Farmer's Market this Saturday, October 21. We'll be there around 8. We'll be talking Ham Radio and sweeping antennas!

One tool I used in the fox hunt Saturday was my TinySA. It’s a spectrum analyzer about the size of a NanoVNA if you’re familiar with those. In the attached picture, I’m monitoring a chunk of spectrum from 130mhz to 160mhz, Which would place the 144.300 mhz fox signal near the middle. Notice the strong signal… -23.7 dBm at 144.68mhz. This is my portable radio set at 1 watt, transmitting from the other end of the couch. If the signal is that strong, you’re pretty close.

My intention was to connect this to a decent antenna on my truck, probably a 1/4 wave on a mag mount and monitor the signal strength as I drove around, noting the signal strength. We ran out of time this go around and didn’t use it in that way, but at one point as Logan was trampling in the weeds With it, he said the signal was around -25dBm. He was close but missed it.?

Anyway, just thought I’d share. It’s not a must have in every toolbox, but I’ve used this little $65 analyzer multiple times since getting it. The difference between this and an S-meter on your radio…. The readout is in dBm, making it a little easier to know if you’re getting hotter or colder.

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JJ was the winner!

JJ already mentioned as much on Facebook, but we had a great time with our foxhunt today! JJ and Mike beat me to the park by a little bit and the three of us (plus my 15 year old son) all ended up in the same spot looking for a well hidden transmitter. (Kudos Sierena) I’m not sure how long the 3 of us trampled the weeds in the same area, but we knew we had to be right on top of it….. and we were! Not sure how we didn’t step on it!?

Thanks to all who participated. If you enjoyed it half as much as I did, you’re probably ready for the next one! With that in mind, let’s come up with some ideas for another. Location… teams maybe… lower power transmitter? It’s open for suggestions. My 15 year old son Logan had a good time. He’s not quite ready to get his license or anything yet, but we have talked about which of his buddies to invite to the next hunt. I was in a hurry this time to get there first and the educational time I should have spent with him was at a minimum. Next time I’ll want to start a little sooner and give some explanation before go time without boring him and his buddies to death before the fun.?

Anyway, thanks for a great day and let’s get to planning the next one. 开云体育 is a good place to have discussions throughout the month so we don’t get too far into the weeds during our monthly meeting!

Eric
KD0CEN

Don’t forget. Today at 2pm!!!

Fox Hunt Details
Saturday October 14th at 2:00pm?
Fox will be hidden inside the city limits of West Plains.
It will be transmitting on 145.300mhz. As demonstrated at the meeting Tuesday night, the audio tone will transmit for approximately 15 seconds, followed by our club call sign identifier. After approximately 45 seconds of silence, the transmitter will start again. So around 15 seconds of transmitting every minute. It doesn’t sound like much, but lasts longer than you might expect.
Check-in with Sierena (KF0LQB) on the 444.425+ (110.9) repeater sometime prior to the 2:00pm start time so we have an idea of how many hunters are participating. Sierena is our “Hunt Master” for this hunt and will announce on the repeater when she has activated the fox. Start the hunt from wherever you want once the announcement has been made. Sierena will be within a close proximity of the fox, so she’ll know when it’s been located. Once the fox has been located, try not to give away its location so that others can continue the search. We can coordinate via radio on the repeater channel, but we might meet up once you’re done hunting at Galloway Park. This will allow me to gloat as the 1st place hunter, and give you an opportunity to congratulate me! A small gift card to the spring dipper will be awarded to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.

This event should be fun and the weather should be great! If you know someone that is unlicensed or might enjoy participating… maybe a child or grandchild… load them up and get them involved!! It might be a great opportunity to raise up some more hams!!

Looking forward to a great day!

Eric, KD0CEN

Monthly meeting is at 6pm Tomorrow (Tuesday). We're gearing up for a fox hunt this Saturday, so bring your questions and your equipment if you need help and we'll try to make sure everyone is squared away and ready to go for Saturday!!?

Look forward to seeing everyone!

We will be having a fox hunt October 14th at 2pm in West Plains. The fox will be transmitting at 145.300mhz for those wishing to fine tune their precision antennas. We will iron out any remaining details at the meeting next week (October 10, 6pm) and be sure to post them. We hope everyone can join in the fun with us!!?

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We’ll be at the Farmers Market Saturday morning. Please come join us. We will be monitoring the 444.425 Repeater and hope to hear some local traffic!

At the September meeting, the club voted to change the start time for our monthly meetings to 6pm. So moving forward, we will meet the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 6pm, at the Howell County EOC.

The new 444.425 is online! Positive offset with a 110.9hz tone. Give it a try! ?Currently, it’s working stand-alone with nothing linked to it, but we plan to link the 145.250 and 146.940 to it in the new future which will provide great coverage throughout the county!

Thanks to Roger, KB0FUL for sharing!

Our next club meeting will be next Tuesday September 12th, 7:00pm at the Howell County EOC. We’ll be discussing fox hunts and hopefully putting one on the calendar. I asked everyone at last month’s meeting to bring their fox hunt equipment, so I hope everyone has given some thought to building an antenna or at least what they might use. If not, come and see what everyone else is engineering!?

We will be doing our next farmers market public relations event on September 23rd. This will be the 4th Saturday in September instead of the 3rd that we normally set up. This is due to an event that will be taking place at the church that will cause an issue for us to set up when we normally would.?

Work on the new UHF repeater continues. We were recently granted a frequency of 444.425 MHz by the Missouri Repeater Council, the tone will be 110.9hz. Bill, KF0BFD and I built a stand off bracket for the antenna a couple weeks ago, so that’s ready to go. Mike, KD0AIZ has been coordinating the installation of the antenna, which we hope to be completed in the next couple weeks. I have tuned the duplexer, and mounted it in a box that will house the duplexer and repeater, and purchased the cables to connect it all together. Next, we start gathering parts to make the UHF links at both 2 meter repeaters.

Exciting things are happening and we hope everyone will get involved!

Eric, KD0CEN

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开云体育

Great thxs

On August 27, 2023, at 6:04 PM, Eric Presser - KD0CEN <eric.presser@...> wrote:

Simplex net on 146.52 this Tuesday evening starting around 7:15pm. Tell your friends and make an announcement on any other nets you participate in over the next couple days. Be sure to listen for a little while as you might not hear net control, but may hear other stations calling throughout the net.?

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You’re missing out if you’re not playing around on simplex on this hot mornings. Just worked a station on 146.52 that was 90 miles west of Chicago!!?