Emerald Amateur Radio Society

Past Meetings

Tuesday, September 20th -- Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield
Tana Steers will have volunteer forms and a camera so we can get going on our Springfield ID cards. If you need to get an ID card or if yours has expired, come on down and git 'er done!
We will be going over the changes to our bylaws and approving them.
Come and meet our new Lane County EC, Thomas Germaine N7NFS, and give him a real EARS welcome.
There will be a 20-minute video on how Hallicrafters took a ham transmitter and modified it for military use during World War II. It shows the planning, the assembly lines and installation into army field radio vehicles (the predecessor of our comm van!) You can even see hams doing some of the check-out and testing. So many vacuum tubes! This video is actually an old newsreel from the '40's.
Another cool item at tomorrow's meeting: Ron, WJ7R, will present information on a receiver kit he will purchase to build and demonstrate. It is called the SS40 and is a stable superhet receiver. It is the meant to complement the NS40 transmitter The price will be $55. Ron will have brochures to hand out tomorrow.
Let's have everyone come for the fun!!
Dick Jenkins - WA7TUV

Tuesday, August 16th -- Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield
POWER! Please join EARS for a re-cap Powerpoint program on the 2011 Field Day. A good collection of pictures, stories and contest results, followed by club business.
For those of you who weren't there, this is a great way to find out what it was all about and maybe get excited for next year!
73, Ron WJ7R

Tuesday, July 19th -- Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield
POWER! We all need power, especially to communicate with radios. This special program deals with power. EARS member Peter McCloskey (N7IY) will demonstrate his solar cell array and give his project history. Peter brought his solar panels to the EARS Field Day event and they worked great! That allowed us to get solar power credit for added points!
The second half of the program will involve getting power to where it is needed. Anderson Power Poles have become the standard for connecting ham equipment to DC power, and they are cheap! They are used for battery power, solar cells, AC power supplies or any other source of DC power. We will be putting together power jumpers with Power Poles. If you have some red and black power cable, bring it and we will add the ends. We will have the Power Poles, crimper and 'some' wire available.
This is information every ham needs to know so join us on Tuesday, July 19, at 6:30PM. We will meet at the Springfield Justice Center EOC room as usual.
See you there! 73 -- Ron WJ7R

Tuesday, June 21st -- Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield
Tuesday's program will feature the use of the N3FJP logging software for Field Day. I will be providing 4 laptops for our 4 stations with this software loaded on them, but we should all know how to use the program as operators. Longterm, the club will use the full version of this software to log WA7FQD and W7SFD contacts in the radio room computers.
I REALLY am encouraging everyone to operate our HF Field Day stations (as well as the 2m and 6m ones). You will get a very different perspective on the hobby once you make some contacts on these bands. Needed also are some "night owls" to operate after 9 PM Saturday night. I have postponed our "Anderson PowerPole workshop" until the July meeting.
Also needed is a headcount for Rick W7UN's outstanding BBQ meals, and you can RSVP me privately via email or at the Tuesday meeting if you have interest. Depending upon that head count, I would expect the cost to be not more than $10 each.
Thanks! Ron -- WJ7R

Tuesday, May 17th -- Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield
-- Tuesday's EARS meeting will be a complete planning rundown for our Field Day 2011 (June 25 - 26 at Franklin Fire Station). I will bring a flip-chart and be writing down all information. If you are interested in being at Field Day, this will be a "hands-on" activity. I would love to see people get on the air on HF. We will discuss all the minutia.
We are planning on having an onsite catered BBQ similar to last year, so I will need a headcount on that.
Thanks and 73! Ron -- WJ7R

“ShakeEX” Simulated Emergency Test - preparation for an Earthquake Disaster Event -- Saturday April 9th - 8:30 am to 12:30 pm

EARS members: A reminder to listen on 146.74 (WA7FQD repeater) at 8:30 am on Saturday April 9 if you would like to participate in “ShakeEX” simulated emergency test. As you may know, three local groups representing Eugene (West) and South (Cottage Grove) will each be conducting similar “mini-SETs” to test the capabilities of our local hams to communicate and pass simulated reports back to their respective “EOC” or command location. We will ask those checking in to 146.74 resource net if they can locate in the field east of the river to strategic locations. Further instructions given then. Thanks and 73! -- Ron WJ7R

