February - W1NPP Home Page

ACORN February 2010
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ACORN
February 2010
ANDY Club Officers
President: Bill Woodhead N1KAT
Vice President: Earle Gilmore N1SVB
Treasurer: Ivan Lazure N1OXA
Secretary: Dick Knight N1NYW
Trustee: Norm L' Heureux W1SCM
Androscoggin Amateur Radio Club (AARC)
P.O. Box 1, Auburn ME 04212-0001
http://www.w1npp.org/
Repeater 146.610MHz – No pl tone
Goff Hill, Auburn Maine
Please submit articles, corrections and suggestions by the 16th of the month to David WE1U [email protected]
Table of Contents
Coming up …...........................................................................................................................................1
ARES/RACES Notes by Ivan N1OXA Androscoggin EC........................................................................2
Andy Club Meetings.................................................................................................................................2
Secretary's Report by Dick N1NYW........................................................................................................3
Circuit of the Month-Overview of Filters by David WE1U........................................................................4
APRS Tracking by David WE1U..............................................................................................................5
APRS on the air and on the Web by David WE1U..................................................................................6
APRS Internet Gateways by David WE1U..............................................................................................7
DX News by Earle N1SVB.......................................................................................................................8
Coming up …
Crystal Falls Hamfest Saturday February 6th http://www.w1tlc.com/
ARES Net Radiogram Wednesday 10 February 1900EST on 146.610MHz
ARES Meeting Wednesday 17 February 1900EST at EOC
2010 ARRL Maine State Convention and Andyfest Friday-Saturday March 26th and 27th
Portland Area Wireless Association Hamfest Saturday, April 17th
http://www.pawa-maine.org/modules/wfchannel/index.php?pagenum=8
2010 MS Walk Lewiston High School Saturday April 24th
http://walkmem.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Walk/MEMWalkEvents?fr_id=13331&pg=entry
ACORN February 2010
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Andy Club Meetings
Wednesday February 3rd 1900EST
Andy Club Meeting
Russel Park Living Center
158 Russell Street, Lewiston, ME
Wednesday February 24th 0730EST
Monthly Andy Breakfast
Ramada Inn, Pleasant Street
Lewiston, ME
Wednesday February 17th 1800EST
Androscoggin ARES/RACES Meeting
Androscoggin Unified EMA Office
Basement of Central Fire Station
2 College Street Lewiston
Wednesday February 24th 1900EST
Andy Club On-air Meeting and Net
on the Auburn Repeater
146.610MHz no pl. tone
ARES/RACES Notes by Ivan N1OXA Androscoggin EC
ARES Meeting on 17 February 1900EST at EOC, Basement of Lewiston Central Fire Station, 2 College Street. I'm scheduling a on­the­air net on Wednesday 10 February at 1900EST on 146.61. Please have paper and pen so you can copy a message in ARRL format. Also, we will discuss what training should be conducted and what about the Hospital and there Radio's. I'm trying to set up a schedule of radio test of the Hospitals. More to
come. Hope to hear you on the net.
Radiogram http://www2.arrl.org/FandES/field/forms/radiogram2.pdf
National Traffic System Methods and Practice Manual http://kv5r.com/articles/ham/nts­mpg.asp
ACORN February 2010
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Secretary's Report by Dick N1NYW
The Androscoggin Amateur Radio Club held a meeting Wednesday January 6, 2010 at Russell Park
in Lewiston. In attendance: N1LLU, W1SCM and son Charles, N1SVB, N1NYW, KB1DOI, N1JD,
WA1EOJ, N1WFO, and N1OXA.
The meeting was called to order at 7:03 in a different room than usual by Vice President Earle
Gilmore N1SVB because the President was absent. Ivan N1OXA made a motion to approve the
Secretarys’ report as printed in the ACORN. Harold N1LLU seconded the motion. Vote: approved.
Ivan N1OXA gave the Treasurers report, Harold N1LLU made a motion to approve the report,
seconded by Andy KB1DOI. Vote: approved.
In old business: Ivan reports that the club received a thank you card from the Russell Park residents
council thanking the club for the $100 gift from the club for hosting the Andy Club meetings.
Ivan talked about the hamfest coming up in March and is looking for topics and speakers for the talks.
Ivan will be in Australia and New Zealand during the hamfest so we need volunteers to help out.
Rick N1WFO told about his CERT training in triage, and fire extinguisher training.
Ivan reports the next ARES / Races meeting will be on January 20, 2010 at 6PM downstairs at the
Lewiston EMA office. Ivan detailed the antenna work that needs to be done at EMA.
Andy KB1DOI moved to adjourn the meeting, Harold N1LLU seconded the motion, Meeting
adjourned at 7:32 PM.
ACORN February 2010
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Circuit of the Month-Overview of Filters by David WE1U
Amplifers,mixers and filters are the building blocks of radio circuits. Oscillators are formed by feeding
back the output of a amplifier through a filter. High-Pass Filters (HPF) and Low-Pass Filters can be
formed in turn into Band-Pass Filters(BPF) or Band-Stop Filters(BSF) even All-Pass Filters(PhaseShifters). Passive filters can be designed with combinations of resistors,capacitor,inductors, crystals,
transismission lines, mechanical resonators and cavities(ie repeater “cans”), without need of external
power and/or active component like a transistor, tube or ic. Active Filters use an active component
and external power along with a passive devices. Digital Signal Processing(DSP) systems perform
mathmatical functions on a digitized version of the input using an ADC,Analog to Digital Converter.
