Andy Ludlum – K6AGL

It’s May which means Field Day planning has begun. This year’s Field Day, June 24th and 25th with set up on Friday, June 23rd, will return to Maple Elementary School in Newbury Park. Our Field Day chairman, Ben Herrera-W6JWZ is calling for operators to work stations: digital, single sideband, FM and CW on all bands.

The CVARC Board approved Ben’s proposal to purchase a quadplexer and filters. This will allow us to use an additional club-owned multiband dipole antenna, which was not in use last year. We’ll be able to have more operators on the same band using multiple modes.

A BBQ dinner will be catered by Wood Ranch BBQ. Michelle-KK6RBW and Mark-KK6IKX Horner are coordinating the BBQ this year. We’ll have more information and signups at upcoming meetings.

Ben is particularly looking for operators willing to work overnight in order to increase our number of contacts. If you are interested in working a Field Day station, please contact Ben at W6JWZ@outlook.com. State your availability, desired band, and if you’d like to be a band captain.

May 2017 is also a landmark for CVARC. We’ve been working for a year on the process of converting everyone to a May dues renewal date. A good number of you are set for May 2017 renewal and should have received an email reminder. A couple dozen members still have some odd 2017 renewal dates. We’ll send you a notice of the pro-rated amount to pay to bring you to May 2018. Check with Christian Ylagan-K6CAY or me if you’d like to confirm your membership status. The new yearly dues are: $20 per year for a single membership, $16 per year for a multi-year membership and $25 for a family membership.

We’re also working on our first project for the year. Your two favorites in the club projects survey were the field strength meter and the 2m Halo Antenna. Up first is the field strength meter. Eric Peterson-WB6PYK will lead that project on a date to be determined in June. Adrian Jarrett-K6KY will lead the halo antenna project in late September. Both builds will be in the Community Room at the Sheriff’s Station where we have our club meetings.

At the last club meeting, Tom Stough-W0UFC and Norm Campbell-AB6ET mentioned the noise problem they were hearing on 40m at 7.040 mHz. Last month’s speaker, Richard Rudman-W6TIA, emailed me to say he’d be willing to lead us in a Saturday T-hunt to see if we can locate the source of the interference. It looks like T-hunt won’t be necessary, unless we’d like to consider one as a club activity in the future. Norm-AB6ET emails, “After more listening and more research, it turns out that the signal we hear on 7040 (actually 7039.3) is what is called a ‘single channel single letter cluster beacon.’ This one originates from Magadan, Russia, about 1000 miles north of Japan. There are many others around the world and on other frequencies. I did a lot of listening to it recently after the last club meeting and found it sending the single letter M in CW along with the steady carrier that we usually hear most of the time. Of course we can avoid either side of it when we hear it. On a positive note, at least we know when the band is in to Russia.”

Finally, they appear be a smashing hit! We’ll keep bringing the new CVARC lanyards to club meetings while they last. They’re $1 each. Look for them at the raffle table.

73,

Andy
K6AGL