June 7, 2018 Club Meeting
Thursday, June 7, 2018 at 7:00 PM New Red Cross Building, 1050A Crater Lake Ave, Medford
Program:
- How-To: Portable Operating, Allan Taylor, K7GT
- Solar Power Basics, John Armstrong, KF7UMK
This How-To program will show portable operations. Allan has a lot of experience in mountain-topping, river rafting, and other adventures where he has brought along Amateur Radio. Allan will discuss antennas, radios, power, packing, etc.
Solar power is used more and more for portable and Field Day operation, in addition to everyday tasks such as maintaining battery charge on infrequently-used vehicles, remote repeater stations, and many others. The program will cover the basics of solar power, charging batteries, and discuss some available products. John will bring along some units for show and tell.
NOTICE of Vote(s) at June Meeting: The Rogue Valley Amateur Radio Club (RVARC) will conduct a vote or votes at the June 2018 meeting to authorize nonrecurring expense(s) for Field Day activities in an amount that will exceed $150.
Announced in the June 2018 issue of The Repeater.
Meeting Notes
From the September 2018 issue of The Repeater.
2018-06-07 RVARC Meeting Minutes
Meeting was called to order at 7:01pm by Club President Allen Taylor, K7GT.
Attendance was of about 23 persons including newer folks: Cody, Trinidad Flores, KG7VXO and Tom Hartkop, N8BKJ.
Preparations for Field Day weekend June 23-24 were discussed. The club got the 1x1 callsign K7N for this event and the category will be 3A, comprising a GOTA, a CW, and 2 phone stations of under 150 watts transmit power. (Logging programs should be able to provide output in the Cabrillo or ADIF file format.)
Permits were obtained from Ashland Fire Dept and fire extinguishers were recertified. Porta-potties were ordered at a cost of $25. Setup will begin at Noon on the 22nd and teardown at 11am on the 24th.
Scott, NA7OM, will provide a tribander. Mike, WB6FFC, will provide a 2 element 40M beam, a 5 element 20M beam, a 40 M wire antenna, and an 80M wire antenna.
Food costs last year were in the $300 range, so a motion was made by Tom, N5EG, that the club authorize a maximum of $350 for all field day expenses. Jason Davis, KI7ITJ, seconded. The vote passed unanimously. The CARE club volunteered to share in the field day food expenses.
The Treasurer reported a bank balance of $4608.21 after 7QP food expenses and new members dues.
The club swap meet is traditionally held the last full weekend in August, and we still have not determined where it is to be held. Allen, K7GT, said there could be a suitable room at the Medford Police dept. That needed further investigation.
Jim Brendle requested volunteers to help with communication for the Wild Rogue Relay race to be held June 15th and 16th.
Break for coffee and visiting at 7:31pm.
At 7:50pm, Allen, K7GT, gave a presentation on portable operating.
Three antenna deployments were considered. For Park usage: fiberglass poles and trees are used to hold antennas. Power can be from sch 24 flooded lead-acid batteries. For backpacking usage: bungee-cord and wire antennas thrown over trees. Radios can be like the 15 Watt Elecraft K2 which Allen powered with a 9x D-cell battery pack, and for SOTA (summits on the air) usage: Allen demonstrated the Sotabeam ( www.sotabeams.co.uk ) portable multiband linked dipole wire antenna. They can be up to 4 band (20,30,40,80M) in one kit and are reasonably priced and compact. Radios can be like the 2 Watt Norcal NC40A (40M) or the 10 Watt Elecraft KX3 (covers 160-6 meters). Propagation is quite vertical on 40M, so use 20M when needing better distance.
At 8:15pm, John, KF7UMK, gave a presentation on solar power basics.
A few types of photovoltaic panels were considered: single crystal, poly-crystalline, and amorphous. Some homebrew and mail-order battery charge controllers were shown to illustrate that there are constant-voltage, PWM (two or three charge-level) types, and MPPT types available.
Also, some common battery types were discussed: Flooded lead-acid, AGM and gel types, though we didn’t get to the newer, lighter, higher power-density Lithium-ion types (that require more specialized chargers), because of their higher cost. (for the experimenter, Harbor Freight has some 20AH Lithium-ion, car-starter devices for about $70 that might be suitable for portable power via their accessory plugs.)
Meeting was adjourned at 8:45pm.
