SPARK Annual Pilgrimage to ARRL HQ, Thursday, Dec. 28 Final Update

Hello,

This Thursday, December 28, is the date of our annual pilgrimage to ARRL headquarters in Newington, CT. Every year, we go to ARRL Hq. on the Thursday between Christmas and New Year’s Day, unless Thursday is the day of the holidays.

We will depart the Twin Rocks restaurant parking lot (Exit 17 of I-84) at 7 a.m. We will return to that parking lot about 12 hours later. We will ride in one vehicle, unless the number of participants requires more. We eat either along the way to and from, or at Newington, depending on the schedule.

We will take a tour of ARRL headquarters; a tour of the most famous ham station in the world, W1AW; operate the station (if you wish); and then visit Lentini Communications, a radio store in downtown Newington.

Gasoline expense and tolls are normally shared by the riders. Meals are paid for by each person, and often the riders share the cost of the driver’s meal. These rules are rather informal.

Here’s who is going this year:

Driver Ken Zenker, KB3FDP (GMC Yukon)
Joe Zegalia, N3DCF
Harry Smith, KA3IDX
Joe Raymer, N3XLS
Ray Collins, WX3A

73,

Ray, WX3A

SPARK k3csg.org

2006 Field Day Update

The results are in the December QST and this link: ARRL 2006 FD. SPARK, K3CSG, operating in class 3A and using less than 150 watts power had 536 contacts. There were 52 participants (members and quests) and K3CSG scored 2392 points.

-73-

Christopher Doherty, N3UVR, Webmaster

SPARK Website

Amateur Satellites – OSCAR

Hello,

This month, 45 years ago in 1961, hams had their first orbiting satellite, OSCAR (later called OSCAR I). OSCAR stands for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio. Since then, scores of ham satellites have been launched into outer space.Here’s some trivia. In which year did Amateur Radio have the greatest number of satellites launched?

Well, it’s this year ending, 2006. The 20th Amateur satellite of the year was launched six days ago from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia; however, GeneSat-1 failed to achieve orbit. The satellite measured 10cm x 10cm x 30cm, and weighed 4.500 Kg. In good ol’ English terms, that is about 4″ x 4″ x 12″, weighing just under 10 pounds (in other words, a heavy loaf of bread). No other year has even come close to this year.
73,

Ray, WX3A

SPARK Website

SPARK Minutes Sept ‘06

SPARK MEETING 09/19/06

Presided by Ray Collins, WX3A; 10 members in attendance at Hickory Street Presbyterian Church.

Minutes from the last meeting which was held in June at Seaman’s Airport in Factoryville approved as read by Secretary Jeff Jones, ND3Z.

Treasurer’s Report was approved as read by Treasurer Ken Zenker, KB3FDP.

Old Business:

VE test session report for months of July, August, and September by Jeff, ND3Z-Test sessions are scheduled for the 2nd Wednesday of every month. We’ve had people come to take tests on some months and we’ve had no people showing up to take tests on other months. Overall, there are more test elements passed than failed at our test sessions.

Members discussed communication problems encountered at a recent charity walk/run and the need to better co-ordinate our activities, as a group, at these events.

Members discussed Field Day 2006.

New Business:

Radio Room Committee report: The two antennas on the roof are not performing as they should be. Members discussed, at length, various ideas for getting on the roof to fix the antennas that are up there and perhaps install additional antennas. The club is managing okay with expenses associated with the radio room.

Repeater Committee report: The voter should be going up soon. The repeater has been “tweaked” a bit to improve audio quality. Plans were discussed to test the 440 link, voter, etc.

- A motion was made, seconded , and passed to put the monthly minutes on the club’s website.

- A motion was made (by Mike, W3SKY) seconded (by Heath, K3HGG) that we go back to having meetings once a month rather than quarterly. This motion was passed.

- It was decided by the membership that the club hold a social and technical net on Monday nights (at 9 pm) on the club repeater.