For starters RC LPF for 3db cutoff of 2500 Hz
R1=1200 Ohms
C1=.053 uF,at 2500 Hz Xc=1200 Ohms)
At 2500 Hz half the signal is accoss the R1 and half of
the signal is across C1 hence the output is half or 3db
down the input. This is ignoring the loading impedences
of the input's source and the output's load.
Active Filters isolate these loading influences. The
formula for the cutoff frequency is the same, but has
gain at cutoff of -R2/R1(negitive to indicate the inverting
gain.
RC Low -Pass Filter(LPF)
Source URLs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-pass_filter
RC Filter Formula
f in Hertz R in Ohms C in Farads
Active Low -Pass Filter provides isolation and
gain
ACORN February 2010
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APRS Tracking by David WE1U
Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) is used mostly for tracking of vehicles. A GPS receiver is
connect to modem and transmitter system set on 144.390 MHz. The modem covers the NMEA-0183
sentences(data) into APRS Packets and generates the 1200/2200 Hz audio tones to be feed into the
transmitter, most often via the mic input. Many variations exist, incorpoating some or all of the
functions.
APRS Tracker =GPS Receiver + TinyTrak4 Modem +
Transceiver on 144.390MHz
Or an All -in -one
Kenwood D700 and D710 include the modem just add a GPS
receiver
ACORN February 2010
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APRS on the air and on the Web by David WE1U
APRS Packets contain a short message with location and other data. Nearby APRS stations with a
receiver-modem which can display its location onto a map system, like Xastir(http://xastir.org/) and/or
relay(digipeat) the information to extend the coverage.
As useful as tacking is, Bob Bruninga-WB4APR designed APRS as a system for Local Tactical
Awareness(check the Source URLs for detailed dicussion). Fully APRS standard compliant client
software allows an radio operator to enter and update objects in real-time without GPS. Objects can
be events, persons, equipment or information for traveler such as local repeater frequency/pl tones or
local Echolink node number. The insert shows Test Objects added by keyboard, a fire, Fire Engine
and Tornado ...oh my!
Source URLs:
http://aprs.org/APRS-tactical.html
http://www.aprs.org/txt/objects101.txt
http://aprs.org/localinfo.html
http://aprs.org/aprs-messaging.html
ACORN February 2010
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APRS Internet Gateways by David WE1U
Internet Gateways (IGates) link into the APRS-Internet Service(APRS-IS).Sites like
http://www.aprs.fi/ can search and display APRS infomation anywhere a internet connection can be
made.
http://www.aprs.fi/ displays information from the APRS -IS System
Shows the track of Bill -N1KAT during the Dempsey Challange October 4, 2009
N1KAT -3 was digipeated by
N1WFO -9, KQ1l -3 and KB1PWJ
ACORN February 2010
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DX News by Earle N1SVB
During he past month we made 24 DX contacts representing18 different countries. Countries worked
in December were:
KV, St. Croix Is.; YV5, Veneuzila; EA8, Canary Is.; ZS4, South Africa; PY2, Brazil; CE6, Chile;
PB500, Netherlands; S59, Slovenia; OY3, Faroe Is.; SP3, Poland; Z21, Zimbabway; KC4, Antartica;
KH6, Hawaii; TL0, Central African Rep.; PP2, Brazil; 9A1, Croatia; XE1, Mexico; HK3, Columbia;
We did have a one Pacific contact this month. We worked KH6TE in Hawaii. There were a couple of
African contacts from countries not heard that frequently. Z21FO in Zimbabway and also TL0A in
Central African Republic.
There are several DXpeditions to various parts of the world coming up in February. Some haven’t
been assigned a call as yet or the operators will use the country prefix and their home call.
Feb. 01 to Feb. 28 TI9/ Cocos Is.
Feb. 02 to Feb. 10 J6/ St. Lucia Is.
Feb. 02 to Feb. 15 XU7AFU Cambodia.
Feb. 02 to Feb. 27 XR9JA So. Shetland Is.
Feb. 03 to Feb. 15 E51/ No. Cook Is.
Feb. 04 to Feb. 10 N7I Hawaii
Feb. 05 to Feb. 10 H40/ Temotu
Feb. 07 to Feb. 13 J5NAR Guinea Bissau
Feb. 09 to Feb. 25 TX4T French Polynesia
Feb. 12 to Feb. 25 5Z0H Kenya
Feb. 17 to Feb. 23 V31RR Belize
Feb. 17 to Mar. 10 ZK3/ Tpkelau
Feb. 20 to Feb. 27 VK9X Christmas Is.
Feb. 21 to Feb. 25 S2/ Bangladesh
Feb. 22 to Mar. 03 V88/ Brunei
Feb. 24 to Mar. 17 SV5/ Dodecanese
Feb. 28 to Mar. 13 VP2M Montserrat
ARRL International DX Contest, CW Feb. 20 – 21, 2010.
The above DXpeditions are correct to the 10th of the month prior to printing The A.C.O.R.N. For
additions after that date, go to my web page and click On the link “Reported DXpeditions by NG3K”.
I invite any club members that have a computer to visit my web page. The address is:
http://www.qsl.net/n1svb/