H
APPY
N Y
EW
60 Meters
EAR
A news release stated:
“During the November 18th afternoon plenary
session of WRC-15 in Geneva a new amateur
service
allocation
at
5
MHz
was
approved. Although only a small allocation of 15
kHz between 5351.5 – 5366.5 kHz was eventually
agreed it is the first new allocation at HF since the
WARC of 1979. After intense pressure from the
Fixed service primary user, power limits have been
set at 15 Watts EIRP in Region 1 (USA ) and
Region 3, 20 Watts eirp in Mexico and 25 Watts
eirp in Central America, South America and most of
the Caribbean area.
Region 1 Member Societies not having an
allocation under Article 4.4 of the Radio
Regulations are urged to contact their
administration to have this narrow segment
included in their licence, although the new Radio
Regulations will not come into force until the 1st
January
2017.”
5351.5 to 5366.5 KHz soon to
be open to Amateur Radio
During the week of November 18th the World
Radiocommunication Conference 2015 in Geneva,
allocated and approved a new world-wide Ham
Radio band between 5351.5 and 5366.5 kHz.
Effective in January 2017 the 60 meter band will
be assigned on a secondary basis and will have low
power limits.
The 60 Meter (5 Mhz) band was already in use
since 2003 in several other countries like USA, UK,
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Ireland and Iceland
thanks to agreements with their national
administration. Commonly the frequency range in
use was 5250–5450 kHz and power limits could
vary from 25W to 100W.
The new allocation limits ham radio stations from
15 W to 25 W EIRP depending by the country.
The allocation at 5 MHz will finally bridge the
propagation gap between the 80 meter and the 40
meter bands and will enable the amateur service to
maintain stable communication over various
distances for the whole 24 hours
This is especially useful for use when providing
communications in disaster situations and during
relief operations.
Kids are Not the Future of
Ham Radio
By Bob Witte, K0NR
You’ve heard it a million times: our kids are the
future. That statement gets applied to almost
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everything, including amateur radio. How can you
argue with an obvious fact like that?
But I am starting to think it is incorrect.
We’ve had really good success on creating new
hams of all ages in our Technician License Class (at
the Tri-Lakes Monument Radio Association).
We’ve been doing this for a while now and I think I
am seeing a pattern emerge. We’ve been able to
attract middle schoolers to the class and help them
get their ham radio license. I’ve talked to many of
them on the air. They’ve helped out with public
service events. They seem to have fun playing with
radios.
Then this thing called high school happens. The
high school phase in the US is filled with tons of
stuff to do: studying, homework, AP classes,
science competitions, sports, dating, movies,
driving and after school jobs. Way too much stuff.
Ham radio starts to take a backseat to these normal
high school activities. Then we don’t see the kids at
the radio club meetings or chatting on the local
repeater because they are busy doing other things.
Have we lost them forever? Not sure.
High school is often followed by college which
has its own set of challenges: a totally new
environment, away from home, a new set of people,
new studies, etc. There might be a ham radio club
on campus but maybe not. If a kid is not off to
college they are (hopefully) out doing something to
establish themselves in this world. Eventually they
emerge on the other side, get a job, get themselves
established, sometimes with a spouse and maybe a
kid or two. By this time they are 25 to 30 years old,
depending on the individual.
I recently posted about the demographics of our
students
in
the
Tech
License
Class
(http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2015/10/whereare-the-new-technicians-coming-from/). The chart
on the above website shows the age distribution of
our students from our most recent class. Hmmm,
clearly most of our students are 30 or older. (Sorry,
we have not collected age data with finer
resolution.) This particular class is light on the
under 18 crowd…sometimes we have a clump of
kids in the mix.
For whatever reason, it seems that most people
find themselves in a situation as an adult that causes
them to say “I want to get my ham radio license.”
When asked why they want to get their ham license,
the top response is always emergency/disaster
communications,
followed
by
backcountry
communications, pursuing electronics as a hobby
and learning about radio communications. I suspect
that starting to be established in a community and
having some disposable income also play a role.
My hypothesis is that the most effective way of
growing a vibrant ham radio community is to target
adults ages 25 to 40.
This age range is more equipped and ready to be
ham radio operators and are still young enough that
they will be around for a while. Of course, we still
want to work with all age groups, including kids
and retirees. We’ve all seen very young hams get
the bug for ham radio early and carry it throughout
their life. And we also see plenty of older folks get
interested in the hobby as they approach or enter
retirement. We don’t want to miss out on either of
those groups.
So that’s my read on the situation. I’ve got some
data to support my theory but I can’t really prove it.
What do you think? What are you seeing in your
ham radio community?
----------------------------------------------------Bob Witte, K0NR, blogs about amateur radio at
K0NR.Com. You can find this post at
http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2015/11/kids-notthe-future/. You can e-mail him at [email protected].
He is also on Twitter: @K0NR.
From the Editor
Bruce Randall, W1ZE
By the time you read this you will
be enjoying playing with your new
Christmas ham radio toys, and XYL Donna and yours
truly will hopefully be in sunny and warm southern
California. 2015 was our year to spend Thanksgiving
and Christmas with my family here in Maine and we had
a wonderful time too.
