Eventing

Rick (Eric) Lagerstrom, KN6FR

Reservations are required to attend the Winter Banquet 2002. The banquet will be held at Michael's at Shoreline.

Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About Towers

Rick Huisman, N6DQ

Rick installed a tower in the summer of 2000. With slides and stories, he will tell us about planning, permits, working with the City of San Carlos, working with US Tower's structural engineers, construction, antenna installation, good engineering practice and assuring signal integrity, working through neighbors complaints, and DX results.

The Half-Square Yagi -- a New, High-Performance, Low-Cost Antenna Design for Low-Band DXing

Jim Peterson, K6EI

Predawn radio contacts across the Pacific on the low bands are a real kick. The ideal antenna for this kind of activity, however, requires a low angle of radiation as well as solid front-to-rear and front-to-side ratios to minimize stateside QRM. This can be especially true on 40 meters where the additional interference from European broadcast stations can be severe. This presentation will describe an antenna design that meets all these requirements by combining a half-square radiator with a parasitic reflector. The result is the half-square Yagi -- an inexpensive vertically-polarized antenna that requires no external phase matching units or radial system, out-performs a conventional Yagi mounted at moderate heights, and can be strung up between trees in a typical suburban backyard.

Aircraft Avionics and Aeronautical Radio Communications

Andreas Junge, N6NU

The Ramsey Doppler Direction Finder Kit

Rolf Klibo, N6NFI

The Ramsey Doppler Direction Finder Kit is an implementation of the circuit developed by WA2EBY and published in QST magazine. Ramsey has made the circuit available, in kit form, to the hobby radio community at a reasonable cost. This presentation will briefly cover the principles of operation with some light math included. The kit is examined in terms of the various parts, quality and techniques of assembly. Finally, the operation and capability are explained by the example of a fortuitous foxhunt.

Field Day planning

The captains for the three Field day stations shared their experiences about Field Day including: setup, operating, and some of the excitement. They also answered numerous questions about Field Day.

Internet Controlled Radio

Brad Wyatt, K6WR

Brad talks about his experiences working remotely controlled HF stations using the Internet including a few stations open to any licensed ham worldwide — A ham radio public utility. Brad only has a computer with Internet connection at his QTH — no radios, antennas. Brad was the ARRL Pacific Division Director from 1994 - 2000.

Filter Design

Steve Stearns, K6OIK

Annual Amateur Radio Homebrew Contest

Bring your favorite project: Antennas, electronics, QRP radios, kits, etc. Anything you would like to share with the membership. Show and tell about your project. The best member projects are eligible for prizes: 1st - $40, 2nd - $30, 3rd - $20, 4th - $10. Ties will share the prize money (eg. a tie for second place with share equally the 2nd and 3rd place prizes ($50/2)).

Traffic Handling for Beginners

Pink Foster, KG6ILA

One fun aspect of the amateur radio hobby is traffic handling. Hearkening back to the hobby's roots in telegraphy, amateur operators organize into nets for the express purpose of passing along short text messages, popularly known as "radiograms." In today's connected world, short text messages can be sent in the blink of an eye, but that was not always so and might not always be so in the future. In the event of a wide area disaster, amateur radio will always remain the first and best means of reliable communication. Come and learn from KG6ILA about the rules and procedures for proper message handling.

Board Elections

IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN)

Dave Platt, AE6EO

Dave will talk about the popular 802.11 “wireless Ethernet” technology. Dave will describe the radio technology used in the physical layer (frequencies, modulations, and spectrum-spreading techniques) and higher layers focusing on implementation (the MAC) and security (WEP encryption, “wardriving”, network breaking, and countermeasures). Dave will also describe the relationship between 802.11 and amateur operations in the 13 cm amateur band, and he will show his nice collection of 802.11b antennas.

Links:

• www.wirelessanarch.com - range extension, antennas, etc.
• www.wardriving.com - sniffing out networks
• www.radagast.org/cgi-bin/wepsheet- WEP key generator
• nocat.net - Sonoma county community 802.11b network.