Category Archives: Tech Mentoring Net

The timestamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file here and listening with Windows Media Player. Tonight’s net was as informative and interesting as usual with 12 check-ins plus “Shackmaster” Dave (K6HWN) as net control and 5 chat room participants. Questions included: 13:07 Garrett (AG6RQ) asked about how RFI from his ham rig was getting into some of his audio equipment and how to arrest it. The equipment affected are an audio mixer and some speakers. RF chokes are discussed as well as other devices and methods. 1:04:21 I (K6FLD) gave an update about my continuing issue with hum within the walls of my house when transmitting on certain HF frequencies on my end-fed antenna. Tune in to the SBARC Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 2000 Hrs  and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the Technical Mentoring and Elmering net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.

The timestamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file here and listening with Windows Media Player. The Technical Mentoring and Elmering net on Thursday, July 9th had 9 check-ins plus net control “Shackmaster” Dave (K6HWN) plus 8 in the chat room at sbarc.org. Questions included: 10:15 – Jim (KK6SXB) asked about how to tell how much current is being drawn by a transceiver when there are no manufacturer specifications available. 16:55 – Garrett (AG6RQ) asked about the AllStar Link system and how to use it. 35:40 – General discussion regarding marine and other batteries (Gel, AGM, etc.) and which might be best to power your rigs in the shack especially when commercial power goes down i.e. which batteries would provide the longest run time without damaging the battery, maintenance considerations, etc. Tune in to the SBARC Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 2000 Hrs  and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the Technical Mentoring and Elmering net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.

Tonight’s net yielded 11 check-ins plus net control (K6HWN) and 6 chat room members on SBARC.org. Shackmaster Dave had question of Eric (K6HMD) regarding last weeks net discussions of circulators. I (K6FLD) had a question about power supplies for my shack and if 30 amps would be sufficient to power all of my equipment. An Alinco DM-330MV was suggested by Brian (K6BPM) and we also talked about the differences between Linear and Switching power supplies. Please listen to the lively discussion here and enjoy. Tune in to the SBARC Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 2000 Hrs  and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the Technical Mentoring and Elmering net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.

The timestamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file here and listening with Windows Media Player. The Technical Mentoring and Elmering net on Thursday, June 25th had 10 check-ins plus net control Dave (K6HWN). There were no questions waiting this evening so Shackmaster Dave kicked in his professional net control skills and brought up a discussion regarding circulators which are deployed in repeater systems. In loosely explained terms a circulator keeps unwanted signals from being transmitted over the repeater and are routed to a dummy load where they are dissipated. Please listen here to a very interesting discussion here starting at 12:20 on the Windows Media Player time stamp. Tune in to the SBARC Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 2000 Hrs  and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the Technical Mentoring and Elmering net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.

The timestamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file here and listening with Windows Media Player. The Technical Mentoring and Elmering net on Thursday, June 18th had 10 check-ins plus net control Dave (K6HWN). Discussions included: 00:12:00 Shackmaster Dave’s thought experiment/idea that of someone in Santa Barbara with a good gain antenna on the roof for 2 Meters terminated in a 50 ohm resistor or germanium diode. And, if they had the ability to feed into that diode at will when they flip the switch on or off, a signal of .81 MHz pure sine wave from an audio generator. With that set up and the .81 MHz signal was turned on, what would happen or be heard? Listen to the discussion and thoughts here. 00:24:20 Brian (K6BPM) had a question that when he is transmitting via RMS Express radio e-mail program (www.winlink.org) on 40 Meters the signal can be heard when he’s transmitting at the same time on 2 Meters, specifically the K6TZ repeater! The other hams listening to the net on 2 Meters could hear this artifact through their 2 M rigs speaker as far away from Santa Barbara as Port Hueneme while Brian was transmitting.  Hear some thoughts regarding this phenomenon here. 00:35:00 I (K6FLD) asked Dennis (WB6OBB) if he had ever heard anything like my in-wall noise issue when I transmit on certain HF frequencies with my new end-fed antenna. I sounds like a loud hum emanating from the walls in the house and if the hair dryer is plugged in, the plug with GFI rattles like crazy and trips the GFI! Hear more about that here. As I mentioned before, you can listen to the entire audio archive or go to the approximate time stamp listed at the beginning of each subject. It’s most accurate if you download the .mp3 audio file and play it in Windows Media Player or similar program. Tune in to the SBARC Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 2000 Hrs  and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the Technical Mentoring and Elmering net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.

K6HMD provided two technical documents describing how circulators work. There are available for download here: http://www.sbarc.org/downloads/circulator.pdf http://www.sbarc.org/downloads/tx-rx-intro-to-ferrite-isolators-circulators-and-rf-loads.pdf

The Technical Mentoring and Elmering for Thursday, June 11th had 9 check-ins plus net control Dave (K6HWN). Discussions included Hayden’s (KK6OYV) fractional wave antenna construction progress and he’s promised to take pictures of the different stages and share them on his website when it’s up and running. Jim (KK6SXB) added to the conversation stating that there are magnetic loop and Faraday loop antennas but the fractional wave antenna gets its name because of the helically wound copper strapping that surrounds it. I (K6FLD) had a question about why there were different types of amplifiers to consider when choosing one for the different ham bands we might operate on. Shackmaster (K6HWN) explained that for VHF and above its handed a little differently as it’s not practical to tune for the different bands. The amplifiers are made specific to the VHF/UHF bands and there’s just not that much need tune because the bands are relatively close in frequency. For HF 160-10 meters maybe even 6 meters you will need to tune your amplifier as often as your antenna for the bands. Also of you’re operating SSB the amplifier needs to be a linear amp, not so if just FM. You can listen to the audio archive of the net here. Tune in to the SBARC Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 2000 Hrs  and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the Technical Mentoring and Elmering net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.