So how did Field Day 2013 go?

Glad you asked! Simply – and politely – put: we old men got our butts kicked by the young ladies!! That must have been a well-planned move; by trying to put us all to sleep with Cici’s tasty cake, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies. 😉

Cici AA5EK and Mary KU5Z worked together putting many RTTY contacts in the log. Much more than anyone else! And they’re responsible for logging two states we needed for our Worked All States award: at 2213Z Mary logged WA2HIP in Maine, and at 2322Z Cici logged KQ0J in Nebraska. Both QSOs have been confirmed via the LoTW; so now we only need 2 states for that award. Thank you, ladies! Next year we’ll let you galls make all QSOs 🙂

Copyright ARRL

Copyright ARRL

Those two remaining states are Maryland and South Dakota. We did make 2 QSOs with MD during Field Day – with W3AO – but they don’t seem to be very interested in QSL’ing via the LoTW. I’ll send them a paper card or two, one of these days. South Dakota isn’t very easy, although I personally heard someone up there. I didn’t manage to contact them, though. Bummer!

But in all fairness I guess the guys should get some credit too: Jason KF5EJX moved what looked like the whole club shack. And his favorite swamp cooler! He also kept all of our tummies full and our vocal cords lubricated. And after all of that he managed to make several QSOs, including his very first on 6 meters. He’s still smiling from ear to ear!

Speaking of 6 meters: new member Martin KF5IKN showed up, all the way from Eagle Pass, and kept the 6 meter position going, and going, and… He managed to log the first 6 meter QSO; which got everyone’s attention and that was enough to keep that radio on all night long. Thank you, Martin, and do come back!

Jim AB5JK didn’t have a whole lot of time to make QSOs; because he had his hands full making photographs of the event. See below for the results of his handiwork.  

Last but not least: thanks to Mr. Klaevemann (sr) again; for letting us use his lovely property for our crazy hobby. Personally I wouldn’t mind going there again. With more deet!!!

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Insert busy tone here

We will be absent today and tomorrow. The reason: Field Day!

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Minutes of the June 2013 meeting

The meeting was called to order at 19:15.

Attending: Cici AA5EK, Jim AB5JK, Erik K5WW, Jason KF5EJX, Joe N5LLS, Wanda N5SXT, Mary KU5Z, Erik K5WW, Martin KF5IKN and Richard N5YPJ.

The big news: Joe and Wanda have sold their house and bought a yacht and an RV. They will be touring the world from now on, while they’re still young! 🙂 Good for them; but we will certainly miss them.

The other big news: the CARC is getting a brand new Kenwood TS-590S for the club station! It has been sponsored by the hospital (so much for K5WW’s hard work…), and has been ordered. It may be in town right on time for Field Day. If it’s not we’ll blame it on the club president for ordering it way too late 😉

Jason ordered 1,000 ft of LMR-400 coax, and Jim ordered 50 PL-259s and some barrel connectors. We’re going to need all of those at Field Day; because it sounds like we will have 4 radios on the air! We might have to rent a few more operators, though 😉

Field Day – you’re invited! It’s on June 22 and 23. We will be the ones with the K5T callsign! If you need help finding our Field Day location here’s that map again: 


View Larger Map

See you there!

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June 2013 meeting on Tuesday!

Hi all.

Because of Field Day we decided to have the June meeting on June 18th. Be there!

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Minutes of the May 28, 2013 meeting.

The meeting was called to order at 19:08.

Attending: Cici AA5EK, Jim AB5JK, Erik K5WW, Enrique KE5QIS, Raul KE5QIT and Jason KF5EJX.

Membership dues were taken care of.

After selling some old radio equipment that the club wasn’t using K5WW was able to raise $440 for the new radio fund.

Jason mentioned that the hospital might be willing to pay for a new radio; but the decision is not 100 percent final yet.

We decided to have the next meeting on June 18 instead of June 25; just in case we need to make some last minute changes to or arrangements for Field Day.

The meeting was adjourned at 19:37, after which AB5JK, K5WW and KE5EJX went to inspect the Field Day site. And what a wonderful site it is!

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May 2013 meeting coming up

The CARC’s May 2013 meeting will be on Tuesday the 28. Same place, same time.

Bring your dues – it’s that time! 😉

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It’s called a “favicon”.

Yeah, yeah, I know: you think I haven’t been doing anything for weeks…

WRONG!!!!

I have been working real hard for the club, among other things on a favicon. What’s a favicon, you ask (or not)? A favicon is a little image that is linked to a website, and shows up in your list when you save that website in your favorites, or bookmarks, or whatever your machine may call it, or save it to your desktop. Favicons are usually tiny versions of logos or other images. I tried to resize the CARC logo to something very small; but that didn’t work. So I decided to go with the abbreviation instead: CARC.

They are really small images; and having done this a few times I can tell you for sure that it’s easier to create a large image than a very small one!

So here’s what the new favicon looks like in a few different browsers:

CARC favicon in various browsers

And it looks mighty sweet on my Android dumbphone too! 

If you can do better then please let me know! 😉

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The new radio fund

Greetings, y’all!

In order to generate a few bucks for the new radio fund I have volunteered to sell the equipment that the club purchased some time ago.

I am going to put all of that on eBay, one item at a time. It’s a huge task measuring, photographing and video’ing all of that stuff – not to mention boxing it up!

As of today I have listed the Kenwood TS-520 and the Shure microphone. See http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kenwood-TS-520-YG-3395C-CW-filter-Shure-microphone-3-new-tubes-/190835528419?ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123#ht_1023wt_959

Feel free to bid 🙂 Remember: it’s for a good cause!

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Been busy!

The CARC didn’t participate in one, or two, or three contests this weekend. Nope, we did FOUR! The ARI contest, and all of the 7QP, New England and Indiana QSO parties!

Apart from a short visit from Gary K5QOW it was mostly a 2-man effort by Jason KF5EJX and Erik K5WW. We gave the modified Nomic interface a good workout on RTTY and decided that it works great on FSK; but some other (Windows 8?) issues still need to be ironed out.

And no: we didn’t make thousands of QSOs worth a gazillion points; but it was F-U-N! Where were you???

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Minutes of the April 23, 2013 meeting

The meeting was called to order at 19:05 PM. It was SO disorderly before that! 😉

Attending: Cici AA5EK, Jim AB5JK, Gary K5QOW, Erik K5WW, Jason KF5EJX and Mary KU5Z.

The March 2013 minutes were read by Jim and approved by everyone. That’s because he always did such a fine job!

Cici AA5EK, our brand new treasurer, reported that the CARC currently has $274 in an undisclosed location. Probably an old mattress.

A motion was made and voted on to have the 2013 Field Day at Jim’s dad’s place – after he graciously gave his permission to do so. That location is about 10 miles NW from Uvalde, right next to highway 55. Here’s a map:


View Larger Map

Thank you, Google. And Mr. Klaevemann!!

Also, we will be using the callsign “K5T” for the event. No tongue-twisters there!

The meeting was over at around 8 PM. And then we congregated in the parking lot for another 30 minutes. Fun, fun, fun! 🙂

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