”The oldest
continuously meeting Amateur Radio Club in the United States”
Reporting news from the Annual Indianapolis Radio Club meeting held on Friday, February 11, 2005, and other items of possible interest to amateurs.
The February meeting of the Indianapolis Radio Club was held on Friday, February 11th, 2005 on the 13th floor of the Indianapolis Training Center. Fresh coffee was provided by the Training Center and a plentiful supply of pastries was also available. A large group gathered prior to the meeting to enjoy the coffee, donuts, and good fellowship while catching up on the latest local radio news. Members did an excellent job of signing in on the member checklist and updating email addresses. Chuck Crist (W9IH), the club president, called the meeting to order at 7:30pm, and extended a warm welcome to regular members, new members, and visitors. He invited all in attendance to join in the Indianapolis Radio Club theme for the year and become “Radio Active in 2005.” Members were asked to introduce themselves, and the introductions progressed in turn around the room. The total attendance for the February meeting was 72. However, it was noted that some members, especially some heavy pastry eaters, elected to remain anonymous and did not sign in. Engraved name badges for members are still being prepared, and members were asked to review their eligibility for this honor at the check-in table with Barbara Crist (KB9BSV), wife of the club president. Members were reminded about the club radio room located on the first floor of the ITC building. Chuck Crist asked the Club Chief Operator, Trevor Fulk (N9YM) to conduct a guided tour of the radio room following the club meeting. Other meeting notes of interest, including a brief write-up on the February program, “Packet Radio Today” by Jerry Kutche (N9LYA), appear below.
Next Meeting:
Friday, March 11, 2005. Coffee time begins at 7:00 PM on the 13th floor (east end) of the Indianapolis Training Center (ITC). The business meeting will begin promptly at 7:30pm. The program for the next meeting is titled “Lightening Protection (What you should and should not do!)”, and will be presented by Mike Koss (W9SU), a very radio active amateur who is already known to many members of the club
Kid’s Day:
A YMCA event, Healthy Kid’s Day, will be held on April 2, 2005, according to Steve Wendt (KB9RDS). He reported that amateur radio will be part of that event and a special call sign, W9Y, has been secured to commemorate the event. QSL cards are being prepared. Steve indicated that a future amateur radio class at the YMCA is being considered. Club members who could help Steve with the class or the Kid’s Day event are asked to contact Steve. His email address is kb9rds@juno.com.
Dayton Hamvention Bus Trip:
The club president Crist (W9IH) announced that round trip bus transportation is being arranged planned for the Dayton Hamvention. Current plans call for the bus to leave at 6:00am and return at 7:00pm on Saturday, May 21st. The estimated cost of the round trip is $15 per seat. Checks preferred. The seats must all be sold by April 15th for this trip to be a “Go”. There are 44 seats available on the bus. It is a very nice bus with the conveniences of a home with indoor plumbing! There is lots of room in the lower luggage area for you to store your Hamvention purchases. Please see club president Chuck Crist (W9IH) at the radio club meeting to reserve a seat. Further details are available on the Indianapolis Radio Club web site at www.indyradioclub.org.
Club Station Report:
The club Chief Operator, Trevor Fulk (N9YM), gave a brief report on the club station. The equipment is located on the first floor of the Indianapolis Training Center, while the antennas are located on the roof of the building. A rotor and directional beam for 10-15-20m is mounted on a small tower on the building roof. That makes its height about 150 feet above ground. Trevor offered to conduct a tour of the station following the club meeting.
New Club Members:
Action on the most recent club membership applications was postponed until the next meeting.
Announcements:
-The IRC June Auction is in the planning stage. Meanwhile, prepare to dig out your historical hardware items of special interest to others (technical term for junk) so that they might become someone else’s treasure!
-Summer Picnic is planned for Saturday, August 6th, 2005, at the home of Joe (K9OOA) and Betty (K9OOB) Labraico in Broad Ripple. This is another great chance for fellowship and fun with other amateur radio enthusiasts near the end of the coming long, hot summer.
-Paul Bohrer (W9DUU), one of the new club directors, has offered to serve as a collecting point for gathering health and welfare status information and moving information for our club membership. If you have any such announcements or information, please forward it to Paul. His email address is w9duu@juno.com.-Volunteers are needed to teach an express amateur radio class at the ITC. Another class is being planned—a no-code Technical license class—in the spring. It will be held at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. Interested volunteers should contact the club president, Chuck Crist (W9IH). His email is indytrax@core.com .
-ARRL Field Day exercises will be held the last week of June at Fort Benjamin Harrison, according to information supplied by Tom Frank (N9JQH). The approximate location will be at 59th Street and Lee. The IRC is not organizing any activities for Field Day. However, there will be plenty of activity by local hams. Field Day Sites will be posted on the IRC webpage. We encourage you to find a group and join in! More details will be provided later. Meanwhile, please mark your calendar.
