| RANV Holiday Party | Ten Meter Contest | Upcoming Events |
| Secretary's Report | Transceiver Design |
The RANV Holiday Party will be Tuesday, December 13th at the QTH of W1SJ in Essex. Arrive at any time, AFTER 5:30, but no food guarantees are made if you show up very late! If you need directions, contact W1SJ BEFORE Tuesday night.
The first priority of the night is eating and we will have a whole assortment of stuff planned. The staples will include a cold cut platter, cocktail franks, meatballs, egg rolls, fries, drinks, munchies and dessert. We'll also have an assortment of other tasty items, depending on what everyone brings. See below for more information on this.
We will celebrate the tremendous result we had in Field Day 2011, where we won the category for the second year in a row and managed to set a new record. This is a result which few Field Day groups get to accomplish and we will acknowledge this and celebrate and party into the night! The celebratory chocolate cake will make its return so be sure to save room for dessert!
The key ingredient for any party is being there! So clear your calendar and blow off all those other boring parties on the same night. And make sure you bring family and friends--this is a family event after all. It's boring just to talk about ham radio--we already do plenty of that at meetings and festers. It would be nice to see many of our members who rarely make it to meetings – we hope you all can join us!
It is important that you let Mitch know how many are coming. If you haven't already, please let him know the number of attendees who are likely "definite" and the number of attendees who are likely "maybe." This information is needed right away so that the proper amount of food can be ordered. If you don't say anything, there will be no food for you! If you would like to bring something, let Mitch know that, too. If it is a food dish, you should come around 5:30. If you plan to arrive later, bring a dessert item. To send this information, please use the RANV Holiday Party Survey form, found at: www.ranv.org/partys.html. Please don’t send e-mails or phone messages as these often get lost.
We look forward to seeing all of you at the Party!
Last month, I reported on the 10 Meter Fireworks we all have been experiencing. The band is still red hot! During the Sweepstakes last month I spent several hours on 10 Meters Sunday afternoon and was rewarded with nice rates.
This weekend is the 10 Meter Contest. The band will be open and loaded with all sorts of stateside and DX stations looking for contacts. If you have been inactive for some time, now is the time to get some wire into the air and go at it. When Ten is hot, it doesn’t take much to make contacts – a simple dipole 30 feet in the air will perform nicely. Of course, if you have a small beam in the air, you will do even better! And Technicians can join in on the fun on 28.3-28.5 MHz (where most of the action is).
The contest starts 7PM Friday December 9th. Ten meters is on the way out here in the East, but well equipped stations should have no trouble working a mess of West Coast stations before things die out. This is also a good time to find many of the local guys cruising the bands.
Saturday morning, make sure to get up early to catch the European opening. Usually sunrise, at 7AM is a good time to start looking. The DX will peak at around 9-10 and by noon, the band is loaded with signals from both Europe and North America. And the beauty is that if you are busy on Saturday, there is always Sunday to pick up many new stations. But you need to get the station ready to go, and then get on the air!
The contest is quite simple. Just give signal report (59) and Vermont. DX stations will give signal report and a number. And at the end, if you have been busy, you will spend some time counting up all those neat multipliers!
By all means, make sure you set aside some time to get on the 10 Meter Contest. You’ll have a ball!
1/10: Meeting—Rich Lang W1ELL on Designing and Building an HF Transceiver. Part One will be in January and Part Two in March.
1/28: Ham Breakfast—9-Noon, JP's in Essex Junction. Same as last year.
2/25: HAM-CON—Holiday Inn, I-89, Exit 14; 8-2; workshops, vendors, RANV Flea-Table; VE Session
Marselis Parsons told us about his career in television. Long ago he was a morse code operator in the navy. He then worked at WRLH in Michigan, and was hired by a station in West Lebanon, NH because he was able to drive D8 bulldozer. They needed that skill because the station was on top of a mountain up a very difficult road. In 1966, the station (heated by a wood stove) caught fire. Having no phone or teletype, they called for help by broadcasting live coverage of the burning building. The station closed in 1967.
Marselis was then hired by Channel 3 in Burlington. He showed us the 16mm camera that was commonly used for on the scene news coverage. It used reels of film, had no sound, and was powered by winding its clockwork mechanism. He also showed us today's news camera, a nifty camcorder that writes the video directly to an SD card. The reporter can then send in the video through his phone.
WCAX had a one hour news format, and needed lots of material every day. Marselis ran into quite a few colorful people in his work. For instance, in 1978 he interviewed a woman who had played a piano performance for emperor Franz Joseph in 1901.
In 1984, Marselis became the news director and the main anchorman after the sudden death of Mickey Gallagher.
Something to look forword to for the new year! I will be discussing my HF transceiver design project, and demonstrate the (free) design tools that I am using. Before turning to the “dark side” and becoming a manager, I had done both digital and analog design, but RF design is totally new to me. Living in an efficiency apartment means that there are some unique constraints that I wanted to address in the transceiver design.
I decided to start out with some goals for the transceiver. Aftet all, “if you don’t know where you are going, it’s hard to know when you get there.’ Accompanying this short intro are a couple of diagrams and a short list of the goals.
The Goals/“Must-haves”:
Please join me for the January and March meetings to share your wisdom on this project