good day or GADA Mates in VK land, As we have now had some rain to improve or antennas, wow what a feeling! I do hope all of you have been doing fine and worked all the neat DX on the bands. Yup, QRP works.. 8-). The BIG announcement of the year!!!!!! Pete Sides W4AUP in Montgomery, AL turned 100 years young!!!!!!! Pete is a life member of QCWA National and our Chapter 49. Pete will shortly be retired as long as he was working!! 8-), now THAT IS TRUE RETIREMENT!!!! CONGRATULATION PETE!! It has been a pleasure to hear Pete every Saturday AM on the 3857.5 KC Chapter 49 net. He has been and will continue to be an inspiration to all of us. Pete, we are waiting to celebrate your 115th birthday! Obviously, Pete has GREAT genes and has never had a major illness and never been on medication to maintain his health. I wish I could say that. On the radio side, with trees now starting to get their leaves for the summer season, use extra care when climbing. Leaves are more slippery than a dry branch. Guess how I know and Mike, K4HBI has made the same determination when his roof is wet!! It looks like we will have good programs this year thanks to John, K7SYS, who has been beating the bushes for interesting topics. A big thanks to Susan, AF4FO (the other "That’s ME" person) for her assistance in helping us. This month, Marvin Moss will be showing us all how the VNA Virtual Network Analyzer) works. It is a very handy piece of test equipment to have around. Obviously being PC driven, it reduces the cost from a "real" one. They cost lots of $$$$$$$. If you have something that you would like to share and write it up, send it to John and he will put it in the newsletter. If you would like to make a presentation or have something special you would like to hear, let us know so we can try to make arrangements. I will be looking forward to seeing all of you at the meeting at the "regular place", which at last check was still Ryans... And do not forget to not eat a big breakfast! cuz there will be plenty to eat there and the company will be even better. C U L Jerry / W3CDE February Meeting: Eleven Chapter 49 members and two friends of Chapter 49 met at Ryan’s for lunch and swapping stories of “the old times.” We did do one piece of formal business: Doug Foos, KT4XF, reluctantly volunteered to fill our open Vice President position for the rest of the year. It was moved, seconded and approved to accept Doug’s gracious offer. And we promise to keep the Vice Presidential work to a minimum! Bob, W4ZST, brought along his first homebrew Novice rig. He built it as WN4INH in the 60’s. It featured a 5763 driving a 6146 at 75 watts. The rig was supposed to work on 80, 40 and 15 meters but Bob reports in only really worked on 40 meters. But then other than 40 what do you need? As your secretary recalls the 60’s, 40 was good for local stuff during the day and all around the world at night. The transmitter Bob showed us had complete shielding. The power supply was another matter – no bottom plate! And those things were heavy! And that led to a number of stories of folks getting across the B+ when they picked up the power supply, looping their fingers around the bottom of the chassis and coming into contact with things that human beings were not supposed to contact. Remember when you could build things with some ease? Man, was that ever fun! Some remembered the days when solder was actually made of lead and there was no such thing as too much heat on a joint. And common names were Hallicrafters, Lafayette (I have one of those in my basement, Lafayette HA-100 ham band only receiver), Johnson Viking, Allied Radio, National, Hammerlund, and Heathkit. We talked about stray RF and light bulbs, stealth antenna projects best done in snow storms and the dead of the night, using florescent lights bulbs as tuning indicators (just put ‘er next to the antenna and tune for maximum brightness!). Hmmmm… Please remember the Wednesday night net – 2000 hrs local on the W4PME machine 145.410 (-) PL 100Hz. Saturday’s net is doing okay with 10 – 12 checkins but Wednesday is another matter with the checkins ranging between zero and three. As Jerry, W3CDE mentioned, our speaker at the April 19th meeting will be Marvin Moss, W4UXJ. Marvin will present a short talk on VNA's. He will have a Vector Network Analyzer (or two) to demonstrate what can be done with them and why you might need one. Marvin retired from Lockheed Martin Corp. 10 years ago after putting in 32 years with them as an Electronics Systems Designer. He graduated from Univ. of Fla. Gainesville in 1966 with a PhD. in EE. He has been a ham since he got his novice license in 1951 at the tender age of 14. Feel free to bring an antenna or cable that we can analyze during the talk. Programs for June, August, and October are in the works. In August we usually have a picnic. Are there any volunteers willing to lend their QTH for the occasion? August should be quite a deal – a picnic and a program! See you all at the April meeting es 73 John Kludt K7SYS, Secretary QCWA PEACH STATE CHAPTER 49 Web address: www.qcwa49.org 2006-2007 CHAPTER OFFICERS President Jerry Lofstead W3CDE 770-979-5500 w3cde@arrl.net Vice President Doug Foos KT4XF bogeyman10@netzero.net Secretary John Kludt K7SYS 770.891.8091 johnnykludt@earthlink.net Treasurer David Bruse W4DTR 770-623-0149 w4dtr@arrl.net Director Frankie Womack W4BJT 404-767-5382 w4bjt@mindspring.com Mike Swiderski K4HBI 770-449-0369 k4hbi@arrl.net Net Manager 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. FEB/MAR 2008 Newsletter John Kludt K7SYS Newsletter Editor 11165 Highfield Chase Dr. Duluth, GA 30097