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South Orange C |
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SOARA is always doing something for the community and would like to share some of the events with you and hope that someday you too would like to be part of the SOARA club events. Included here is information about the events that SOARA has been a part of... And will be in the near future... Don Hill, KE6BXT on Ham Nation
Click here or on the picture to go to Don Hill's website for details as well as tons of great pictures and information about ATV, The OC Fair, the upcoming Digital ATV QSO Party (with Australia) and much, much more !
More info about Ham Nation on Twit.tv is here:
SOARA FIELD DAY 2010 PICTURES ARE HERE (Thanks to AL, KC6LNP) (Thanks to Vern, W6VDV for organizing the best FD ever !)
Graph shows QSOs (Orange) Points (Blue) and Sunspots for the past 14 years. Note that this year is a new record even though we're still coming out of solar minimum.
INCLUDING THE RESULTS !
CHECK OUT THIS GREAT ARTICLE IN
THE OC REGISTER ABOUT
"Hams may save us when Big One hits"
Click HERE to view Tim, AF6GL's Dayton Trek Pictures.
For the second year running, a team of SOARA members (K6NR AD6OI K6RBS N6REG KF6HVO NJ6N) took 1st place in the annual California QSO Party. The team operated in the Multi Single category using the call K6VO from the Roode's contest station in Phelan. Thanks to Dana and family for hosting this fun event. More pictures at http://www.nj6n.com/
Most location have only 4 seasons,
Chance & I have 5. The 5th one is fire season.
See we both share the same canyon, the
same road, and the same neighborhood. Along with that, the same
danger, wild fire.
His owner, Jim Schicht belongs to
Saddleback Canyon Riders // ETI 357 who developed the large animal
evacuation plan,
( it took years) now adopted by the
county. Employed last year, all of Jims horses, including Chance,
were whisked away long before being endangered by the approaching
fire. The coordination was done on GMRS channel 22, and with lots of
input from SOARA members on the location of the approaching fire.
As we enter the new fire season,
Chance, myself and the whole rest of Trabuco canyon are asking YOU
as a HAM radio operator to help all of us. This year we need up to
the second info on fire location and direction. As soon as it
starts, what ever you hear or see? Go to the 440 Santiago Peak
repeater 447.180, call KG6QCI (that's me) and let me know. Or if you
can reach our GMRS channel 22? 462.725 Squawk it, myself and a
thousand others are listening.
Chance and his friends are leaving, I'm
staying. Your transmission could save us all.
Isn't that what HAM radio , is all
about?
KG6QCI
WQDW669
43-687-----Silver 1
Dave Seroski
Stay & Defend
For more on saddle back riders see
www.saddlebackcanyonriders.com Beautiful horses, wonderful
people.
W6BVB & K6RBS SHOOT FOR THE MOON... (and Score a Bulls Eye !) - 9/18/2008
During my 34 years as a ham, I've worked many modes but EME was not one of them. The main reason for not doing so was that traditionally, EME required the use of very large antenna arrays as well as very high power levels. Since I've never had the space or $$$$ for either, I always thought that EME was beyond my reach. Yesterday that changed....
It is still difficult for little stations to work little stations... much like HF, it really helps if there is a big gun at the other end. But with the increased activity levels and the internet, the chances of finding a big gun to talk with have greatly increased.
Vlad's station consists of an IC910H (100 watts of SSB on 2m), a 10 ELE yagi with AZ/EL control and a low noise mast head receiver pre-amp, a laptop and a sound card interface.
One thing that was missing that we really needed was an internet connection. Tom, AE6SH and Mike, NM6X, helped us get around this problem by monitoring the JT65B Schedule Pages and reporting back to us on the Trabuco repeater each time a new station announced that he was starting to CQ.
With the station set up, we waited for the moon to rise (around 9:05pm). Tom and Mike reported that RA6AX was cq-ing on 144.119 (using JT65B). Vlad tweaked the antenna so that it was pointing straight towards the moon and we tuned the radio to 144.119 USB. At first we heard nothing... then suddenly, out of the noise came the distinctive tones of a JT65 signal. We had not expected to be able to actually hear the tones, but this signal was so strong that it was it was clearly audible and at first, we both thought that we were listening to a local station. A few seconds later, there it was on the screen - "CQ RA6AX KN95".
Neither of us could believe our ears or our eyes. Obviously this was what we were hoping for but to hear a station so strongly on our first attempt was way beyond what we had expected. To be honest, when we first heard him we thought that he was a local in Orange County!
Vlad scrambled to set up the program to answer the CQ and within seconds, we were transmitting our reply back towards the moon. Each transmission cycle takes just under a minute. The radio switched back to receive and we waited anxiously to see if he'd heard us. The answer was no... he was still calling CQ. We called again... this time... BINGO ! "W6BVB RA6AX KN95 OOO". We'd done it ! Our first 2 way EME QSO.
We completed the QSO by exchanging rogers (RRR) and 73.
We listened for several other stations but RA6AX was the only one that we were able to copy. We returned to his frequency a little later and called him again using my call and made another successful QSO. Click on the thumbnail below to see a screen dump.
As I said to Tom on the repeater, Vlad and I felt like we were the first two guys walking on the moon. This has to be the most fun I've had with ham radio in years. Thanks to Vlad to making this happen and thanks to Tom and Mike for all their help... we'll be doing this again soon... very soon...
Richard, K6RBS
p.s.
Taking of big guns, RA6AX uses 64 X 15 element yagis and a pair of phased amps... no wonder he was strong !
ISS Contact with Mission Viejo High School
Re-scheduled to Friday, March 9th
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED !
Audio and video of the QSO now
available at:
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Several things have come together in the past few years that have
brought EME within reach of more modest stations. Programs like
