Sunday, November 30, 2014

Changing Email Group for SEKARC


Hello everyone, after a suggestion by one of our new members Kristen KEØBPL and a question by Jack WDØCFH, I finally started on something I had been thinking about for a while. SEKARC is changing over to Google Groups for our email and club communications. The group was getting too large to manage from one email account with  SEKARC. We will make the change slowly and over a week or two so everyone has time to get signed up.

Google Groups is much like Yahoo Groups that many of you are familiar with but Google just does it better and it ties nicely to the website which is on Blogger, another Google platform. This enables us to save email and topics for later review and creates a forum type of setting for questions to the group. Another plus it that it puts the entire group at your fingertips for times like Jack was talking about it can be used as a swap shop or looking to buy/sell service for just the club!

The SEKARC email adress will always be active and monitored. All emails sent out for reminders, new post updates and general FYI's will be sent using the Google Groups process. But don't forget I will slowly transition over so there may be some duplicates for a while. If you have issues or questions, please let us know!

There will be some bugs I am sure and here are a couple of hints that I used... I set mine to receive individual emails for  each post. You can get one summary email per day with ALL of the days posts but I tried that with Larry's List and I think I missed a lot of info by doing that. I can't imagine that our group would jam up your inbox with tons of emails, especially starting out.

On Monday I will be sending out a google group SEKARC email with the link to sign up to the SEKARC Google Group! It's pretty easy, just a click and your are done! Instructions and hints for set up are listed below.

One option I might suggest after you sign up... go and change your personal settings to include your call sign and in the same area you choose the email type (individual or daily summary). Screenshots below start on the groups web page where you can also post and read messages directly. But just replying and sending emails to the group will post them as well.

After signing up ( you do not need a Google ID to sign up by the way )... go to the group main page Google Groups SEKARC, and in the top right corner you will see this... click the box with the person and little gear...


Then click on the line that says Membership and email settings...


You will then see this box.... under display name you can put what you would but your name and call sign would be good. This would help others identify the sender! And then underneath that is a drop down for email settings where you choose individual or daily summary...


That's pretty mush it. From the Google Groups SEKARC site you can see all of the postings, read them and/or create a new topic! This will greatly enhance our clubs communication lever and after we get around the changing pains I think we will all be glad we did! Let me know if you have any questions or have any issues with the process! When sending a new email to the group via  sekarc @ googlegroups.com, the email subject become the TOPIC for that thread...

Keep in mind though..... everyone in the group will be able to read your postings so if you have private emails to send, please use their personal email address to do so.


..

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Jammin' at Builders Group?

Well the Builders Group had a wild night last week... we've seen tubes glow, Jacob's ladder spark, and solder smoke filled the air but this night was a little different.... a little sound wave demo.





Thursday, November 20, 2014

New Yaesu FT-991 Released

Holy cow this is crazy. This replaces the FT-897? I had read where it would be around the $1200 range, but this is NUTS ! This is today's listing on Associated Radio. The  nice FTDX-1200 was around $1500 but is now about $1399 with a $200 rebate from Yaesu. Guess I had put this new rig in the wrong category... So maybe that FT-991 will not be on my wish list anytime soon.

But that FTDX-1200 looks better and better....



Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Raytown Hamfest November 2014

Here is a nice video about the Raytown Amateur Radio Club Hamfest held recently.... these are really fun and follow the HAMFEST tab to the left for info on upcoming hamfest. Winter is a little slow but keep checking in !

I updated the HAMFEST link with 3 of them in early 2015! Should be a fun way to deal with winter. And cheaper than moving to Florida!


Monday, November 10, 2014

Russian Digital Radio Club Contest

Click Image For More Info

Dear Fellow Radio Amateurs,

The Russian Digital Radio Club has the honour to invite the radio amateurs all over the world to participate in the 1st Russian WW MultiMode Contest 2014. The objective of the contest is to establish as many contacts as possible between radio amateurs around the world and radio amateurs in Russia.

We invite all fans of all modes to take part in contest from 12.00 UTC on Saturday 15th November till 11:59 UTC on Sunday 16th November, 2014. Types of modulation: BPSK63, CW, RTTY, SSB. The repeated contacts are permitted on different bands and different modes providing that a contact will be made not earlier than in 3 minutes. The output power should not exceed 10 watts on 160 meters and 100 watts on other bands. The operator may change the bands no more than 10 times within calendar hour (with zero on 59-th minute of each hour). Only one transmitted signal is permitted at any time. Bands: 160 m, 80 m, 40 m, 20 m, 15 m, 10 m.

Prizes and certificates in all categories:
SOAB - BPSK63-CW-RTTY-SSB
SOAB - BPSK63-CW-RTTY
SOAB - BPSK63-CW-SSB
SOAB - BPSK63-RTTY-SSB
SOAB - CW-RTTY-SSB
SOAB - BPSK63-CW
SOAB - BPSK63-RTTY
SOAB - BPSK63-SSB
SOAB - BPSK63-SSB
SOAB - RTTY-SSB
SOAB - CW-RTTY
SOAB - CW-SSB
MOAB - BPSK63-CW-RTTY-SSB

For more info please visit Russian WW MultiMode Contest 2014 Rules: http://www.rdrclub.ru/russian-ww-multimode-contest/159-rus-ww-multimode-contest

You should send your log upload via the Web interface http://ua9qcq.com/en/submit_log.php?lang=en

All logs must be sent no later than 14 days after the contest (23:59 UTC on 30th November 2014).

73! de Russian Digital Radio Club

Regards,
Yuri | rk3dsw@rambler.ru

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Loaded Whips and Portable Trips

By David Keath – N0WKZ

Because of my very restricted location, I recently purchased the one of the few antenna's I have ever paid money for.  It is a coil loaded MFJ 1840T telescopic whip for 40 meters.  Granted, I knew it would be a compromise but it turned out to be quite a nice little device.  I have no complaints as it does exactly what it should for what it is.  Nevertheless, time and time again, I continue to find that there is only one true remedy for a bad location.  Portable Trips.  Despite the colder autumn temperatures, I decided to pack up and head out in order to try and get in at least one more trip before mother nature starts pooping all manner of nasty stuff upon us.  As well, I usually get at least one contact out of a trip which is often far more than I get at home.