KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

Clubs

A Parent’s Guide, UPDATED

By 1 Comment

UPDATE June 23, 2017

I first produced this brochure back in 2006. I’ve since updated it several times, and now there are two versions:

  • The first version is complete as is. Simply download it, print it out, fold it into a tri-fold brochure, and pass it out.
  • The second version has space for you to put contact information for your club. Download this version if you want to pass it out at your club events. There’s a space for you to either write in your club’s info or paste a sticker over that space.

This may be something that you want to pass out at any event, such as Field Day, where members of the public will be visiting.

 

A Parent’s Guide to Ham Radio

By 4 Comments

 UPDATE 9/24/12: There are now  two versions of this brochure:

  • The first version I wrote for my own use at WA2HOM. It has contact information for people that want to know more about our activities at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum
  • The second version has space for you to put contact information for your club. Download this version if you want to pass it out at your club events.

Last week, I received an e-mail from a middle school teacher here in Ann Arbor. She had heard about SuitSat and wanted someone to come and talk to her class about it and about amateur radio in general. I did this Monday. Unfortunately, by Monday morning the signal from SuitSat was too weak for me to receive with the simple J-pole antenna I have, but I was able to show them pictures from the SuitSat website and play for them some of the recordings that hams made over the weekend.

Overall, I think that the talk was a great success, with several of the kids showing a lot of interest in amateur radio. I also got our club to agree to donate a copy of Now You’re Talking to the school, and I plan on keeping in touch with the teacher and to be available should any of them decide to go for a license.

I’ve also recently been talking to a guy in Monroe, MI, whose son just got his license and who has been trying to organize more activities for kids centering on amateur radio. Last night, we spoke on EchoLink, and he brought up the idea of a “parent’s manual.” That is, an article or brochure designed for parents of kids who might be interested in ham radio. The brochure would help give some guidance to parents whose kids are interested in the hobby, with the hope that it would help them be supportive of their kids.

Here is my first cut at an outline for such a brochure:

A Parent’s Guide to Amateur Radio

What is amateur (ham) radio?

How do you get into ham radio?
– Three different classes of licenses
– Take classes or study the book “Now You’re Talking.”
– Join a local club

How much does it cost?
– time
– money

What can kids do in ham radio?
– list the various activities

What do kids get out of ham radio?
– technical skills
– social skills
– public service

Conclusion

What do you think? I’d love to get your thoughts on this.

E-mailing Affiliated Clubs

By Leave a Comment

As the Michigan Section Affiliated Club Coordinator, I need to send e-mail to all the clubs in Michigan from time to time. To do this, I need to generate a list of all the clubs with an e-mail address. To generate this list, I have been going to the affiliated clubs search page on the ARRL website, generating a list of clubs in Michigan, and then picking through that list manually for e-mail addresses. As you can imagine, this is a pain.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was asked by our Section Manager to se what I could do about getting inactive clubs back into the fold. “Inactive clubs?” I asked him. “How do I find a list of inactive clubs”?

He replied that I could get this information from a page on the ARRL website. I had never heard of such a page, so he got Rose-Ann Lawrence at ARRL HQ to send me the URL to the Big Club list page.

Cool! Not only will this page give you a list of active clubs and inactive clubs, it will also feed this information to you in comma-delimited, ASCII format. That feature lets you feed the data into a spreadsheet or database and slice it and dice it any way you want.

Since my immediate need is to generate a list of e-mail addresses for club contacts, I developed a program to do just that. At first, I thought I’d just feed the data into a spreadsheet and write a macro to get e-mails, but then it occurred to me that with a touch of programming, I could make this useful for all ACCs. Click here to generate an email list for clubs in your section.

Each club record actually contains four email addresses, a club address, a club contact address, the club president’s address, and the club’s newsletter editor’s address. What my program does is find the first e-mail address from a record and then add it to the generated list. If a club record has no e-mail addresses, then nothing is added to the list.

Anyway, try it out, and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your suggestion for making it better.

This Weekend on the Radio at KB6NU

By Leave a Comment

First off – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This weekend started out with the monthly ARROW breakfast. As it was on a holiday weekend, I wasn’t expecting much of a turnout, but there were at least 20 of us. Jack, AB8RK, and I were “encouraging” one of our members who got her General license last spring to get on HF. We even offered to come over and drill some holes in her house for her (so that she can run some coax into her shack).

Every club should have social events like this. It helps build camaraderie, and it’s just plain fun.

I didn’t get a lot of time to operate this weekend, but I was able to put in a couple of hours working Straight Key Night.. As I did last year, I used my J-37 with leg clamp. Man, that clamp is tight! My leg gave out just about the time my arm did. :)

I made seven contacts, all on 40m, including a nice one with Sam W5WAX. I hope to add his card to my collection soon.

This Weekend on the Radio at KB6NU

By 1 Comment

This was a low-key weekend on the radio here at KB6NU.

It started out with an ARROW board of directors meeting at 9 am, Saturday morning. I called the meeting to discuss the slate of officers for 2006. To be honest, I was kind of worried that we’d have to really do some finagling to get guys to take positions. I’m planning to step down as president, and there’s a good possibility that our current technical coordinator will be moving.

I was heartened, however, that two guys previously not on the board volunteered to serve, and with a bit of shuffling of the other board members, it looks like we’ll have a full slate of officers, and a good slate at that. I do have to find one more sucker, errrrr I mean volunteer, but I have a good list of possibilities to fill that position.

Sweepstakes a Bust
Even before I got started, I was ambivalent about working the CW Sweepstakes this weekend, but I turned on the rig for a bit anyway. I should have left it off. After making 20 contacts, I just lost interest and pulled the plug. Oh well, tonight is a Spartan Sprint, and that should actually be more fun anyway.

Small, Small, Small
Since it didn’t look like I was going to do much operating this weekend, I had to find something else to do. So, I thought I’d build something.

A couple of months ago, I bought an Icom CI-V interface kit from Mark K5LXP, who moderates the IC-746PRO mailing list. It’s a very nice kit–the whole thing fits inside a DB-9 connector shell. The catch is that all the components are surface mount devices.

Boy are these components small! The only way to work with them is to use a tweezers and a magnifying glass. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a pair of tweezers at a hamfest, and last week I bought a magnifying task lamp at Brookstone. Both were good deals–I paid $3 for the tweezers and only $50 for the lamp. Some of the other lamps I was looking at were going for $100 and up. (I’d give a link to the Brookstone website, but I couldn’t find the lamp on the website, which I thought a bit odd.)

Anyway, working with these parts is a real challenge. The first challenge is to read the markings on the components. The 10 kohm resistors were clearly marked “103,” but the markings on the diodes was nearly unreadable. After some e-mail consulting with K5LXP, I think I have it figure out, though.

Then, the trick is to hold the component in place while you melt a bit of solder on the lead and pad. I have the two 10k resistors soldered in place, but the solder has flowed onto the pads where the other components are to go. I think this is going to make it difficult to hold the component flat while I solder it down. We’ll see.

I would like to get this working as I think it will be very cool to have the rig interface to the computer. For one thing, the N3FJP logging software will then be able to read the frequency and mode directly from the radio. I’ll also be able to set the frequency and mode from the computer.

This Weekend in Ham Radio at KB6NU

By 3 Comments

I got an early start to the weekend on Saturday, leaving the house at 6 am to get to the Holland Hamfest (about 2.5 hours away). At the hamfest, I gave my ABCs of Strong Clubs seminar. The seminar was sparsely attended, but the quality of the participants more than made up for the quantity. We had a nice discussion of clubs and what seems to work and what doesn’t.

At the hamfest, I purchased some stuff to help me finally build the Icom serial interface kit that I bought. It’s all surface mount parts, so I figured I better get some tweezers to help me handle the parts.

Fortunately, there was a vendor there who had a selection of them for three bucks a pop. Since I was kind of stumped as to which to buy, I asked the guy selling them for some advice. He said that I should probably get one with points that are not too fine, as the points tend to deform easily. With that in mind, I chose an appropriate set. I also picked up a couple of fine point Weller soldering iron tips and a new pad for my iron.

One of the exhibitors there was FISTS, the CW Preservation Society. They were giving out CDs with the K7QO CW Course. I picked up four of them to pass out here in Ann Arbor. They were a good deal too–they were free.

On Sunday, I had a family event to attend, but even so, I managed to make 40 contacts (in about two and a half hours) in the QRP ARCI Fall QSO Party. For a while there, I was even able to camp out on 7.042 and run stations. Then, the sun set, the band changed, and QSOs were as rare as hen’s teeth.

This was really a fun event; there was a lot more activity than I thought there would be. Almost makes me want to send in my dues to join.

Two of my contacts were notable:

  • 8P6BX. This was my first DX contact with the KX-1.
  • KE4RUN. Yet another to add to my collection of QSLs from stations whose callsigns spell words.

ARROW Outdoes Itself in FD 2005

By Leave a Comment

Well, the results are in folks, and ARROW, my club, seems to have really done a job in this year’s Field Day. Here’s the gist of it:

  • We placed #82 overall (out of 2,206 total entries)/
  • We were #10 overall in Category 4A (out of 127 total entries).
  • We were #3 in the state (behind USECA, who operated category 11A, and the Kalamazoo ARC, which was in category 7A).
  • We were #1 in Michigan in Category 4A.

I sent an e-mail to the club mailing list, and told them to all pat themselves on the back.

