This month, during our May 9th meeting, we will have two guest speakers, John Kitchens (N6SX) and Pat Anglum (N6XTM); both are members of our club.
Our first speaker, John Kitchens (N6SX), will present ¡°ARRL Happenings¡±.
John was first licensed in 1966 as WN6UYJ through the Robert E Peary Junior High School¡¯s TRXster radio club, WA6VUA, taught by electric shop teacher Don Ulrey, WA6TRX. John built a 5-watt transistor radio (not tubes-transistors were new) from a schematic in a book, he thinks was titled weekend solid state projects. It worked. That was about 1967.
John was licensed as KZ5JS in the Panama Canal Zone, in 1975-76, while in the USAF. He became an Amateur Extra about 1983 for those ¡°extra 25 KCs¡± for CW contesting. John has been Section Manager for about 10 years and a member of K6MEP since 1981. He is also a member of CVARC, Simi Settlers, Central Coast, VCARS, Satellite ARC, QRP-ARCI, 4 States QRP Group and more. John enjoys contesting, POTA, SOTA; all usually QRP.
John also likes to catch a fish now and then out of the surf and in trout streams. He tries to be creative, making little trees and plants look big by developing bonsai plants. Since becoming a widower, John has enjoyed doing a bit of traveling; driving cross country 5 times in four years and recently activating parks along the way.
Out second speaker is Pat Anglum N6XTM, who will present a talk about software-defined radio (SDR). Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where traditional hardware components, such as mixers, filters, amplifiers, and modulators/demodulators, are replaced or augmented by software running on a general-purpose computing device, like a computer or embedded system. This allows for greater flexibility, as the radio's functionality can be modified through software updates rather than hardware changes. The RTL-SDR (developed in the 2010s), based on the Realtek RTL2832U chip (originally designed for DVB-T TV tuners), revolutionized SDR by making it accessible for under $30. While the RTL2832U wasn¡¯t designed for SDR, its ability to output raw digital samples enabled software-based radio processing.
Pat was first licensed around 1993 as a Technician Plus.? He had a Radio Shack 10-meter mobile transceiver with which he often worked Japan.? That radio bit the dust and Pat was inactive for about 30 years. In (2022) he bought a Baofeng 2-meter hand held and was somewhat active on 2 meters.? A few years ago, he was listening to a remote SDR and started listening to the ham bands.
This rekindled his interest in HF ham bands.
Pat decided to upgrade to General in January of 2023 and bought a used Kenwood TS-530S from another ham. It works well and he made many contacts on 40 meters. (His only antenna right now is a 40-meter dipole). Pat started studying for his Extra and passed the test on May 13th, 2023.? He also has an old 5BTV that he is trying to put back into service.
Here¡¯s a table of our speakers and/or activities for this year (completed is grayed out):
Robert Shank KM6RSS
