Plan, Organize, and Enjoy a DXpedition

Rich Seifert, KE1B

Recently returned from an DXpedition to Anguilla.

Rich (KE1B) and Anna (W6NN) have raised Holiday DXpeditioning to an art form. Over the past 4 years, they have traveled to numerous destinations in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and coastal Africa in search of fine food, great beaches, and massive pileups. Rich will explain the logistics involved in arranging their excursions, along with a detailed look into his “DXpedition-in-a-Box” portable radio system.

Combining lots of photographs from their travels, stories of their adventures in searching for exotic cuisine and fun, and insight into working the pileups from “the other side,” this talk will show you a fun way to enjoy our hobby, and possibly encourage you to venture out on your own DXpedition.

Bio:

Rich Seifert (pronounced SEE-furt)(KE1B) has been a ham since 1968, when he was first licensed as WN2DLJ in New York City. He obtained his Extra Class license in 1970. After moving to Massachusetts and changing his call to KE1B, he went QRT in 1982, focusing on his professional career. Although he didn't make a QSO for 25 years, he remembered to keep his license current. He rekindled his interest in the hobby in 2007, and has been very active ever since. Rich is primarily a DX'er and contester, but has been known to chew the rag and operate QRP from time to time.

Anna Sombor (pronounced SHUM-bore) (W6NN) was first licensed in 2009 as KE1BYL, then obtained her Extra Class license and current callsign in 2011. She is primarily a contester and DX'er. She learned the code in the fall of 2010, and immediately won the first-ever CW Rookie Roundup, followed by a repeat win in 2011. She holds the all-time YL record for the California QSO Party, along with numerous other contest achievements.

Rich and Anna also contest in the multi-op category as the K6MMM monkeys (Monkey-Monkey-Monkey). Anna is primarily responsible for initiating our Holiday DXpeditions.

CW Skimmer and the Reverse Beacon Network: What It Can Do for You Even If You Never Operate CW

Bob Wilson, N6TV

Bob Wilson (aka “TV Bob”) explains CW Skimmer and the Reverse Beacon Network. These two elements work together to provide real time monitoring and reporting of HF propagation path openings. The resulting database represents real time “nowcasting” as opposed to “climatological” propagation predictions like VOACAP gives. Hence the data is useful to operators as opposed to communication planners.

Bio:

Bob Wilson, N6TV, is an active CW contester and Win-Test logging software supporter. Licensed for over 40 years, Bob competed at the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) in San Francisco (1996), Slovenia (2000), and Moscow (2010). He earned numerous Top Ten finishes in the CW NA Sprints from his home station in Silicon Valley, a small suburban lot with a single tower loaded with monobanders. He finished first in the September 2014 CW NA Sprint. Bob was an early adopter of the Perseus SDR and CW Skimmer, and has recently been analyzing signal reports using data from the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN). He joined K2KW's original "Team Vertical" group (6Y4A, 4M7X), and has been a member of the multi-op teams at HC8N, K3LR, and W7RN. Bob finished first in the 2013 ARRL CW Sweepstakes Contest, operating at W7RN.

Ground is A Myth!

Kristen McIntyre, K6WX

Ground is something you stand on, but in an electrical sense, the meaning is much less clear. When it comes to Hams and ground, things get really confused. We drive rods into the earth, but why? Let's take a look at whether any of this makes sense, and what theory tells us about “ground”, and if it exists in any sensible way at all. We'll talk about DC grounds, RF grounds, and even about gravity.

Bio:

Kristen McIntyre, K6WX, has been interested in radio since she was 5 years old. She started in Amateur Radio in 1979 getting her ticket while at MIT.

Kristen has worked in many diverse areas from analog circuit design to image processing to starting and running an ISP. She is currently working at Apple in Core Networking and spent many years at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, where she was researching robustness and emergent properties of large distributed computer systems.

She is a long time denizen of Silicon Valley and has worked at or consulted for many of the usual suspects. Kristen is an active ham and loves to chase DX on HF with her Elecraft K2, which she built while visiting her mother in Florida. She is ARRL Pacific Division Director, past president of the Palo Alto Amateur Radio Association (PAARA), and is active in many local clubs. She was inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame in 2017.

Amateur Radio at the American Red Cross of Silicon Valley

George Williams, N6NKT

Did you ever wonder where our local chapter of the American Red Cross is located, what the chapter does, what geographic area it serves, or what emergency communications capabilities it has? George Williams, N6NKT, will tell us about the in's and out's of our local Red Cross - including describing the facility's evolving emergency communications operations center.

