Dan (N7XDL) briefs us on the Parks On The Air system. POTA is a contest and logging exercise where people either travel to and operate from national, state, and regional parks or try to contact those who have done so. Dan walks us through the POTA web site, how to register, and how to see what parks are out there. The system keeps track of contacts made to and from parks (and the elusive "park to park" contact) and facilitates operators making these types of contacts.
While primarily taking place on the HF bands, there is some VHF/UHF POTA operations that Technician class licensees can enjoy, as well as 10m. Ragnar (N7LCR) talked a bit about 10m radios and using them to break into HF operating for Technicians and those who have never experimented with it.
Go visit the Parks On The Air site, sign up for an account (it's free), and get involved!
Quick Start Tutorial (the link in the presentation didn't work, but this is a copy of that page that was converted to PDF format)
Easy Antenna Modelling MMANA-GAL Secrets - Zero to Hero in 30 minutes this video has been removed from Youtube because the account that owned it was terminated, I have not found an alternate source for this video.
On our Monthly Meeting Zoom for February, we checked out WebSDR and particularly the Utah SDR site. You can check out where the site is located on Google Maps.
Main Antenna at Utah SDR site. (Picture from Google Street Maps)
WebSDR is a Software Defined Radio receiver hooked up to a web server so that anyone can access it over the Internet. We talked a little about the history of the Utah SDR site and then checked out some of the receivers on the site and tried listening in to some transmissions on various bands.
We tuned in to the .62 repeater and experimented with making a few test transmissions to hear what the received audio sounded like.
Finally, we looked at a couple of other sites, including the one at Half Moon Bay in California and did some comparisons between received signals in California vs. Utah.
The general consensus was that the WebSDR systems were great resources to experiment with HF listening and getting familiar with what HF sounds like, as well as to test and evaluate our own transmissions, reception, and propagation. They can also be used as an auxiliary receiver in the shack to help us out when wanting to monitor multiple frequencies at the same time.
This evening we tuned in to the Ham Radio 2.0 presentation from the Hurst Amateur Radio Club as they started their General Class License Course. Due to the recent FCC announcement that they will be charging $35 for all license modifications, renewals, upgrades, and vanity allocations, I am recommending that people interested in upgrading to General Class from Technician get their upgrade as soon as possible. We have had several sessions in our club around the General Class test and license requirements.
Jason (KC5HWB) at Ham Radio 2.0 has broken the course up into nine sessions, which are available at the following playlist:
While we probably will NOT be watching additional sessions as part of our normal club meetings, I highly recommend following along with this series to prepare for taking the General Class exam.
In conjunction with following this series, remember to take advantage of https://hamstudy.org/, which is run by a local (well, semi-local, he lives in Utah County... but we won't hold that against him) ham, Richard (KD7BBC). This amazing (and free) resource offers free practice exams and uses a learning algorithm to help you review questions you have been having trouble with. Richard also owns and operates Signal Stuff, and produces excellent whip antennas for HTs (I have a couple of them myself).
HamStudy also has links and information for where and when to test. There are still groups doing on-site/in person testing (including our neighbors, the Taylorsville Amateur Radio Club), even in the time of covid, and if you are nervous about that you can take advantage of options for fully remote testing (note that there are significant requirements for this, including having TWO web cams to record not only your face/head and shoulders, but also your desk area, hands, keyboard, mouse, any scratch paper you are using, etc.).
In our first Thursday Basic Topics meeting for February, we watched the Ham Radio University's presentation entitled The Art of Operating Amateur Satellites with an HT.
Here are the links that were mentioned during the presentation:
Dan (N7XDL) educates us on Wilderness Protocol, what it is, how it works, and why we should use it. Stay tuned after the presentation for some engaging discussion!
HamLog for iOS (iPhone/iPad) - this appears to have been removed from the app store, I'll try to locate another logging app for iOS and link it here... if you know of one, please comment on this post and let me know
