Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society
Archives
Updated September 14, 2024
George Gets a Charge
At the July 11 meeting, George Williams, KG5GXU, talked about LiPO batteries. George is an avid modeler of aircraft and shared some insight on how these batteries work and sometimes don’t work. Please check out the video below.
Field Day Wrapup
MARS hams and guests converged on Farmers Branch Fire Station Number 2 for ARRL’s 2024 Field Day, June 24–25. Headed by Marshal Ron Reeves, NN5R, we set up three “official” stations plus a Get On The Air (GOTA) station and a 2-meter/70cm station. Here is Ron’s report.
Toasty
It was hot but our antenna crew braved the heat to setup and strike antennas covering all the FD bands from 80 meters through 70 centimeters. We went through lots of water. It was hot. Many thanks go to Andy Parcel, KE5KOF, and all who toiled in the hot sun to set up antennas and gear. Thanks as well to Tom Yenny, K5LOL, for the loan of his magic Quadplexer, and to Andy P for his band pass filters.
Liz Brown, K5EMB, and Ellen Markey, KG5IKG, took care of registration and manned the eyeball QSO area. Liz and Ellen monitored hydration. Did I mention it was hot?
Special guests Farmers Branch Mayor Terry Lynne, Farmers Branch Councilmember Omar Roman, Farmers Branch Fire Chief Daniel Latimer, with his son Grady and Farmers Branch Emergency Coordinator Luke Parten, KI5WJM, dropped by to visit. Thanks go to Luke and Farmers Branch Fire Station Number 2 for arranging for our QTH.
It’s Not a Contest
First Blood (first contact) went to David Gilpin, K5GIL, using FT8 at 18:15Z on Saturday. HF was challenging during the day. 20 meters was dead and 15 was near impossible. But 6 meters was performing well.
James Jernigan, KG5WVL, worked SSB on 20m a lot during the day and evening. Andy Smolenski, KI5YLX worked FT8 on 15m. David Gilpin was on 6 meters most of the day. He occasionally tried 2 meter sideband and FM but without success.
Kevin Grantham, N5KRG, moved around the bands depending on which band was available. Andy tried to snag a satellite QSO as it passed by but all he managed to do was listen to other stations and wave at the satellite. Official Safety Officer Kim Walter, KI5ZOT, made several contacts using Kevin’s Xiegu G90 rig.
About 8:00 PM on Saturday, 20 and 40 meters picked up. Eric Silverthorn, NM5M, came in and banged out a bunch of CW QSOs at a rate of 110 / hour making him the QSO King with 349 contacts.
Get On The Air (GOTA)
We heard some California stations on 15m but they didn’t hear us. New ham Manu Tadapathri, KJ5CFQ, made his first-ever QSO with VE7NSR in British Columbia. Ellen Markey, KG5IKG, made 4 QSOs. It was a challenging day to be making GOTA contacts but they succeeded. Kevin and I were served as GOTA Coaches.
Food
We enjoyed make-it-yourself cold cuts for Saturday lunch. Marty, K5VQM, and Darrell Crimmins, KG5E, brought freshly picked tomatoes from their garden. Darrell’s grandson, Collin Swain, KG5ELO, joined us as well. Dave Lane, N5GDL, was spotted. Mike Brown, W5MDB, had a birthday complete with cake, cupcakes, and halfway decent singing. [There was singing?—ed]
Andy S and George grilled burgers and “dummy loads” (hot dogs) for Saturday night dinner. It was still hot outside. Field Day is really about the food.
Overnight
Kevin, Kim, Eric, and others worked the night shift. Sunday morning between 7 and 8 (local) was a good time to operate because there were only two of us there for a while with all these radios and antennas (Which do I want to use now?). However, the HF bands were waffling. I managed to make a few contacts on 40m using Kevin’s G90.
But, as the sun came up, 40 and even 15 slid into the noise. Propagation picked up later Sunday morning. Kim made the last contact, at 17:17Z. Right after that, the ionosphere closed up shop. We worked almost 16 of the 24 Field Day operating hours.
Wrap
We started breaking camp at about 12:30 local. It took about two hours to strike the antennas, gather our gear, and clean up the room.
Afterward, Farmers Branch firefighters took us on a tour of their station. Many thanks again to the Farmers Branch Fire Department for their service and hospitality.
Now to unpack and repack the gear for our next outing. We need to repair some cables, order more coax and unions, the usual post-Field Day tasks. Jeeves tells me that next year the propagation will be different. It will probably be hot.
—73 Ron
That’s a Wrap! Storing your Cable for the Field
After Field Day, how do you pack your coax for the next outing? Do you wad up the coax haphazardly into a thin unlabeled but very large paper bag so it’s guaranteed to be tangled when you need it? It’s going to be tangled anyway so why go to the trouble of making it look good?
I meticulously label each coax with my callsign so I know which coax is mine but I only label one end. This method insures that I can’t tell which coax I’ve got or how long it is when I pull out the ripped paper bag from under the other junk in my garage.
My labels are often hand-printed on a simple paper label using a bright red crayon—red is my favorite color—that is guaranteed to melt into an unreadable smear in the Field Day heat. My labels also leave a sticky residue after they are ripped off (which happens all the time). You can’t read my writing but you can feel the residue then your brain says, “Must be Kevin’s.”
I’m trying a new approach. Now I roll up each coax using the over-under technique. Here are some of many links showing this technique:
While I’m wrapping up the coax, I casually check the outer sheath for signs of damage or kinks in the coax. When unwrapping, be careful not to let the end pass through the center of the roll! After the coax is rolled up, I secure the roll with a bright yellow Wrap-It Storage Strap https://www.amazon.com/Wrap-Heavy-Duty-Storage-Straps-Assorted/dp/B01MTDK1UI.
I print the labels using a Brother P-Touch Label Maker model PT-H110. Brother makes other label makers as well. https://www.brother-usa.com/home/label-printers/makers#sort=relevancy
Dymo https://www.dymo.com/label-makers-and-printers.html also makes label printers specifically designed for marking cables.
After a while, the sticky labels sometimes come off so I also use tags to mark the coax.
After wrapping the rolls, I stack them neatly into the storage box labeled “Ron – NN5R – Coax.” When it’s time for the next outing, I pull out the coax length that I need or, for Field Day, just take the whole box.
All this works well for flexible smaller diameter coax such as LMR-240UF and lengths 50 feet/15.25 meters or shorter. For lengths up to 100 feet/30.5 meters, a nifty orange reel from Home Depot works nicely. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Bayco-150-ft-16-3-Amp-Extension-Cord-Reel-with-NO-Outlets-KW-130/329788506
Pay attention to the “minimum bend radius.” This will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. One general rule is not to bend less than 10 times the diameter of the cable. So a cable that is 0.5 inches/12.7 mm in diameter should have a minimum bend of no less than 5 inches/127 mm.
Going smaller can and will crush the dielectric. You can visualize this by thinking of a pole that is 10 inches in diameter. This would have a radius of 5 inches/127 mm. Check the actual spec sheet for the coax you’re using.
No matter how you store your coax, remember this rule: That which you bring to the party, you’ll have to pack it up when you’re done.
—73 Ron, NN5R
Thick, heavy cables such as LMR-400, RG-213 and larger are not really suitable for over-under wrapping. These are best stored on a reel, but suitable reels can be expensive. In any event, you can coil these by laying them out on the ground and rolling them up. Unroll them in the same manner. Be careful not to let an end pass through the coil.