Bio:

The K1N DXpedition to Navassa Island

John Miller, K6MM

John Miller, K6MM, presents an overview of the DXpedition to Navassa Island, one of the most inaccessible and inhospitable territories of the United States, which presented exceptional logistical challenges. This DXpedition was awarded “DXpedition of the Year” at the Dayton Hamvention DX Dinner last week.

DXpedition website: navassadx.com
The DXpedition team: www.navassadx.com/team.htm

Bio:

John Miller, K6MM, was first licensed as WV2BQJ in 1958 while living in Syracuse, NY. In 1976, his career took him to Silicon Valley, where he reconnected with amateur radio in the late 90s. Since then he has focused heavily on DXing, contesting, and recruiting new operators into the hobby. John is a DXCC Honor Roll member, holding 8-Band DXCC (he is working on completing 160M for a 9th band). His article “The No Excuses 160M Vertical” won the QST cover plaque award for the June 2009.

John enjoys operating in DXpeditions, including PJ7E Saint Maarten, K9W Wake Atoll, K1N Navassa Island, K5P Palmyra Atoll, and KH1/KH7Z KH1 Baker Island. He was a pilot and webmaster for NH8S (Swains Island), C82DX (Mozambique), FT4TA (Tromelin), 3G0ZC (Juan Fernandez), and VK0EK (Heard Island).

John is the current President of the Northern California DX Foundation, Past President of the Northern California Contest Club, a former Director of the Northern California DX Club, and a founding member of the CW Operators Club. He is also a member of the editorial staff of the National Contest Journal, and Co-chairman of the International DX Convention for 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021.

In addition to Amateur Radio, John's interests include website design, piano composition, four grandchildren, and exploring Bay Area back roads on a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

To be Announced

Digital Modes in Amateur Radio

Mikel Lechner, KN6QI

Bio:

Amateur radio interests include: operating PSK31, QRP CW on 40 meters, 2-meter / 440Mhz FM, packet, and packet satellites, and building homebrew equipment and kits.

The Joy of Matching

Steve Stearns, K6OIK

Oh, the joy of being a match maker! We are going to match couples. Maybe even triples! Is that legal? But no singles. That's no fun. Steve, K6OIK will focus on multi-band matching - all nicely explained on a Smith chart with no math. Woo hoo!

Steve's presentation is available online.

Bio:

HF phone: Golden Bear Amateur Radio Net, 3,975 kHz LSB at 1900 Pacific time daily.

E-Mail: k6oik AT arrl.net

Articles: /docs/k6oik

Steve Stearns, K6OIK, started in ham radio while in high school at the height of the Heathkit era. He holds an FCC Amateur Extra and a commercial General Radio Operator license with Radar endorsement. He previously held Novice, Technician, and 1st Class Radiotelephone licenses.

He studied electrical engineering at California State University Fullerton, the University of Southern California, and Stanford, specializing in electromagnetic theory, communication, engineering and signal processing.

Steve was Chief Technologist for TRW Firestorm Wireless Communication Products (now part of Northrop Grumman Electromagnetic Systems Laboratory), where he led the development of digital array signal processing technology for smart antennas, commercial wireless, and government communication systems.

Steve served as assistant director of ARRL Pacific Division under Jim Maxwell W6CF, and is vice-president of the Foothills Amateur Radio Society. He holds ten U.S. patents and has over 50 professional publications. Steve has received numerous awards for professional and community volunteer activities.

Annual Amateur Radio Homebrew Contest

[Meeting scheduled in Room 32 this month]

This meeting is about you. Yes you, our members and guests. Our Annual Amateur Radio Homebrew Contest is a opportunity to show off a project that you have worked on in the past year. Each participant has a few minutes to show and explain his project to our audience and has a chance to win one of our four prizes:

$40 First prize
$30 Second prize
$20 Third prize
$10 Fourth prize

Maximum Permissible Exposure Limit versus Near Field Radiation from a 2-Meter Mobile Antenna

Keith Snyder, KI6BDR

Every ham knows that a car is a Faraday cage that protects you from RF exposure, right? Wrong! Every ham knows that dipoles and monopoles have no end-fire radiation, so if you sit directly under the whip on your car's roof, you are in a null and therefore safe, right? Wrong!

