Work The FM Ham Satellites

I ran across a GREAT site for learning the basics of working satellites! With spring coming right around the corner, this might be a good time to study up and get those homebrew antennas made up or order the one you need! I included a snip from the site and the link below.

Want to Work an FM Satellite This Week?

SEKARC.NET One Year Anniversary !!

Well it has been one year today since our first post on www.SEKARC.net !!

We have just passed the 10,000 total views for our little site. I would like to thank everyone for the support and time spent on the club website. Hopefully we can more than double that a year from now! Remember, we need more authors and input so if you have a story idea, run across an interesting link or would like to write your own, just let us know!!

Here is a link to the first post !!

Below is a list of countries around the world that have viewed SEKARC.net... pretty impressive !

SDR at Builders Meeting

Tom N2UHC

One of the hot topics of today is SDR. Software Defined Radio is an area of technology that allows you to use a computer and some inexpensive hardware to create radio receivers. Tom's inspiration for this venture came from an article in the January 2013 issue of QST® magazine. The article was titled "Cheap and Easy SDR". The word cheap captured our interest immediately and the results of Tom's project was the basis for this article. DVB-TV Dongle.

The Dongle in Action on the USB Port

These tiny usb modules are available on the internet for around $20.00. With software, they can become a very powerful short wave receiver. After the software package is downloaded and installed, there is a setup procedure that must be followed to get the dongle and software to receive signals. Once this is done, you will see signals on a waterfall type display like this.

Received Signals By the Dongle Displayed

The top one third of the screen shows signals present in the bandpass of the receiver while the center of the screen shows a large segment of the band. The lower left corner of the screen shows the selected frequencies, S meter, and various control buttons. Being able to see a large portion of the band pass at once allows monitoring many frequencies at the same time.

The Display of a High Definition FM Signal

The dongles such as this one cut off at about 50 mhz requiring a converter to listen to the HF frequencies. The previously mentioned QST article included a schematic and photos of how to add a converter to extend the receiving range of the dongle. Tom chose to build the converter using Manhattan style construction.

The HF Converter Board

The HF converter board is made up of an oscillator, mixer chip, and power supply. Various components such as switches, input/output jacks, and the power connector are attached to the front panel assembly.

The Completed HF Converter

The final product packaged and ready for use.  The HF converter extends the receiving range of the dongle into the HF bands.  Tom had a great time putting this converter together and is a classic example of the projects completed by the Builders Group.  We hope you will join us and melt some solder.  Our motto is "Build Stuff".  Bring a project of your own to build and demonstrate.

73's Tom N2UHC and Joe W0MQY

Ham CubeSats Deployed

New satellites are being deployed this month. It sounds like a LOT of them! This article was posted on this Southgate ARC site. Be sure and visit the site for the complete details!

Ham radio CubeSats to deploy Thursday

Several amateur radio CubeSats were deployed from the International Space Station on Thursday, February 6.

Reminder: February Meeting !!

Everyone is welcome to attend our meeting Saturday February 22nd at 9am - Hardee's of Pittsburg!!

Spring is almost hear and that means getting outside and working on antennas! Either fixing damage from winter or putting up a homebrew! Come to the meeting Saturday and throw your ideas around and maybe get some good tips!

Also, be sure and check the Club Calendar page. You can get there under SEKARC LINKS on the left column! We have area FM and Digital nets, national HF nets and meeting info from Starbucks to Hardees!

See you Saturday !

ATTENTION: NEWER HAMS AND HAM “WANNABES”

 

Now what?

I've talked with Kings, doctors, actors, astronauts, aristocrats, Indian Chiefs and Fire Chiefs, the news makers and news reporters all over the world. I've talked to Dictators, Communists, Socialists, Democrats, Republicans, and independents. With Russians, Chinese, Italians, the Scottish, English, Germans, French and now and again a Spaniard. I've talked with Eskimos at the North Pole and scientists at the South Pole, ships on and under the sea and others in flight.

I've done this by bouncing my voice off the face of the moon or the tail of a meter or the space shuttle vapor trail as it was coming in for a landing. I've watched the aurora borealis dance and twitch as my signal was passing through it. I've followed the sun during its eleven year cycle while it strengthened and weakened the ionosphere making all of this possible by bouncing my signal far beyond the horizon.

EchoLink Node Using Rasberry Pi

Rasberry Pi, cheap HT and you have an EchoLink node!

Courtesy of Hack a Day !!  There are some interesting ideas on this website! I highly encourage all of you to check this site out below...

New Amateur Logic Episode !

There is a new Amateur Logic episode available for viewing ! The guys pulled together another episode. They have a good piece on explaining the different bands and putting them together in an overview that helped me understand more about the different bands and frequencies!

Joplin High School Amateur Radio Club

I thought it was great to see this last night! I did not even know such a club existed. Maybe someday Pittsburg High or Colgan will get one of these going ?

http://www.fourstateshomepage.com/story/d/story/brads-beat-joplin-high-school-ham-radio-club/31306/oyWipztWakmXAEtcIXpjoA

80 Meter PSK31 Net on 2/5/2014

Here is the text from our first Digital Net on 80 meters. We used PSK31 on 3.580 USB. It was a lot of fun and good practice. Hopefully after we get our bugs out, we can begin to promote the net and get more regional participation! Below is how my pc decoded it, some of you may have a little different results but thanks for  checking in and I look forward to next month's Digital Net for SEKARC.

--------------------------------------------------------

Meeting Update Jan 25, 2013

Southeast Kansas Amateur Radio Club met on January 25th. We had another great turnout for the meeting and a number of topics were discussed. Great company, great breakfast and great coffee! We were there until close to 11:00 so if you are worried about making it at 9 next time, no worries! Stop by anytime!

Google Glass and Ham Radio

Technology... how much is TOO much ? For me personally this is too much, well unless I had unlimited financial resources. It would be easy to get in a habit of just TXing psk31 but I try to not stick with that too much because even that requires a basic computer to decode. Our computers are great as long as there is electricity and a working computer. But if you lose power in an emergency or your surroundings, this type of communication tech might leave you a little short.