Other topics of discussion: recruitment, SPARK’s Yahoo bulletin board, the club’s website, the PA QSO party, and the SPARK holiday dinner to be held in December.

Meeting adjourned.

Minutes submitted by Jeff Jones, ND3Z, Secretary.

AA3FC Donates TS-830S

Hello,Great news!

SPARK member Walter Kunz, AA3FC, of Dunmore, has donated his Kenwood TS-830S HF/MF transceiver to our club. What a wonderful and generous gift!

The Kenwood TS-830S is a hybrid medium-frequency and high-frequency transceiver (160 through 10-meters), using solid-state devices except in the driver and power-amplifier stages, where there are three very common vacuum tubes. Many hams who own TS-830S rigs consider this model to be one of Kenwood’s best radios ever, known for its extremely high reliability. Containing a power supply, it’s just a matter of plugging the radio into a 120-VAC wall jack. On today’s market, the TS-830S in this fine physical and operating condition is worth close to $400.

Our club’s new Kenwood TS-830S will be put on the main operating desk in the SPARK K3CSG Radio Room & Clubhouse (Second Floor, 703 Cedar Avenue, Scranton). As with all club equipment, members should receive training first (requiring only a few minutes) before operating the equipment. Remember that if you do not yet have high-frequency operating privileges, the members who do have such privileges will be glad to sit with you while you “operate” and enjoy the HF bands.

On behalf of the Scranton Pocono Amateur Radio Klub, I express our appreciation to Walter for his donation.

73,

Ray, WX3A

The Tao of the Cycle

All is cyclical. The sun travels to its appointed position high in the sky and then returns low to the south (in the northern climes, such is the case). The moon phases new, crescent, gibbous, full and back again. The seasons go hot to cold. (There is an exception here for those on the equator – seasons, what seasons, we don’t have no stinking seasons! (A paraphrase of the immortal lines of Alphonso Bedoya – Gold Hat in “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, 1948)) (Like math, got to close all the parentheses.) I digress.

Now I return.

All, well almost all, is cyclical. The dinosaurs cycled in and out. Let us to the equator again and the Yucatan Peninsula; the meteor, the dust and the massive sun block, the telltale iridium layer laid down about 65 million years ago evidenced, the theory goes, the dinosaurs’ doom. In some extinctions we have been key players, the dodo for one. (However, most dodos die out eventually, without any help.) But, mine is not to look just at extinctions, but cycles of up and down, fullness and emptiness. I look at human endeavors and thinking outside the box and instant gratification and not seeing the forest through the trees and not taking the long view and living in the short term and not for the long term and doing today what you really should do tomorrow and doing tomorrow what really needs doing today and not knowing the bloody difference and not caring either. What is my point with all this, one may ask. The point is Amateur Radio.

Amateur Radio is in a numerical decline. That is, our ranks are ageing and new blood is not entering the ranks to replace the old codgers whose fingers no longer push the talk button or press the Morse code key sans arthritis. This is our cycle, our low cycle. Will we become extinct? For the sake of many, I hope not. For when the land phone lines are down and the cell phone towers do not operate because there is currently no current to the tower and we cannot reach mom in the tornado zone or the hurricane zone, there must be a battery operated amateur radio station to fill the void, to carry the message. There must be a generator operated station to carry the news. There must be an amateur radio station to coordinate the rescue service. We do not need the land line because we have a battery operated station. We do not need the cell phone because we string our own antennas and power our stations with a generator. We will speak while all others are silent. We will be “on the air”. We will think outside the box, see the forest through the trees, take the long view, live for the long term, string our antennas, charge our batteries, fuel our generators, build our own radios and when the Internet fails, we will carry the message through the ether and relay the message wherever it must go. When the cell phone has no bars, we will transmit and receive. When the land line has no tone, we will get the message to mom or mom’s message to you.

Texas, this is Pennsylvania calling. Relay this to Alaska please. Tell mom that her grandchildren are ok, over.