Amateur Radio From Loudoun County VA

NOTE: Next Meeting is September 20, 8:30 at the El Rancho Plus

August Club Meeting Notes

At our August meeting, Paul, K4MSG, gave a through and interesting presentation on some VHF techniques and tactics that will make your use of these bands more pleasurable. Paul discussed both the common and more exotic propagation modes that make VHF operating so challenging and rewarding. He passed out some useful information in the form of a notebook, which will be added too over the next few months. We think that this information will find a place on most club members’ operating tables during the VHF contests and band openings in the future.

September Club Meeting Notes: Continuing with the theme of propagation modes, John, W4AU, will give an introduction to HF propagation and how it’s possible for an amateur’s relatively puny radio signals to be heard literally “around the world”. We will try to continue Paul’s tradition of giving everyone handouts for future reference and to follow along during the presentation. NOTE: Tony, the proprietor of the El Rancho Plus, makes a special effort to open for breakfast for our club meetings each month, so please bring along a buck or two to throw in a kitty for him at each meeting. He provides LARG with a convenient and pleasant environment for our meetings, and we would be hard pressed to find another location like his restaurant.

Club News: Welcome home to Temp, W4HZV, who recently returned from a long trip through the Rocky Mountain and Plains states with his wife in their new motor home. Temp was able to keep in touch with fellow hams in Loudoun County with his HF rig using SSB and packet. He, Charlie, K4LJH, and Wes WA4TSC tried to keep a daily schedule on either 40 or 20 meters…..

LARG was well represented at the Gaithersburg Hamfest this year. At least eight club members were in attendance (five endured the long drive in W4AU’s old VW van, making it an epic journey, as usual…). We saw lots of boatanchors, but few were being bought; Paul, N4PD, did have a Viking Ranger transmitter follow him home, though, and Gary, NC4S, is now enjoying the mellow tones of an old Drake 2C receiver. Also, Charlie, K4LJH, managed to find some pieces of General Radio test equipment that he didn’t already have in his comprehensive collection, and Temp, W4HZV, made a new friend… It appeared to many of us that the attendance was down from years past. Certainly, there were fewer computer vendors, and they were not missed…..

The LARG novice/tech Amateur radio class at Ida Lee got off to a good start on September 10 with eight eager students; for a while it looked like the instructors, all seven of us, were going to outnumber the students… It looks like a good, eager group of students, and we hope that after nine weeks of classes every Wednesday night they will be ready to take and pass their FCC exams and become full-fledged hams!!! And, just in case you haven’t noticed, the solar flux has been over 110 for most of this week; the sunspots of cycle 23 have finally put in an appearance and the HF bands are becoming alive again!!

Calendar of Events: