Desert RATS Monthly Newsletter September 2018

September 12, 2018 Gavin Schutz

Presidents Message

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great summer, stayed cool and had a few good adventures.

We had good turnouts to the impromptu meetings at Manhattan In The Desert. The food is always good and it’s great to get some eyeball QSOs with everyone. About 20 RATS showed and got a good chance to get to know each other a little better and get out of the heat at someone else expense.

We are working on some good speakers for you this coming year. Some news about ARES is in the works as well as some first-hand experiences during a big fire. See more further down the newsletter. If you know someone who can come speak to the club please let me or Ralph know. If it is a great topic, it does not ever need to be Ham related, though a tie in would sure help. How about some club projects?

And of course, there is the big September Welcome Back Hot Dog Feed. Get here a little early and have a dog or two.

Over the summer, if you didn’t know, the bands were dreadful. Every morning between 6 AM and 8 AM I could hear half a dozen stations from Indonesia or Malaysia on 40 Meters. I could not hit them for beans. Most of the activity on all bands is with the new FT8 digital mode. Any DX I worked over the summer was using FT8. If you have not tried it, give it a shot. All it takes is a computer and some free software and an interface for about $100 and you are on the air. There are several of us around that use it on a daily basis, if you have any questions.

See you on the bands.

Glenn WB6RLC

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September Program

September RATS guest speakers will be members of the Mile High Radio Club speaking on activating during the recent Cranston Fire.

Speaking will be:

Club President – Bill Tell KD6KTV – Sales Engineer, South Bay Cable, Member of the Marine Technology Society, American Radio Relay League, Riverside County EMD – RACES / ARES, California Disaster Corp Volunteer – CERT

Club Director – Roland Gaebert KE6NPN – Retired SURCOM Commander, Sector Superintendent of the Bay Sector, Salton Sea, and Eastern Deserts of California, Chief Ranger, Ocotillo State Vehicle Recreation Area, and Member of Mountain Disaster Preparedness

Along with the usual ARES/RACES duties during an emergency, the club runs an AM broadcast transmitter during on 1610 KHz, WINKY.

WINKY remained fully operational throughout the Cranston Fire. Thirty updates had been broadcast over the airways of 1610 AM throughout the greater Idyllwild area. As the communities were allowed to re-populate WINKY began providing travel instructions in and out of the various locations as instructed by Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol.

This will be a very interesting talk, I am sure you will want to attend.

Arrive Early for the Hot Dogs!

We will be cooking hot dogs prior to the meeting Arrive early to mingle and partake in some delicious food…

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A Silent Key

Patrick and Darlene Case

On a more somber note, Patrick Case, KG6NXC, became a silent key last week. Patrick had a fall about 3 ½ months ago, was in rehab for about 6 weeks when he came home. Pat was home for about 2 months when he passed away. He had broken his hip and had it replaced, and broke his shoulder. Just days before he passed away he was helping his son, Kevin, KJ6TBO, wash the car with his one good arm. It was hard to hold him down.

Pat and his wife, Darline, KG6NXB, took their Ham classes from the Desert RATS. From that day on, he and Darline were a working team for the Desert RATS.

Patrick was a great asset to the Desert RATS for many years. He was treasurer for a number of years and on the Desert RATS Board of Directors. At one point the club was very low on membership and 6 members got together and voted for Peter, VE7REZ to be President; Gary, KD6QLT, to be Vice President; Pat , KG6NXC, to be Treasurer; and Chris, K6YNW, to be Secretary. Pat helped with setting up the classes for Ham Radio. Pat wanted his son, Kevin, to become a ham and share in his hobby. Kevin took the Desert RATS classes and became a ham, KJ6TBO. We built up the club during his tenure to a hundred plus members.

As we have all said of Pat, he was a great friend, a great mentor, and a gentleman. If you every needed anything done out of the ordinary, just asked Pat and he came through. We will always remember his hard work and dedication to the Desert RATS.

We will miss Pat so much and never forget the good times we had.

Gary, KD6QLT and Susie, KD6TVO

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Lightning Strikes, Safety and Your Precious Radios

Glenn Morrison, WB6RLC

OK, it’s about 2 in the morning, you are all snug in your bed, when KAA-BOOM, you are yanked out of your slumber by a huge clap of thunder. “Dang!” You scamper out of your warm bed and head off to your shack to pull all of the coax off of your radios. I hate that! And I’ve done it.

We don’t get a lot of lightning here in the desert. We had a few storms that made me think about discussing a little about lightning protection. I guess there is no real thing as lightning protection. I mean, if you take a direct hit, you are done for. It can travel down the power mains or your transmission lines and start a house fire. The chances of that here are pretty slim. But close enough can cause some serious damage to some expensive equipment. A lightning bolt is, what, a million volts? The front end of your receiver is designed to pick up one half of a millionth of a volt, 0.5 microvolts. A close strike is what we can prepare for. And its not too expensive to get some reasonable protection.

First is a good grounding system. It gives the lightning some place to go and may save your house and most likely your expensive radio gear. Sand is not a good ground. We need at least one good 8 foot ground rod installed just as everything enters the shack and its best if there is one at the base of your tower. We have a club member that has 3 rods. He also runs his drip irrigation system over to the ground rod and has a dripper on it. I think that’s a great idea, I did it at my shack after seeing his.

The next thing are ground wires. Every radio in your shack should be grounded to the ground rod. Use as heavy gauge of copper wire as you can afford. Some shacks use a heavy copper bus in the shack and everything in the shack is attached to that. A heavy braided cable is run out to the ground rod. Be inventive. A long battery cable would work, depending on how far you are from the radio or ground bus to the rod. Mine is only a few feet. A piece of 1 inch copper tubing, pounded flat would make a nice bus bar for inside. Drill holes for a #8 stainless steel screw. Attach the ground wires from each piece of gear to the screws. Both the copper tubing and the 8 foot ground rod are available at your local hardware store.

The last thing (almost) are lightning suppressors/arrestors. These little devices can be from the size of a roll of quarters to a few inches square. They have RF connectors on each end and go inline with the lead from the antenna. They have a provision to be attached or wired to the ground rod. A coax lead is then brought from the the arrestor to your radio. These help bleed off high static charges from lighting to ground. By the way, wind can also create enough static charge to damage the front end of your receiver. Lightning arrestors can eliminate that potential problem.

The last thing is surge protection. Back East where they have lots of lightning, many homes have them on the electrical mains as they enter the house. Some newer homes in the valley have them as well.

We may not need that. But a good strong lightning strike can send a strong surge down the electrical mains and damage your equipment. Even in the off position, electronics can be damaged by a power surge. Buy a good surge protector and plug all of your radios into that. Most of this stuff is available locally, and is not very expensive. I think a ground rod is under $10 as well as a power strip with surge protection. Lightning arrestors can be from $15-100. Speaking of that, one last note. Make sure that the arrestor that you buy covers the frequencies you are using. Some only work to 30MHz, others to 500MHz. If you want one on your VHF/UHF radio, you need to make sure you purchase the right one.

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