How to Raise Funds for Your Club

By 4 Comments

On the arrl_prez mailing list, Ruth KB9VDG wrote:

Hi, my name is Ruth Powell, KB9VDG, and I am the Secretary for the Vermilion County Amateur Radio Association in Danville, IL. We are in need of raising big money ASAP. Our repeater antenna is in need of being replaced, and unfortunately we don’t have that kind of money in our funds. I was wondering if you give send me some information on types of grants that we might apply for and/or ideas for major fund raisers. I am also the Chairperson for our fundraiser committee.

Here are some of the responses:

It depends on your particular group and the size of the need. In one of the local clubs here, special needs such as what you describe are communicated to the club with a request for financial help. Usually the result is that sufficient funds are generated by the response that nothing else is needed. Now, your club may not be large enough or “flush enough” to do this. But you could try it to see what happens….73, Duane AC5AA

We are wrestling with this issue as well and are about to ask for a special campaign to ask people just to donate money to the club. There may be some grant money running around, if you are tied to some other public service/ESDA groups. We have almost given up on traditional ham fest or outright fundraising gimmicks, like food. We have resorted to begging! (just kidding)…Rob K9RST

A local club here in Southern CA is holding an AUCTION this Friday. Most items are outright donations (club gets 100%), but others have a minimum bid set by the seller (club gets 10%). You do NOT need to be a club member to participate! I may stop in myself! The club website is at http://www.w6ze.org/ and the auction rules are at http://www.w6ze.org/Auction_Rules_2005.pdf…Dino K6RIX

Here in Michigan, the Grand Rapids club was able to obtain a $10,000 grant to update their repeater system. There are many community foundations that grant money for community improvement or community service projects. The problem is that writing grant proposals can be difficult, and because amateur radio clubs generally do not rely on this source of funding, they are not experienced in proposal writing.

Another idea for clubs that are within driving distance of Dayton is to sponsor a bus trip to the Dayton Hamvention. Here in Ann Arbor, we are 4-1/2 to 5 hours from Dayton so it’s perfect for us. Last year, our Dayton bus trip netted us almost $1,000.

What does your club do to raise funds?

UPDATE 10/26/25

Back in 2005 (wow…20 years ago), when I first published this post, there was no such thing as Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC). ARDC is a private foundation that awards grants to amateur radio clubs and projects. You can apply for a grant directly from them, or indirectly through the ARRL’s Club Grant Program. ARDC provides the funding for the ARRL program.

Spice Up Your Club Net

By 3 Comments

Frequently, when I take a break from working 40m CW, I’ll give a shout out on our repeater (146.96-, 100 Hz PL) and catch someone coming home from a meeting or perhaps a late day at work. This evening, I connected with Rob, KC8RCO.

As it happens, his name came up last night when I visited the Novi Amateur Radio Club (NARC). Rob used to belong to NARC when he lived in that area. We got to talking about the club, and he mentioned that one of the things he used to enjoy about their weekly net is that every week one of the guys would read selected items from the late W5YI Report.

That got me thinking that we need to spice up our net a little. We do have guys report on their activities and upcoming events, such as hamfests and contests, but it’s hit and miss. Sometimes we have news and sometimes we don’t. If we could regularly have these interesting tidbits of information, then perhaps we’d have more participation.

So, I may twist a few arms to get guys to read excerpts from some of the various news sources out there. These include:

Another way to make a net more interesting is to have a “question of the week.” Rob mentioned that one question he’d heard asked is, “What’s the Worst Rig You Ever Owned”? He thought the answers given to that question helped him avoid buying a lemon. Other questions you could ask include:

  • What’s the Best Rig You Ever Owned?
  • What the Next Piece of Gear You Think You’ll Buy?
  • What Mode Do You Currently Not Operate That You Want to Try?
  • What’s the Best Deal You Ever Got on a Piece of Equipment?

The thought behind all this, of course, is to develop regular sources of interesting information. If your members tune into your net and hear something interesting and useful, it’s more likely that they’ll tune in again. Heck, they may even find something of their own to contribute from time to time.

Sobering Statistics

By 1 Comment

Ralph KB8ZOY emailed me this morning with the following.

Dan–
I have the Buckmaster HamCall CD dated 5/3/04 and have been doing some exploring. It is possible to query the database and export the results, say, into MS-Access. Here are some counts of hams in various Washtenaw County cities:

  • Ann Arbor – 369
  • Chelsea – 42
  • Dexter – 51
  • Lincoln – 9
  • Manchester – 27
  • Milan – 35
  • Salem – 1
  • Saline – 80
  • Whitmore Lake – 45
  • Willis – 11
  • Ypsilanti – 193
  • Ypsilanti Township – 1
  • Total – 864

Now, if you consider that half of those licensed are inactive (or maybe even SK), and that the ARROW membership is about just over 100, then our membership is about one quarter of all the active radio amateurs in Washtenaw County. That’s not too bad, especially when you consider that the Chelsea club also has a membership of 30 – 40 members.

Even so, think of how much more fun we could have–and how much more effective we could be in providing public service–if we could get up to 200 members. It’s something we have to work on.