Tuesday, April 19th -- Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield -- Discussion and review of the recent Simulated Emergency Test (ShakeEX SET), plus a presentation that will help show much of the reality of such an event:
"Earthquakes: How will Electric Utility Infrastructue of the Pacific Northwest Perform during the :"Big One"? Subduction zones produce the biggest earthquakes on the planet. The Cascadia Subduction Zone, off the coast of Oregon, Washington and Western Canada has very much in common with the Peru-Chile and the Japan Trench Subduction Zones. Much can be learned from the Chilean earthquake of 2010 about the impact of such an event on substations, transmission and distribution lines, bridges, highways, and communications facilities. In 2010, Dr. Leon Kempner, Chief Structural Engineer for BPA participated in an assessment team from the U.S. to learn from the Chilean experience. John Schaad - K7JU, BPA electrical engineer, will present an overview and summary of Dr. Kempner's findings, with photos and other detailed information.
As a follow-up to EARS participation in the April 9 "mini-SETs" (simulating an earthquake and our ability as hams to handle auxiliary communications for Springfield), Ron WJ7R will give a quick summary. In short, our April topic is "Emergency Communications Month."
Come on down to the Springfield Justice Center EOC room next Tuesday, April 19, at 6:30PM for this interesting and informative meeting. Hope to see you all there!

Tuesday, March 15th -- Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- Alternate Location:
Willamalane Adult Center, 215 West C Street, Springfield, OR
FIELD DAY 2011 !!!! -- We will have a program on portable radio operations (Field Day), and also show the ICOM factory tour. Hope to see everyone there! Thanks!
Ron Vincent, WJ7R, President EARS

Tuesday, February 15th -- Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield --
After regular club business, Mike Harman, Services Bureau Manager of the Springfield Police Department, will speak to EARS members and also offer a tour of the Springfield Justice Center. Afterwards, time permitting, I would also like to have a brief discussion concerning EARS Field Day plans for June 2011.
Thanks!
Ron Vincent, WJ7R, President EARS.

Jan. 18, 2011 Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield --
DAH-DIT DAH-DIT DAH-DAH-DIT-DAH
The presentation for next Tuesday's meeting is "An introduction to Morse Code". This is the way Ham Radio got started! For all of you who don't know the code, come and at least see what it is and what it sounds like. No pressure to start classes, but check it out. This is a great opportunity to see if you might have an interest in learning the code. Thousands of hams still use Morse code even today!
The main business topic will be election of club officers for the coming year.

Dec. 21, 2010 Christmas Party Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC in Springfield -- EARS would like to invite members for an informal end-of-year get-together (chat, tell stories, tell tales of days gone-by and yet to come!) at the Springfield Justice Center EOC meeting room, Tues. Dec. 21 at 6:30 PM. A short business meeting will precede our PARTY! Our served agency, Springfield Police, will provide coffee for us. If you have a preferred (non-alcoholic) beverage of choice, please bring it for at least yourself. Also, we would like members to bring a small number of goodies, perhaps one serving for 6 or more people, of your favorite cookies, cake, pie, candy if you can…. If we have too much, you can take it back home. Maybe a swap fest opportunity! Hope to see everyone there and talk about our year concluded for EARS, and a new one, 2011. We’ll have the radio room open for discussion and operation.

Dec. 11, 2010 -- This years Springfield Christmas Parade will be held on the 2nd Saturday of December (11 December 2010). This is a change from last year due to the confrontation of the Ducks and the Beavers. EARS again will be handling the communication needs of the Parade. There is a need for ham radio operators to help with the staging of the Parade (9:30 am - 2:30 pm) as well as monitoring the actual Parade itself (1:45 pm - 4:30 pm). There is a need for 12 communicators for the staging area to be part of 2 to 4 person teams and another 6 Parade monitors. If you can help, please contact me at danielgrimes@comcast.net or phone 541.485.6503. If you have not used your HT lately, this is the time to dust it off and help with a great tradition.

