DELARANEWS
DELARA NEWS is the monthly publication of the Delaware Amateur Radio Association, Delaware OH. February, 2020 VOL 39 Number 2

Welcome

This is the official newsletter of a great ham radio club! Our DELARA family appreciates what you’re doing with the hobby! Why not take a few minutes and write out what interests you in our hobby! We have room for your article always! Send it to Stan [at] standi.com by the end of the month.

The Prez’s Shack

I just like to thank everyone who made the DELARA meeting in January. We had a good turnout - let's keep it moving forward in 2020. We had a good presentation put on by Scott Yonally N8SY, Ohio Section Manager for ARRL; let's see what Stan N8BHL has in store for us in this month's presentation. So have you tried kit building?? It seemed a little daunting at first, but I made the jump back in March 2018, I built a 2 meter transverter (28 mhz to 144-148 mhz) good for max 5 watts out for my hf only Flex 6300 (which I don’t have either any more). This was from a kit I bought off the internet from transverter-store run by UT5JCW. Sure I could have bought one as a pre-built assembled unit ready to plug in when received, but I wanted the experience of building something from a kit. So I bought the transverter kit with box for a mere 65 USD. I could have bought the main and attenuator boards by themselves spent a bit less, but then I would have had to source the enclosure, connectors, switch, LEDs , coax and wiring I needed so I spent the extra money on the complete kit. It was worth it to me, (I was later to find out I didn't need the attenuator board with the Flex series radios, so I just removed a diode as instructed by UT5JCW to get it to work properly with my Flex. But it could be re-installed later to work with any other non-Flex radios). Here's how transverter kit was received, everything needed to assembly. Well it finally arrived, seemed like it took an forever to arrive 10 days plus from date of order, but it was shipped from Ukraine. Once it arrived I opened the box to find a nice looking kit with the surface mount pieces already installed and tested; i just needed to attach LED lights, a on/off switch, ground wiring, and coax to the in/out connectors on the back panel. It also came with fairly well written English instructions. So what to do now, because I really wasn't any good at soldering wiring to a circuit board or testing the connections needed. I looked to the vast pool of Elmer's DELARA has available, and got John Beal W8NX to help me out with building/finishing this kit. We set a date and time at his QTH, because he has a nice workshop with all the necessary soldering irons, tools and test equipment needed and I sure didn't have and still don't. So I show up at the scheduled time and date, John had a look at the kit, its wiring components, and wiring schematic and we got started. And only a mere couple hours later after some trails and errors of me trying to solder, we have a working 2 meter transverter, which is of the below picture is of completely assembled unit ready to go. So my experience with this kit was better than I thought; I learned a lot about power, coax, and grounding connections. I learned not to make the wires too short so your large hands can't make the connections. So would I do it again? You bet I would! I’d probably buy another one in the near future to work with my little Flex 1500 if possible. I need to do some research on it yet. So for my next experience going forward I’m going to try to build from scratch a 4-1 remote antenna switch for 160-6 meters powered thru the coax cable. This has one coax in for 4 antennas connections out. It’s from an article I found on the internet by Phil Salas -AD5X. I have sourced most of the parts, except for some resistors or capacitors. John Beal,-W8NX said he would help me again, said he had plenty of those components around his workshop for my use here. So I'll keep you posted to its progress, and take many pictures as it progresses. 73, Tim, K8TAT

Try Something

New!

Ham radio is a little like working for a very large corporation. As years progress you can transfer to different departments, take on different job functions yet still work for the same place. (Well, it ~used~ to be that way!) In ham radio unlike many other hobbies, there are so many different aspects of the hobby that you literally could not exhaust them all in your lifetime. Running from the basics of talking over repeaters, to HF contacts, to more specialized and technically advanced phases up to moonbounce or microwave DX. We are all creatures of habit, and tend to stay in our comfort zones. So why not make an effort this year to try a completely new phase of ham radio? We have a couple ops getting involved with amateur radio satellites. Others operate portable, and operate QRP (very low power). There are digital modes and a wide variety of other applications! So keep that handheld dusted off, and keep talking on the repeaters. But try something new as well this year!
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DELARANews
DELARA NEWS is the monthly publication of the Delaware Amateur Radio Association, Delaware OH. February, 2020 VOL 39 Number 2

Welcome

This is the official newsletter of a great ham radio club! Our DELARA family appreciates what you’re doing with the hobby! Why not take a few minutes and write out what interests you in our hobby! We have room for your article always! Send it to Stan [at] standi.com by the end of the month.

