February 6, 2020 Club Meeting
Thursday Feb 6 2020, 7:00 PM
Medford Police Department Community Room
219 S. Ivy St., Medford, OR
Program: nanoVNA
Scott Cummings and Mike Bach will present on the new, very low cost (about $50) Vector Network Analyzer that recently became available. The unit will be demonstrated and compared to a (very expensive) precision VNA. The applications and use of the VNA, as well as how to purchase the unit will be discussed.
Scott is the club Vice President and avid Dxer and contester. Mike is club treasurer, and has an enormous wealth of RF experience.
Announced in the February 2020 issue of The Repeater.
Meeting Notes
From the March 2020 issue of The Repeater.
2020-02-05 RVARC Meeting Minutes
7:00pm VP, Scott, NA7OM, called the meeting to order. There were about 26 attendees including two visitors:
- Jon Vote, N7OLL
- Tom Reed, AK6TR
Welcome!
Don Bennett, KG7BP, reported that the last license test produced three new Tech’s, three new General’s, and one new Extra.
Treasurer Mike Bach, WB6FFC, reported bank balance of $4808.03 plus $85 petty cash. Tom, N5EG, said that around 21 members have renewed so far for the year 2020 (out of about 78 members at the end of last year).
Scott announced that the club got 2nd place in the Calif QSO CA County Expedition, multi-multi category, with the help of Allan, K7GT, on the key.
Mike said the CARE club still hadn’t reimbursed RVARC for the 2019 Field Day expenses and the dual memberships. Someone will contact the CARE club about that.
The ARRL DX CW contest is coming up Feb. 15-16, 2020. Some other ARRL contest listings can be found at contests.arrl.org/calendar.php
Mary, W6ROX, has some VHS tapes of various Dxpeditions available for borrrowing.
7:21pm Break for visiting and snacks.
7:53pm Presentation on the very portable, inexpensive, NanoVNA. Scott, NA7OM, and Mike, WB6FFC demonstrated the NanoVNA-F model (2.5" screen) and compared the performance in the 50-500 Mhz range to Mike’s HP8714ET VNA. (There is also a NanoVNA model with a larger 4" screen available.). Tom, N5EG, designed the TAPR VNA in ~2003, so he is a good source of VNA expertise.
Scott showed us a 9 minute video, “NanoVNA for HAM Radio - Introduction” , youtube.com/watch?v=8kx9SWbEcXI , to give us the basics on this very portable VNA.
There is the ability to operate (and capture data) over a USB connection using PC software like NanoVNASaver, or nanovnasharp. These were demonstrated and we got to see the calibration, and smith-chart and VSWR display capabilities.
Much additional info on existing and future versions of the NanoVNA hardware and software is available at groups.io/g/nanovnausers. We also got some help with understanding Smith charts as a way of displaying vector network analyzer frequency-sweep outputs.
8:58pm Meeting adjourned