Even though we will not miss the cold winter months
I will miss doing some low-band DXing on 160, 80 & 40
meters during the long cold nights and early mornings.
In southern California that enhancement does not happen
as much in the lower warmer latitudes. Plus there is no
way I can string up a 160-meter antenna that would
exhibit any kind of performance on a postage stamp
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sized lot. My major HF antenna consists of a roof edge
mounted Tarheel 400A screwdriver antenna working
against the house metal roof and metal carport as a
counterpoise.
Donna and I enjoyed the Year End dinner at the
Kennebec Tavern in early December and enjoyed seeing
our friend DR. Steve Kercel, AA4AK receive the Ham
of the Year Award. Well deserved I might add.
REQUEST: While in W6-land I will continue to try
and get the MARA’s monthly newsletter out. However I
am asking you good folks back in Maine and other
locations for help in doing that by sending me content
for the newsletter. Technical stuff, construction how-to
projects community event reports, upcoming event
announcements are all good information to share with
Squelch Tales readers.
The two of us want to wish all the newsletter readers
a very Happy & Healthy 2016.
73, W1ZE
AA4AK receives 2015 Ham of
the Year at Year End Dinner
Bath, ME: Saturday evening, December 5th at the
MARA’s Year End dinner at the Kennebec Tavern
DR Steve Kercel, AA4AK was the proud recipiant of the
Associations ‘Ham of the Year’..
NEW CANADIAN MF & HF BAND PLAN
On the first of last month (Dec.2015) the Canadian authorities
announced the new Amateur Radio MF and HF band plan for
fellow hams in Canada.
If you are planning to operate in
Canada you may want to save the following quick reference
chart. You can also obtain additional information from:
http://wp.rac.ca/rac-0-30-mhz-band-plan/
Trustee Bruce, W1ZE presents Ham of the
Year award to Steve, AA4AK
The award certificate read:
You have demonstrated your enthusiasm and
dedication to the Amateur Radio community here
on mid coast Maine. Your willingness to share
your knowledge with others and help the MARA
and Mid Coast ARES has not gone unnoticed by
your fellow amateur radio operators. We
appreciate you going the extra mile. Well done &
73!
Over the past year Steve has continued to be an
enthusiastic proponent of Amateur Radio by spending
many hours demonstrating the fine points of the hobby
and its technology. For several years now Steve has
been the Maine State ARRL awards verification go-to
person for DXCC, VUCC and WAS awards. In addition
Steve designed and built a contest class cw/audio
keying interface device to help the MARA have another
successful Field Day. Steve is the Go-To guy on many
technical issues and always ready to lend a hand or help
provide answers for his fellow hams.
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The advantage of this antenna is that it will work
all the HF bands above the lowest operating
frequency with the assistance of a good wide range
antenna tuner (transmatch). Since the antenna is a
half-wave at the lowest intended operating
frequency, an extensive ground system is not
needed, however you still need a ground or
counterpoise to make the antenna perform well. A
six foot ground rod in good soil is just OK, but
attaching a counterpoise (wire) will make it work
better. I have used
chain-link fencing, the house
electrical ground and hot water baseboard copper
piping, house aluminum siding or a combination of
all four for this purpose.
How you string up the antenna is not overly
important as long as it is not laying on the ground,
but higher the better. I like to use insulated hookup
wire so I can string up the wire in trees and bushes.
Some good shapes are the Inverted “L” shown in
the title block wiring diagram. Some other shapes to
consider are:
The award topped of a very successful gathering and
dinner with twenty seven good folks in attendance. It
was one of the largest dinner-gatherings in these past
many years and everyone had an enjoyable time.
inverted “V”
inverted “U”
sloper
If your transceiver has a built-in antenna tuner
don’t expect it to tune the Marconi on every
frequency. Transceiver internal tuners can only
tune SWRs that are 3:1 or less. For this reason I
strongly recommend an external wide range
tuner like the MFJ series of tuners. I do like to
feed the Marconi with a 4:1 balum which is built
into most wide range tuners, or employ an
external 9:1 UnUn at the antenna feed point,
which I described in the May 2015 issue of this
newsletter.
The Simple End Fed Wire Antenna
will get you on the air
By Bruce Randall, W1ZE
Over the years in this great hobby I have had the
need for a quick way to get my HF station on the
air. What I consistently fall back on is an end fed
half-wave or longer wire antenna referred to by the
old timers as an End Fed Marconi. What makes it
so simple and easy to put up is that it is just a wire
antenna fed at one end that is a half wave long at the
lowest operating frequency. For example, you want
to operate on 80-meter CW the wire should be
approximately 130-feet long. If you’re lowest
operating frequency is 7 MHz the antenna only
needs to be 65-feet long.
HF
Transceiver
At my W6-land QTH I have a 60 foot long end
fed Marconi antenna with several 90-degree dog
legs in it and fed through a 9:1 UnUn. With just a
small MFJ-902 tuner I can obtain a low SWR
from 3.5 to 30 MHz and make QSOs. 73, de W1ZE
Antenna
Tuner
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