K6YA

TBA
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Other:

Refreshments
Raffle prizes
Questions for Dr Know-it-All

We will be raffling off prizes at this meeting:

• 2009-2010 ARRL Repeater Directory

2009-2010 ARRL Repeater Directory

K6YA

Homebrew Contest

This is your time to shine. Bring your amateur radio project to this meeting to show and describe to our audience. Everyone has a few minutes to explain and describe her/his project. Then the audience votes on the best ones to award prizes.

Prof. Thomas Lee

FARS/PAARA Winter Banquet 2010

"From Arc Alley to Silicon Valley"
Thomas H. Lee, Professor
Stanford Microwave Integrated Circuits Laboratory

This special banquet meeting is held at a restaurant and reservations are required to attend.

6:00PM Meet and greet
7:00PM Dinner is served
8:00PM Introductions
8:30PM Program
9:30PM Raffle

Professor Lee of the Stanford Microwave Integrated Circuits Laboratory will speak on the early history of radio, and its relationship to the development of Silicon Valley. His talk, is based in part on his book chapter entitled "A Nonlinear History of Radio."

Professor Lee has pictures of a Palo Alto home (at Channing Ave. and Emerson St.) that was the birthplace, in 1909, of the first high-tech company in what would later become Silicon Valley.

Professor Lee will provide an overview of the contributions to radio technology by pioneers such as Maxwell, Hertz, Marconi, de Forest, Fessenden, Herrold, Litton, Terman, Alexanderson, Poulsen, Elwell, Pridham, Jensen, Farnsworth, Heintz, Kaufman, Eitel, McCullough, Shockley, Kilby, Noyce, and Hoerni, just to name a few.

K6OIK

HF Propagation and VOACAP
Steve Stearns, K6OIK

As Cycle 24 is starting to get underway, Steve, K6OIK describes the radio science behind HF propagation. How the ionosphere is formed by nature, what are the key variables. As a radio operator, the main things you will want to know is how the D, E, Es, and F layers respond to solar radiation.

After describing the physics, Steve will cover propagation prediction by statistics. This talk is an update to Steve?s talk at FARS July 2005 meeting.Whether you are a contester or a rag chewer, this talk will tell you what you need to know to be successful in Cycle 24.

K6KV

Field Day Triplexer
Gary Gordon, K6KV

Gary Gordon, K6KV, shows and describes a Field Day Triplexer that permits three stations to operate simultaneously on different bands while sharing a single antenna.

Gary helped design and build the triplexer, and WVARA used it at 2009 Field Day. An article describing the triplexer will appear soon in QST. You can see the unit in person at the FARS meeting and hear Gary tell how it works.

K9YC

Using High Power Coaxial Chokes to Kill Receive Noise and RFI
Jim Brown, K9YC

Jim Brown, K9YC, always talks about topics of great interest to Radio Amateurs. This time he will clear up myths and confusions about baluns versus chokes. Do you know the difference? Jim will cover:

• How ham antennas are inherently unbalanced
• Common-mode and differential-mode current on transmission lines
• How to wind chokes
• How to measure chokes
• And lots of other fun stuff

You may remember Jim's popular talk "RFI and Ham Radio" from FARS December 2007 meeting. Jim's presentation slides can be found at his web site http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/publish.htm.

KI6FXY

Fighting Robots
Charlie Morrin, KI6FXY KI6FXY

Watch out! Charlie Morrin, KI6FXY, is bringing his "friends" tonight, and the robots will be taking over. Whether small or large, the jobs of the future will increasingly be done by robots. Charlie's friends are eager to demonstrate what they can do — from vacuuming to clobbering each other. This will be a fun demo, but be prepared to jump out of the way. The only question is do they need licenses to drive or operate a rig!

Al Scott

RFID Tags
Al Scott, Besser Associates

RFID tags are showing up everywhere, from anti-theft devices to U.S. passports to the credit cards of the future. Eventually they will replace bar codes on consumer products. Al Scott of Besser Associates will explain the different kinds of RFID tags, their antenna and circuit technology, the digitally encoded messages they can send, frequencies, power levels, and communication ranges. Al will also cover what applications different tags are good for. This will be an entertaining and education meeting. Learn all about RFID tags.

Power from the Sun: Photovoltaic Technology and Systems
Mark Byington, Cobalt Power Systems

July is the perfect month to learn all about solar electric power. Mark Byington will cover all aspects of residential photovoltaic power systems including:

• The basics of PV systems
• Different types of roofs
• Ground mount and pole mount systems
• Pictures of typical installations (both the PV array and the inverter equipment)
• Selling power to the grid
• PG&E rate schedules; Time of use (TOU) or how to "buy low and sell high"
• Battery backup systems
• Current government incentives
• Economics of PV systems; typical payback time; Return on investment (ROI)
• Environmental benefit of PV systems