SUNSHINE CORNER – July 2024
Happy Birthday wishes to these club members: Jack, KN4HHQ; Ken, WB4ZOH;
Philip, KI4WGC; Jeff, KM4FTK; Bruce, KN4TS; George, K4GVT; Sandy, KM4JUS; Rosalie,
KN4ZLY; Dwight, N4GSD; Mary, KK4GOW; Jeff, K9VEG; Richard, KJ4ZIH; Luther,
WA4FMO; Tony, KK4YZK; Stephen, KO4GQR; William, WB4KLC and Barbara, (no call)
– Enjoy your day!
Belated birthday wishes to Daniela, KQ4IKQ, she celebrated a milestone birthday
in June!
Condolences to Bill, AF4LL, on the passing of his Grandmother, who lived in
Kentucky. Bill was one of our top operators at Field Day in previous years and had
to miss it this year to be in Kentucky.
POTA – Parks on the Air – Congratulations to Jeff, K9VEG, for obtaining his KILO
award. This was for working a single POTA location with 1,000 QSOs. Congrats
to John, KG4NXT, for his hunter award, which is called the Argyroxiphium Sandwicense award. This
consisted of hunting 3,000 unique POTA entities. Certificates below. Way to go guys!!!
(Editor’s Note: Argyroxiphium Sandwicense is a species of the silversword plant. It is endemic to Hawaii and federally protected.)
If anyone has questions on POTA, Jeff or John would be a great source of information.
Field Day – Congratulations to Cat, KM4PBD, our chairperson for Field Day, on her second year at the helm. Yes, it was hot, but it is summer time! Great job by Cat for keeping us on track and making sure everything flowed smoothly! The logs have been sent in by John, KG4NXT.
The balloon launch was a hit and led by Bruce, KN4GDX. I have to thank Daniela, KQ4IKQ, and Edith for cooking for Saturday night’s dinner, great job Ladies!
Sadly, we are going to have to say goodbye to Don, WA2SWX, and Edith at the end of the month as they move away to their new home and celebrate retirement. We will miss them both and appreciate all of their efforts with the club (picture included).
Please send me your news, good, not so good and ham related info!
kg4tvm@hotmail.com
Thursday night net at 8 PM is a great way to keep up with current events and hear what everyone is up to with their radios!
This month, we are recognizing Bill, N4SV. Bill was a very active member of our club, holding the Treasurer position for years; he also participated in many of the club events. You can still hear from Bill on the club reflector!
I have to give a huge Thank you to Bill for sending me a whole thumb drive of club history that I am sorting thru. Here is what Bill sent about his ham adventures:
“After living in Manassas for 30 years, in 2017, my wife retired from her job and we decided to move
back to her home state of Indiana. She wanted to be closer to her family and I was hoping our new
place would have no HOA restrictions like I had to deal with in Virginia and a ham tower would be in
my future. We found a place that we both liked and the bonus for me was the room to put up
antennas and no HOAs. My goal was a small tower with HF and VHF yagis, and several wire antennas
for the HF bands. The first few years I had just a single multiband wire antenna up in the trees, and it
worked quite well on my modest station with only 100 watts. Over time I gathered what I needed to
put up the tower and antennas I wanted, and finally in 2022, with a lot of help from my son and some
dedicated ham friends from Virginia and Maryland, the tower went up. It’s nothing big or special, less
than 50 feet total, but gets me on HF with a multiband yagi and some wire antennas, and also VHF
and UHF. I have always liked contesting on those higher bands with the K8GP Grid Pirates VHF/UHF
contesting group.
I fully retired soon after the tower went up, and have been able to keep my hand in both HF DX work
and contests, and also VHF/UHF work. I joined a local DX club in 2019, the Northwest Indiana DX
Club, and also discovered the FT8/FT4 modes that year. Both of these events have enhanced my DX
progression and enjoyment, and earlier in 2024 I finally hit a couple of my DX goals, broke the 1,000
contact level in the ARRL DXCC Challenge, then just a month ago made 5 Band DXCC (10, 15, 20, 40
and 80 meters) with endorsements for 12, 17 and 30 meters. Soon I’ll be upgrading my HF yagi to
cover 5 bands, 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 meters, and continue to have wire antennas for 30/40 and 80/160
meters. These will help me work towards new goals, breaking the 300 country level in the ARRL DXCC
program (and hopefully, eventually the DXCC Honor Role), and eventually heading towards the 1500
then 2000 contact levels in the ARRL DXCC Challenge. If the bands cooperate, I hope to eventually
also make DXCC on both 160 and 6 meters as well.
In addition to DX and contesting work, I continue to be involved in the Amateur Radio Emergency Data
Network, or AREDN. This is the use of off-the-shelf 2.5 and 5 GHz wireless access points, flashed with
a special ham radio version of firmware, to create and extend the AREN network. While AREDN was
primarily developed to create a standalone, ham radio network to handle emergency traffic, the
technology lends itself to everyday enjoyment of the hobby. Those interested in AREDN stand up all
sorts of Internet-type of systems, from VoIP phone systems to web page servers and chat/text
systems. Pretty much anything you can do on the Internet can be done in the AREDN networks, but
like VHF/UHF packet radio from years ago, it requires hams to commit to stand up AREDN nodes so
they can communicate with other AREDN nodes and extend the network.
One aspect of the hobby I am starting to become interested in is Amateur Radio Satellites.
With more than a little trepidation I made my first ham satellite contacts in 2023, with just and HT and an Arrow
hand-held yagi. It isn’t a part of the hobby that is easy. It’s a real challenge to coordinate the satellite
passes, knowing the ins and outs of Doppler shift, getting the correct up and down link frequencies,
and knowing where to point the antenna during the pass. When I get more into it, I hope to use my
VHF/UHF station, which mostly has done terrestrial contest work, supported with special Sat
software, to work the sats. I’ve discovered from some ham friends who know way more about the
ham sats than I do, that you don’t necessarily need special antennas and AZ-EL rotors to work the
sats. With a bit of work, and good, clear satellite passes, regular horizontal and even vertical
VHF/UHF antennas can be made to make sat contacts too.
So for the foreseeable future, I hope to continue to stay active in Amateur Radio, and enjoy other new,
and old, aspects of the hobby. More details of my ham background and interests on my QRZ web
page. Hope to work you all on the air.
73, Bill South, N4SV”
Thanks Bill, good to hear from you and enjoy that tower!
I hope everyone had a safe & happy 4th !
73,
Theresa
kg4tvm@hotmail.com
