Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio Club
VHF 147.165
W6SF
Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio Club
ARRL MEMBER P.O. BOX 690271 STOCKTON, CA 95269-0271
January 2012
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HAPPY NEW YEAR
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
QST QST QST Happy New Year to all. I trust all have had a Merry Christmas and Santa was good to everyone with at least a ham radio trinket or two under the tree. Your President is back from a wonderful 10 day trip to the south. I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of the postman and my new Baofeng 2meter/440 portable radio. As much fun as I’ve had with the Wouxon portable these past few months, I’m looking forward to trying out the voting receiver on 2watts and Glen’s new 440 machine on 2 watts. But enough about my Christmas, how was your Christmas? I hope to hear about all of your Christmas joys and operating adventures during our Monday night nets, Thursday night 10 meter nets, and at out January club meeting.
The new year is time for resolution planning and goal setting. Your newly elected board and I will be doing that this Thursday night at our first Board Meeting. We’d love to hear your suggestions and I would encourage your input at the January club meeting. If you cannot attend, send your board members an email. We all have some great ideas for the club and we’re looking forward to a great year. We want your ideas and input and together we can make the Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio club the premier Amateur radio home in the central valley. Climb aboard for new activities, new events and whole lot of fun this year. We are going to be touring the city’s new E911 center, having more transmitter hunts, more building projects and more operating events this year – including operating on museum ships weekend from an actual museum ship!
November’s business meeting saw the club grow by 17 new members and had the largest attendance all year. Please join me in reaching out to these new members and new hams to welcome them to our club. I hope we will continue to reach out and encourage our fellows hams both old and new to join up, participate and bring others.
It’s going to be a great year – won’t you join us!
73 de John, NZ6Q President..
JANUARY BUSINESS MEETING NOTICE
JANUARY 12TH, 7:30pm
QST QST QST All members and their guests are encouraged to attend the January meeting on Thursday, January 12th, 2012. The meeting will be held at Bear Creek Community Church, 11171 Lower Sacramento Rd, just north of 8 mile rd in North Stockton. The meeting will begin at 7:30PM. This is our annual "kick-off" meeting where we will vote and set the 2012 dues; schedule, discuss and make committee recommendations for the year and review the calendar for the upcoming year. Plan attending and invite a non-member ham to join you.
DECEMBER MEETING/CHRISTMAS DINNER NOTES
Congratulations TO ALL OUR RAFFLE PRIZE WINNERS AT THE Annual Christmas dinner in December. A Special Congratulations to Dr. Eric Chapa,. W6INP, who walked away with the grand prize Kenwood TM-V71a Dual Band Radio. Eric’s continued support of the club year after year sure paid off, as this is the 3rd "grand prize" he has taken home.
Dinner was served and everyone enjoyed an excellent Mexican buffet and a lot of great fellowship. Throughout the evening, a continuous slide show of the year’s events was displayed and President John Litz, NZ6Q provided a quick "year in review". We have had a very busy year.
A special "thank you" to Robert N6GTO and wife Kimber, who graciously donated a huge gift basket to the club raffle. The basket drew almost as much attention as the Kenwood radio. They almost didn’t make the dinner as they happened upon a serious car accident enroute. Thanks also to Shirl, AA6K, who was MC of the give-away and took care of getting all of the prizes together in time for the party.
I would have loved to share a bunch of photographs with everyone, but we were all having such a good time that NO ONE thought to grab their camera. Maybe we need to appoint a club historian?
NEW CLUB WEBSITE COMING SOON
Look for a new club website at
www.w6sf.org
soon. Thanks to Glen, K6KJQ and Paul N6KZW, for taking on the project. Look for more information, links to other area clubs and the ARRL. We hope to take a lot of your suggestions for the website and make them real this year.
HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEW
N5FDL REPEATER ON THE AIR?
There’s a new repeater on the air! Have you tried out the new N5FDL repeater? Located on top of Mt. Oso, the 146.895 repeater has coverage from just north of Merced to about Sacramento. The machine went live on December 13th with lots of help from John LaRue K6JKL, Keith Busman, Tom Morris N6TMA, Paul Willette W6BFF. Try it out.
The repeater is on 146.895 (-600 offset) PL 114.8. If you hear any other repeater on this frequency (like one you can't bring up) please call or email David, N5FDL. The repeater has no courtesy tone and IDs in CW only. Not having a courtesy tone is actually sort of pleasant.
The repeater works pretty well so far. It is running about 20 watts into a standard X-50 antenna, both of which will be improved if possible.
Repeater Site on Mt. Oso with vault and diesel generator. John LaRue, K6JKL making final connections
Completed and Installed!
PEDDLING PATHWAYS TO INDEPENDENCE
FEBRUARY 25TH 7:30AM
On Saturday, February 25th , the Stockton Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired will be holding their annual bike ride Peddling Pathways to Independence" . This annual event is held to raise money to support its activities for its San Joaquin County clients. For the last 3 years, the Stockton-Delta ARC has provided radio communications between rest stops, the start/finish line and SAG wagons. This year we will need operators at Linden, Sheldon Road, Farmington, Milton, and also up to 5 sag wagons. We are looking for a minimum of 15 – 20 volunteers. We are also looking to incorporate APRS in the SAG wagons to allow net control to track and dispatch the nearest crew to any reported incidents. Last year we had 14 volunteers, and we will probably need the same number this year. The foothill terrain is problematic for 5 watt handie-talkies and a radio producing 10 watts or more with a good antenna, (5/8 wave or better) is encouraged.
