Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society
News
President’s Corner
May 6, 2019
Welcome to May! Spring showers and lots of flowers! Most of my flowers are weeds, but that’s another story. May is the “get ready, get set” month. This meeting the Nominating Committee will present a slate of candidates for the four officer and one director positions that are open. If you want to nominate yourself or others that you feel would make a difference in club leadership and guidance, this Thursday’s meeting is your opportunity. We’ll take floor nominations (each requires a second) to add to the committee slate. At the end of the meeting the final slate will be, as they say, “etched into concrete” and that’s what we’ll vote on in June.
June is also both the Plano Ham-Com and ARRL Field Day. Ham-Com is one of the largest events in the country (now edged out by the Dayton Hamvention and the Orlando HamCation) and is a great way to see all the new equipment.
This Thursday Andy Parcel, KE5KOF and I will attempt to convert a couple of regular HF radios into SDRs right in front of your unbelieving eyes, in 15 minutes per radio or less! Well, we’re working on that. We’ve done two so far—one Yaesu base rig and one Icom mobile rig. Maybe we’ll get a couple more done in time for the meeting. Also, if we have time, we’ll demonstrate two of the RF noise cancellation systems (Timewave and MFJ.) These are similar to the one that Tim Duffy with DX Engineering mentioned at the end of his last presentation.
May is the month to get yourself and your equipment ready for Field Day.
Check out some of the request for comments pending at the FCC. If you don’t make your opinions heard, then who knows how they will rule? They are considering changing the data symbol rate to allowing for higher data speeds with new technologies, outlawing digital modes on ham bands altogether (seriously!), or changing the licensing permissions, and more.
See you on the air!
73 Kevin N5KRG President
Oh, and by the way, “The bands are dead.” I heard several people at the Dallas club complaining that the pileups were so intense during some of the recent events that they couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I was playing with an SDR one night recently and the variety of conversations was overwhelming. If you really truly think the bands are dead, it’s time to invest in a new antenna, feedline or maybe a snazzy new SDR. Problem is probably at your end.