Ever since the FCC published OET Bulletin 65 and Supplement B in 1997, all Amateur Radio operators have been required to do station evaluations to assure that RF exposure does not exceed maximum permissible exposure limits. But short of doing direct measurements, how safe are you inside your car when you operate on 2 meters through a roof top monopole?

Keith Snyder, KI6BDR, has done extensive computer calculations of electric field, magnetic field, and power density field inside the typical car. The answer may surprise as Keith shows how to avoid winning a Darwin Award for making cooked ham. Tonight's presentation will show the power of computers to safely harness your RF power.

This membership meeting is our nomination meeting where we are nominating directors for the FARS board of directors. Members are encouraged to attend so they can make nominations for the board of directors.

Bio:

Keith Snyder, KI6BDR, is a master power user of the FEKO numerical electromagnetics code for antenna modeling and analysis. He started using FEKO 18 years ago as user no. 8 in the U.S. and no. 1 at Northrop Grumman. Keith is an expert at reverse engineering antennas using photos and AutoCAD to import complex models into FEKO.

Keith studied antennas under at The Ohio State University. He had the great fortune of having Professor John Kraus as his electromagnetics instructor. Keith’s aunt was Kraus’s secretary!

Keith graduated from Ohio State in 1980 and picked up a Telecommunications Certificate from U.C. Berkeley. Keith has considerable antenna design experience having worked on a wide variety of antenna applications including: AM antenna matching at Harris Broadcast in Quincy, Illinois; reflector antennas using the NECREF code at GTE in Needham, Massachusetts; patch antenna arrays at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado; radar antenna design at Aydin Radar in San Jose; broadband antennas at GTE in Mountain View; shaped reflector antennas at Space Systems Loral; and finally antenna and array design and analysis for aircraft and vehicles at Northrop Grumman in Sacramento, San Jose, and San Diego.

The TBJ-1: A Tri-Band Antenna for 2 meters, 220 MHz, and 70 cm without Radials

Ed Fong, WB6IQN

[Meeting scheduled in Room 32 this month]

Ed Fong, WB6IQN, has done it again! Ed presented his dual-band DBJ-1 and DBJ-2 antennas to FARS ten years ago, in October 2005. These antennas became highly popular after their publication in QST (DBJ-1 in February 2003 and DBJ-2 in March 2007) and CQ (Summer 2012).

Not content to stop, Ed, decided to attempt a tri-band version. The goal was to make a slender antenna that would fit inside a single PVC pipe with nothing protruding. Ed wrestled with numerous design concepts before finding a novel solution. The tri-band TBJ-1 operates on 2 meters, 1.25 meters, and 70 cm. Ed has also made custom variations for different three bands.

This membership meeting is our election of directors meeting where we elect new directors and re-elect ongoing directors for the FARS board of directors. Members are encouraged to attend so they can participate in this important function.

Bio:

Ed Fong, WB6IQN, teaches RF Wireless Communications and I/O Design Fundamentals for UC Santa Cruz in Silicon Valley. He taught RF Wireless at UC Berkeley from 1998 to 2011.

Ed is the owner of Ed’s Antennas https://edsantennas.weebly.com. More than 12,000 of his DBJ-1, DBJ-2, and TBJ-1 antennas have been sold to hams, commercial users, and agencies. These popular antennas have been featured in QST (March 2017, February 2003 and March 2007), CQ (Summer 2012), ARRL Antenna Compendium Vol 8, and ARRL VHF/UHF Antenna Classics.

Ed’s past presentations to FARS were on single-sideband modulation (January 2023), ground-independent vertical antennas (August 2019), and DMR radio (April 2018).

Geomagnetic Disturbances

Richard J. Lordan,
Professional Engineer and Senior Technical Executive for Power Delivery and Utilization,
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

Richard Lordan will speak about EPRI's research in Geomagnetic Disturbances (GMDs). Radio Amateurs know that the sun affects ionospheric radio wave propagation. The sun also creates geomagnetic disturbances, a source of HF radio noise. But GMDs also create voltage surges in power transmission lines capable of knocking power utilities off the grid and causing power blackouts.

EPRI is a leader in power industry research to understand, monitor, and mitigate the effects of GMDs on power systems. Richard Lordan will talk about the network of magnetic sensors that the power industry has deployed to monitor GMDs. His comments on the protection of power system towers, lines, and equipment will suggest steps you can take to protect your station equipment during geomagnetic storms.