-Severe Weather Spotters will hold their annual meeting on Saturday, March 19, according to Bob Blake (N9FIM). The meeting will host police, fire, and EMT workers, in addition to amateur radio volunteers. The approximate starting time for the meeting is 9:30 or 10am. More details can be obtained from Bob at 317-823-2171.
Marion County Ham Radio EVENTS
Announcements:
As of February 19, 2005, all Marion County Events are
on the website: IndyHams.org. This
website has links to other ham radio sites, including local and neighboring
county clubs and emergency radio groups.
Use IndyHams.org for
finding what events have vacant positions and what the routes are. Contact N9FEB at N9FEB@comcast.net for volunteering.
Planning for Radio Commemorative to USS Indianapolis:
A committee has been formed to coordinate a radio tribute commemorating the 60th anniversary of the USS Indianapolis. It will be part of a special operating event called “Warships on the Air.” The USS Indianapolis Special Event Station will operate on Saturday and Sunday, June 16th and 17th June. This is a joint operation by the Indianapolis Radio Club, the Indianapolis Radio League, and RCA Radio Club. Operating modes will be: CW, SSB and AM on the 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meter bands. Operating slots will be 2 hours long with up to 4 hours consecutive operation permitted. Please let us know if you can help operate the station so that the USS Indianapolis Special Event Station can be on the air the entire 48 hours of the special event.
Club Webmaster:
Brian Stone (KC9GSA) has agreed to apply his Internet skills and prowess to the management of our Indianapolis Radio Club web site (www.indyradioclub.org). He is now the official club Webmaster. Thanks for agreeing to help the club in this way, Brian.
Monthly Club Traveling Awards
Presented for February:
-DX Award: Steve Heininger (N9OI), for contacting G3WXX on 80m in SSB mode.
-QRP Award: Steve Wendt (KB9RDS), for his contact with WB7WNF on 15m to Sumner, WA in SSB mode.
-Digital Mode Award: Steve Heininger (N9OI), for his contact with Italy (IK4HAL) on 20m in PSK mode.
-Mentor Award: John Lee (W9GRE), for his work with the Indiana Blind School Ham classes
-HomeBrew Award: Steve Heininger (N9OI) for his construction of a 6 meter 4 element quad antenna.
Congratulations to each of the monthly club traveling trophy award winners!
IRC Marconi Award for Technical
Excellence:
From last month…
Q: How much would you estimate that transmitter tube weights, Jim?
A: Our bathroom scale read 40 lbs! 73 and Thanks, Jim AF9A
Club Hats Available:
In celebration of the IRC’s 90th Anniversary, club hats with an embroidered club logo are available for purchase for $20. The articles seen by this reporter were baseball style hats in several available colors, with black lettering, and appeared to be very well made. If you wish to purchase one of these hats, be sure to come to the next club meeting and bring some extra money! You will be helping to support your club if you buy one of these hats.
Amateur Radio Classes:
-Indianapolis Radio Club is sponsoring a No-Code Tech license (express) class. Class dates are: April 11, 13, and 15th, 2005. That is, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The location for the class sessions will be the Scottish Rite Cathedral, 650 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis, IN. (For more details, see http://www.indyradioclub.org/indyclasses.htm).
-The Red Cross of Indianapolis Radio Club is well into a 10-week class for prospective amateurs. See the IRC web site (www.indyradioclub.org) for more details.
-Two amateur radio classes are in the planning stages: One will be an express class at the ITC; the other will be a No-Code Tech class to be held at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. Please contact Chuck Crist (W9IH) if you know of potential students. You can reach Chuck at his email address: indytrax@core.com.
-A Radio Study Group meets at 9:00 AM on Wednesdays at the McDonalds at 116th and I-69 to discuss questions and answers on amateur radio. For more information, contact Tom Price (WB9UNG) at 849-6550.
Door Prizes:
A number of fabulous door prizes, including a 50 pack of CD-R’s, several CD cases, a multifunction meter, and work gloves. These prizes were gathered thanks to club prize-master, Bob Osterhous (W9PSE). These and other interesting prizes and were distributed to randomly selected members of the IRC who were in attendance using a timeless classical prize distribution algorithm perfected over time. Prizewinners included Steve Heininger (N9OI), Todd Siebenmorgen (WD9EOX), Dave Jarvis (N9KZJ), and Fred Duncan (KC9FLB), among others. To learn more about the potential benefits of the door prize distribution process, be sure to attend the next IRC meeting! Thanks to Bob Osterhous for doing such a great job locating interesting prizes for this exciting portion of the club meetings.