Nov. 16, 2010 Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- at the Justice Center EOC room in Springfield. We hope you can all make it! There will be a special program for VHF enthusiasts: The W7EUG portable repeater will be demonstrated by Ron, WJ7R and Brent, KD7WIO. This repeater has been up on the butte over Springfield before and has served us well. The repeater will be set up across the street from the JC in the church parking lot so a "field trip" will be in order. Bring your talkies or mobile rigs and we'll work each other through the repeater! The great thing about a portable repeater is that it can be taken into an area where a search is going on and there isn't any existing repeater coverage. With the portable repeater, hams with talkies can work the woods and have perfect communications with each other and the base location and since they run on batteries, they can last essentially forever! Come on down and see what a 2-meter repeater looks like up close! Also, come on down and see what a great ham radio club looks like up close!!

Oct. 19, 2010 Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- NEW lOCATION THIS MONTH: Willamalane Adult Center, 215 West "C" St., Springfield, OR 97477 -- Meeting in the Riverview Room -- This month’s EARS program is part #2 of a series in (QRP) kit building and soldering techniques. Since we did not have ample time to demonstrate soldering and de-soldering techniques last month, we will include a table station for that purpose, headed up by Dick WA7TUV. On the second table, assisted by Paul W8IEB, we will feature putting the final touches on the NS-40 (“Nothing Simpler”) QRP 5 watt 40 meter CW transmitter. We will ask folks to come up and soldering some resistors and capacitors on the NS-40 board. Get some practice on Dick’s table if you need more practice. If we finish the project, we will have a station available to hear the signal our QRP transmitter produces. We will have some multimedia and a projector to aid in our project. Our ham radio ancestors built all their equipment. Get into the feeling of "the wonder years"!

Sept. 21, 2010 Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- Please join us for the first installment (the October meeting will continue the theme) on electronic “QRP” kit building. Long before there was ever a concept of commercially built ham gear, building one’s own radio equipment was commonplace. Through various vendors that offer these kits, you can discover the fun and excitement of building a receiver or transmitter that you can put to use. For September: EARS General meeting will consist of two parts (and two locations in the Justice Center). First, Paul W8IEB will present a Powerpoint on do’s/don’ts in the main EOC meeting room on approaches to the workings of kit building and initial troubleshooting. There will be handouts on things such as resistor color codes (very important) and other resources. Next, Dick WA7TUV will demo solder/de-solder techniques, and have test boards available for practice. Our QRPMe kits have been delayed. Once here, we will start to assemble them next month at the October meeting.

July 20, 2010 Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- Ron, WJ7R, will present a slide show on the Field Day event we had out at the Franklin Fire Station. There will be pictures taken by WA7TUV, and a discussion about what went right and what didn't. We can make next year's Field Day even better! Field Day is such a great part of Ham Radio. We will find out about the the September meeting and the "Tuna Can" QRP rig (don't bring your cat). We will build at least one transmitter and one receiver at that meeting and actually put them on the air! Come and get the details. For anyone who is interested, there might be a group purchase of kits. They are reasonably priced.

ARRL Field Day Info Link - June 26-27 -- EARS Field Day started June 26 at 11:00AM PDT and ran for 24 hours. Location: Franklin Fire Station at the intersection of Territorial Highway and Franklin Road.

June 15, 2010 Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- Thomas Germaine, KD7CUT, gave a presentation on Airmail, a packet application for putting your computer on the air and sending email by Ham Radio. There was also a live demonstration between him and Ron Vincent, WJ7R, using 2 meters and portable packet stations. Learn about this and other digital modes of Ham Radio.

May 18, 2010 Regular Meeting: 6:30 pm -- Regular Location -- Ron Vincent, WJ7R, presented a Power Point show called "Field Day Made Easy". After the show, we planned our activity (who brings what, what time to meet, etc.). We passed out maps for those who didn't get one last month. The meeting was held at the Springfield Justice Center EOC room and started at 6:30PM.

Last Update: October 17, 2011