SARC Member Sets UHF Contact Distance Record

Dave VA7THO - 2001 Miles

Our October presentation was given By Dave VA7THO. Dave is particularly interested in digital communications on the high bands. 

One use of APRS is to exchange messages via satellite, sometimes over long distances. Dave set an ISS Digipeater (UHF) distance record recently between himself at White Rock, BC and Jerry W8LR of Middletown Ohio, a distance of 3224 km.

They each used a Kenwood TH-D72 and Arrow antenna. The International Space Station digipeater at that time ran at a frequency of 437.550, but has since returned to its usual frequency of 145.825 so their record may be tough to beat for a while.

Dave talks about the contact

Congratulations on this notable achievement!

Dave's record is included at: https://www.amsat.org/satellite-distance-records/

Ham & Turkey

To all you Hams out there celebrating our
Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend...

Go Well Together

GNUradio Workshop

Our thanks to Kevin VE7ZD for an excellent workshop on designing and using SDR receivers and other devices using GNU radio (https://www.gnuradio.org/). Here is a link to the presentation slides.

The GNU Radio software provides the framework and tools to build and run software radio or just general signal-processing applications. The GNU Radio applications themselves are generally known as "flowgraphs", which are a series of signal processing blocks connected together in software, thus describing a data flow. As with all software-defined radio systems, re-configurability is a key feature. Instead of using different radios designed for specific but disparate purposes, a single, general-purpose, radio can be used as the radio front-end, and the signal-processing software, handles the processing specific to the radio application.

We started out by building a simple audio signal generator and moved on to a full featured FM broadcast receiver. The hardware tuner is the inexpensive RTL2832U + R820T dongle available on eBay and other sources. With a frequency range of  24 – 1766 MHz it is fully 100% compatible with GNUradio and permits building devices across the ham bands.

The USB dongle from eBay                                                  Inside the RTL USB dongle

The dongle is actually manufactured for receiving TV broadcasts on Asian computers, but for us it means that a cheap $20 TV tuner USB dongle with the RTL2832U chip can be used as a software defined radio (SDR). This sort of capability would have cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars just a few years ago. The RTL-SDR is also often referred to as RTL2832U, DVB-T SDR, RTL dongle or the “$20 Software Defined Radio”.

Watch for an article in the next Communicator. In the meantime, here are three sites with additional information:

• For general RTL dongle news:  http://rtl-sdr.com
• A signal hacker lady, very smart and she has interesting articles: http://windytan.com 
• A YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nZIvueWDds

2016 Communicator Newsletters

We have the past Communicators on-line. 

Here is the link to 2016:

goo.gl/1AV0x3

The October 2017 Communicator

It's A Busy October Ahead

The blog has been a bit inactive these past few weeks as I have been travelling. That is going to change as we transition the SARC website to this blog and add some additional material.

The October SARC Communicator is now available. There should be something for everyone in this issue from beginners to experienced hams, including a fascinating look at the life and accomplishments of Nikola Tesla.

 You can download this 38-page edition at 

https://goo.gl/iBHyhE

My deadline for the November edition is October 20th. If you have news from your Vancouver area club, events or other items of interest please email them to me at communicator@ve7sar.net

The September 2017 Communicator

We're back!

You’ll probably see a few changes in the Communicator this month. They say a change is as good as a rest, well… we’ll see. This is my 8th year as editor and I need some variety too, to keep me interested. Hopefully it’s getting better. 

 You can download this 40-page edition at 

https://goo.gl/pxehvg

My deadline for the October edition is September 20th. If you have news from your Vancouver area club, events or other items of interest please email them to me at communicator@ve7sar.net

Solar Eclipse and Ham Radio

What Hams can expect on August 21st

On Monday, August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will be visible in totality within a band across the entire contiguous United States; it will only be visible in Canada and other countries as a partial eclipse. The last time a total solar eclipse was visible across the entire contiguous United States was during the June 8, 1918 eclipse. In the Vancouver, BC area we can expect about 90% coverage of the sun.

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon's apparent diameter is larger than the sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometers wide.

This eclipse is the 22nd of the 77 members of Saros series 145, which also produced the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999. Members of this series are increasing in duration. The longest eclipse in this series will occur on June 25, 2522 and last for 7 minutes and 12 seconds.

Not since the February 1979 eclipse has a total eclipse been visible from Canada and the mainland United States. The path of totality will touch 14 states, though a partial eclipse will be visible in Canadian Provinces and many other US states. The event will begin on the Oregon coast as a partial eclipse at 9:06 a.m. PDT on August 21, and will end later that day as a partial eclipse along the South Carolina coast at about 4:06 p.m. EDT.

Ward Silver N0AX writes about the Solar Eclipse and Amateur Radio:

The optical effects of an eclipse are relatively obvious and well-understood. Partial solar eclipses are fairly common and lunar eclipses even more common. Not many of us have witnessed totality, but most people have seen some type of eclipse. What very few people have observed is the effect an eclipse has on radio propagation. In just over 90 minutes there are expected to be dramatic changes in both the ionosphere and HF propagation. 

Read the Nuts and Volts article at 
http://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/the-solar-eclipse-and-ham-radio 

Befitting of our hobby, there will also be a Solar Eclipse QSO Party. The Solar Eclipse QSO Party (SEQP) is a HamSCI-ARRL sponsored operating event to generate data to study ionospheric changes during the eclipse.  Contest logging program N1MM has published a built-in SEQP logging module. Simply select "ECLIPSE" for log type: http://hamsci.org/seqp

I hope you have Monday, August 21st circled on your calendars in bright red ink... It may be a Ham Radio event to remember.