This is a great event for a great cause and I hope you will make the time now to attend. Please contact John, NZ6Q at john@litz.com . The ride starts at 8:30AM and we will be meeting in Linden about 7:30AM for final assignments and deployment. A sign-up sheet will be available at the January and February club meetings. You can check out more information on the event and the Stockton Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired at:
http://www.communitycenterfortheblind.org/PedalingPaths.php .
2011 CALIFORNIA QSO PARTY T-SHIRTS
Like the wine, each year’s official California QSO Party T-shirt is a special vintage. For 2011 the color is Brown. Place your order for a T-shirt by sending an email to shirts@cqp.org stating the sizes and quantities for each size (M/L/XL/XXL/XXL), the call sign of the CQP operation, the call sign of the person placing the order, and the address to ship to.
All orders are due by January 15th. T-Shirts will ship in March. Send payment, $15 ($20 for DX entries), either via PayPal [using this email address: paypal@nccc.cc ] -- or a check to: NCCC, 22820 San Juan Road; Cupertino, CA 95014.
Keep the year that 10 meters made its triumphant return fresh by wearing this year’s unique and collectible shirt!
Check out the official California QSO Party website at www.cqp.org
A HAM’S CALENDAR
January 12, 2012
– Monthly membership meeting of the Stockton-Delta ARC at Bear Creek Community Church, 11171 Lower Sacramento Road at 7:30pm. This will be our business meeting setting dues for 2012 and planning next year’s activities. Everyone is encouraged to attend.
January 21-23, 2012
- January VHF Sweepstakes – Objective: To work as many amateur stations in as many different 2 degrees x 1 degree grid squares as possible using authorized frequencies above 50 MHz. Foreign stations work W/VE amateurs only. Check out the official rules at: http://www.arrl.org/january-vhf-sweepstakes
February 9, 2012
– Monthly membership meeting of the Stockton-Delta ARC. Includes tour of the NEW Stockton PD E911 Center. Please note that the tour will begin at 7:00 PM. Please be on-time as the Stuart Eberhart Building is a secure building after hours. Members may want to consider car-pooling as parking downtown may be limited. A short business meeting will follow the tour. The E911 Center is located at 22 E Weber Ave at Center St in downtown Stockton.
February 13th – 17th, 2012
– February School Club Round-up. There are two School Club Roundups each year. Each 5-day event runs Monday through Friday from 1300 UTC Monday through 2359 UTC Friday. You may operate no more than 6 hours in every 24-hour period, and a maximum of 24 hours in the event. This a great event and an opportunity to work clubs from Elementary School age through prestigious Universities.
February 25, 2012
– Linden Bike Ride on behalf of the Stockton Center for the Blind and Visually impaired. RADIO OPERATORS ARE NEEDED!
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Do you have any suggestions, comments or concerns? We want to hear from you. Do you have an idea that we, as a club can all benefit from? Let us hear about it. Do you have any topic for discussion that YOU could and would contribute to the club? We want to hear from YOU! To submit articles for the monthly newsletter, email the editor at
W6SF CLUB INFORMATION
MEETINGS:
Regular meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month at 7:30pm, at the Bear Creek Community Church, 11171 Lower Sacramento Road, just north or Eight Mile Road. Members, guests, and people having an interest in Amateur Radio are invited to attend. The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 12, 2012.
WEEKLY NET:
Held each Monday evening at 8pm on 147.165+ PL 107.2 Hz Members and visitors are invited to check in. There is also an unofficial get together on Thursday evenings (except meeting nights) at 7:30pm on 28.457. Amateurs with the proper license are encouraged to participate.
CLUB REPEATERS:
Located in the Sierra at 2500 feet, the club repeater covers the southern Sacramento and Northern San Joaquin Valleys. The call sign is W6SF, and can be heard on 147.165+Mhz with a PL tone of 107.2 Hz. From the same site, the club also operates a 440MHZ repeater at 442.250 + with a PL of 107.2 Hz.
CLUB SIMPLEX FX:
147.51 MHz.
CLUB WEBSITE:
2012 CLUB OFFICERS:
President: NZ6Q, John Litz john@litz.com Vice President: WB6NVB, Charlie Johnson wb6nvb@arrl.net
Treasurer: KD6CPA, Peter Hine selkied@earthlink.net
Secretary: W6INP, Eric Chapa
Member At Large: N6KZW, Paul Engelman n6kzw@sbcglobal.net
Trustee:
AA6K, Shirl Rose rosesl@prodigy.net
Repeater Trustee: KD6FVA, John Kester jbkester@att.net
Membership Chairman open
Newsletter Editor open
CLUB DUES:
are payable to Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio Club at the address on the masthead. We thank you for your continued support!