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FARS Meeting Programs - 2008


FARS meetings take place on the 4th Friday of each month, except for no meeting in January (Winter Banquet), and meetings on a different Friday in June (Field Day), November (Thanksgiving), and December (Christmas). See the calendar for specific dates.

Meeting Schedule

7:00PM - General socializing.

7:30PM - Introductions, Show and Tell.

7:45PM - The evening's program.

8:45PM - Club business.

After the program, and club business, we hold a prize raffle and the "Wish You Were Here" drawing for all the cash in the jar!

Visitors are welcome to attend our regular meetings.

FARS meetings are held at Covington School, 205 Covington Road, Los Altos, CA.


Friday May 23, 2008

Working DX from China
Red Verneir, W6ALC

Other:

Refreshments
Raffle prizes
Questions for Dr Know-it-All

We will be raffling off prizes at this meeting:



Previous Programs

Friday January 25, 2008 — FARS/PAARA Winter Banquet

Cold War U-2 Pilot
Martin "Marty" Knutson, W0BBV

Marty was a member of the initial group of six U.S. Air Force pilots hired by the CIA in 1955 for the covert U-2 program. He flew over the Soviet Union on many occasions during his service with the CIA.


Friday February 22, 2008

A Technical History of Modern Cellular Telephone Systems
Dr. John Treichler
CTO, Applied Signal Technology

Vehicle-borne two-way radios came of age during the second world war. This talk picks up the thread in 1946, when this technology and the wired telephone network were joined together to produce the first mobile telephone system (MTS), and carries the story to the modern day. This historical arc includes the evolution of MTS into the first cellular system in the late 1970s, the transition to digital cellular starting in the late 1980s, and the third generation (3G), which is currently entering wide use. A recurring theme in this presentation is the continuing impact of the technical decisions made more than 60 years ago.


Friday March 28, 2008

Circuit Theory for Radio Amateurs
Steve Stearns, K6OIK

What is voltage? What is current? What is power? And while we're asking, what are resistance, conductance, capacitance, inductance, reactance, susceptance, impedance, and admittance? Perhaps more mysterious are mutual inductance, transformers, impedance inverters, negative impedance converters, gyrators, nullators, and nullors.

The story gets really interesting when we consider hooking devices together to make circuits. Circuit theory as it evolved from Heaviside through Steinmetz, Foster, Guillemin, Kemmerly and Hayt, marks the branch point between electrical engineering and physics.

Steve, K6OIK, explains these concepts plus complex numbers.


Friday April 25, 2008

APRS for Everyone
Peter Sheerin, K6WEB

APRS is the automated packet reporting system. Peter K6WEB will cover all aspects of APRS: Equipment and software options, functions and capabilities, and the Findu.com web site's many features and functions.




Past Programs 2007