Program: “Packet Radio Today” by Jerry Kutche (N9LYA)
Jerry Kutche (N9LYA)
presented a very interesting program on Packet Radio as it exists today. Currently, there are 9 BBS stations
operating in Indiana with HF links and input on frequencies on 20, 30, and
40MHz. A few stations are operating at
9600 baud using an FCC Special
Temporary Authority (STA) license. An output
Packet Message Manager program by Jim Oberhofer (KN6PE) is becoming
increasingly popular because it is able to hide much of the complexity of the
overall Packet network. This program is
able to process message types of Private, NTS, and Bulletin. The current program version is V1.33. Jerry offered to personally help any
interested amateurs in setting up a Packet Radio BBS. If interested, or if you have Packet Radio questions, you can
contact him at N9LYA@NYLYA.COM. We all
want to thank you, Jerry, for taking the time and making the effort to present
such an interesting program on Packet Radio.
Note Received from Jerry Kutche (N9LYA):
First I wish to thank everyone for having my wife and I
there. We had a splendid time. Secondly,
our prayers are with the gentleman who got injured; we hope he is OK. Send
him our best. If anyone has any
interest with following through on anything that I talked about, please contact
Thomas Gwaltney (N9PDC), David Spoelstra (N9KT), Frank Dick, or (WA9JWL), me. I can provide help and assistance through
our group of Digital Gurus to help with about any aspect of Digital Ham Radio. I can also be reached at any of the
following: www.n9lya.com, www.w9otr.org, n9lya@n9lya.com,
n9lya@n9lya.#sin.in.usa.na
(via Packet Radio). 73 Jerry (N9LYA), ARRL
Net Manager Indiana Section; Director www.USPacket.org;
Trustee Hoosier Amateur Radio Digital Society
Puzzle #1: (Solved!):
What is the longest rectangular board 1 ft wide that can be placed flat on the floor of a rectangular room that is 5ft. by 10 ft? If you can show why the answer is 10.439325+ ft, please contact the newsletter editor. Robert Begeman (W9KVK) correctly solved this difficult problem, using the technique he describes in his email, which follows: “I have the answer for puzzle #1. Yes, you are right, but more correctly 10.43932475 ft. Note that the 1' edge of the board and the short sides of the floor form a triangle that is similar to the triangle formed by the required length of the board L and the larger sides of the floor. The short sides are x and nx. The long sides are 10-x and 5-nx. Then the square root of [ xsquared +(nx) squared] =1, or x=1/square root of (n squared + 1), and n=(10 - x)/(5 - nx). Assume that n0=10/5 = 2 to start. Calculate x1 from n0, then calculate n1 from x1, x2 from n1 and so forth about 7 times until the values of n and x no longer change. x =.390783657 and n = 2.355478674. L = square root {(10 - x squared) + (5-[nx] squared)} or 10.43932475 ft.” Congratulations, Robert! During his prize award lunch I learned that Robert graduated from Purdue in 1948, received an MEE degree, and then began an interesting lifelong career in electronics. Robert was first licensed by the FCC in 1950 with Amateur Class C privileges and became an Amateur Extra in 1990. During his amateur career, Robert has participated in over 75 testing sessions as a Volunteer Examiner.
Puzzle #3: (Solved!):
A fly is located in the upper corner of a rectangular room that is 5 ft by 10 ft with 8 ft ceilings. The fly is injured and cannot fly. What is the length of the shortest path the fly can walk along the walls to get from the upper corner to the diagonally opposite lower corner of the room? Congratulations to Ed Conder (N9IZN) and Charles Sears (N9MEW). Both responded with the correct answer of 17 ft. Quoting from Charles’ email, “Add the 5 ft side to the 10 ft side, and the fly will walk at an angle, as if the wall was flat. Using the old right triangle theorem, square the total length (15 ft) = 225, and square the height (8) = 64. add them and take the square root, which is 17 feet.”
Puzzle #4: (New!):
Fold a rectangular piece of paper so that one corner exactly meets the diagonally opposite corner. If the rectangular paper has a length of b and a width of a , what is the ratio (b/a) if the length of the fold is exactly the same length as the length, b, of the paper? If you solve this problem, please send the detailed steps of your analytical solution to Tom Price (WB9UNG), your IRC Newsletter Editor, at pricetr@comcast.net. A free lunch will be awarded to the first correct analytical solution received. A tie-breaking prize drawing will be held if there is more than one correct solution received on the same day. However, all who submit correct answers will be invited to lunch. Clue: the correct answer is (b/a) = sqrt((1+sqrt(5))/2). All you need to do is provide the missing steps that show why!
Any Additional News Items:
If you have news that should be reported in the next issue of club newsletter, please pass it on to your club newsletter editor, Tom Price (WB9UNG), at the email address pricetr@comcast.net.