The Prez’s Shack

I just like to thank everyone who made the DELARA meeting in January. We had a good turnout - let's keep it moving forward in 2020. We had a good presentation put on by Scott Yonally N8SY, Ohio Section Manager for ARRL; let's see what Stan N8BHL has in store for us in this month's presentation. So have you tried kit building?? It seemed a little daunting at first, but I made the jump back in March 2018, I built a 2 meter transverter (28 mhz to 144-148 mhz) good for max 5 watts out for my hf only Flex 6300 (which I don’t have either any more). This was from a kit I bought off the internet from transverter-store run by UT5JCW. Sure I could have bought one as a pre- built assembled unit ready to plug in when received, but I wanted the experience of building something from a kit. So I bought the transverter kit with box for a mere 65 USD. I could have bought the main and attenuator boards by themselves spent a bit less, but then I would have had to source the enclosure, connectors, switch, LEDs , coax and wiring I needed so I spent the extra money on the complete kit. It was worth it to me, (I was later to find out I didn't need the attenuator board with the Flex series radios, so I just removed a diode as instructed by UT5JCW to get it to work properly with my Flex. But it could be re-installed later to work with any other non-Flex radios). Here's how transverter kit was received, everything needed to assembly. Well it finally arrived, seemed like it took an forever to arrive 10 days plus from date of order, but it was shipped from Ukraine. Once it arrived I opened the box to find a nice looking kit with the surface mount pieces already installed and tested; i just needed to attach LED lights, a on/off switch, ground wiring, and coax to the in/out connectors on the back panel. It also came with fairly well written English instructions. So what to do now, because I really wasn't any good at soldering wiring to a circuit board or testing the connections needed. I looked to the vast pool of Elmer's DELARA has available, and got John Beal W8NX to help me out with building/finishing this kit. We set a date and time at his QTH, because he has a nice workshop with all the necessary soldering irons, tools and test equipment needed and I sure didn't have and still don't. So I show up at the scheduled time and date, John had a look at the kit, its wiring components, and wiring schematic and we got started. And only a mere couple hours later after some trails and errors of me trying to solder, we have a working 2 meter transverter, which is of the below picture is of completely assembled unit ready to go. So my experience with this kit was better than I thought; I learned a lot about power, coax, and grounding connections. I learned not to make the wires too short so your large hands can't make the connections. So would I do it again? You bet I would! I’d probably buy another one in the near future to work with my little Flex 1500 if possible. I need to do some research on it yet. So for my next experience going forward I’m going to try to build from scratch a 4-1 remote antenna switch for 160-6 meters powered thru the coax cable. This has one coax in for 4 antennas connections out. It’s from an article I found on the internet by Phil Salas -AD5X. I have sourced most of the parts, except for some resistors or capacitors. John Beal,-W8NX said he would help me again, said he had plenty of those components around his workshop for my use here. So I'll keep you posted to its progress, and take many pictures as it progresses. 73, Tim, K8TAT

Try Something New!

Ham radio is a little like working for a very large corporation. As years progress you can transfer to different departments, take on different job functions yet still work for the same place. (Well, it ~used~ to be that way!) In ham radio unlike many other hobbies, there are so many different aspects of the hobby that you literally could not exhaust them all in your lifetime. Running from the basics of talking over repeaters, to HF contacts, to more specialized and technically advanced phases up to moonbounce or microwave DX. We are all creatures of habit, and tend to stay in our comfort zones. So why not make an effort this year to try a completely new phase of ham radio? We have a couple ops getting involved with amateur radio satellites. Others operate portable, and operate QRP (very low power). There are digital modes and a wide variety of other applications! So keep that handheld dusted off, and keep talking on the repeaters. But try something new as well this year!