FARS/PAARA Winter Banquet 2011

Gerald (Jerry) Dieter Griffin, MD, PharmD, K6MD

Jerry, who is a medical doctor, has served over 40 years in the US ARMY and US ARMY Reserves. He has been deployed to war zones three times (twice to Iraq and once in Kosovo). He has been active in amateur radio since 1958 and has 329 confirmed DX countries. He operated DX from a number or unusual locations. He was inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame in 2008. At age 70, he is still active in immunology research.

Bio:

Gerald (Jerry) Dieter Griffin, MD, PharmD

Born 8 September, 1940,Staufenberg, Germany, Jerry came to the US as the adopted son of a US Army Sergeant in 1952. Back to Germany again 1955-1957, then his Dad retired and the family moved to San Francisco, California, which Jerry considers his “home town.” After finishing at Balboa High School in the City, Jerry attended City College of San Francisco, graduating from UC, Berkeley in German Lit & Zoology in 1965. He went back to school (a life-long affliction). and earned a doctorate in clinical pharmacy (UOP, Stockton) and after several years as an Ass't Professor of Clinical Pharmacy & Pharmacology at UNM in Albuquerque he started his medical studies, finishing his MD in the combined program with UJ/CWRU. He completed a Flexible Internship also at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and his Residency in Emergency Medicine at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, in 1982, when he was almost 42 years old!!...All this with 3 children, a supportive wife, and many dogs and cats!!...

This erratic life-style was speckled with two other big forces in his life::the ARMY, and Amateur Radio!!!.... The Army began as he was drafted in 1963 while following his heart and an unlucky love to Tacoma, Washington--the Draft Board however found him--and so began a long and speckled Army career, spanning over 4 (four!) decades ( 20~ years active duty and ~ 22 years on the reserve side) and eventual retirement in 2005 as Brigadier General, Medical Corps, US Army.

Amateur Radio was a big part of this busy life--- Licensed as KN6LHN in February,1958,as a senior at Balboa High School K6LHN (Technician)-1960..K6LHN (General)-1962 W8MEP (General) in Cleveland, Ohio(1976) W8MEP (Advanced) in El Paso, Texas( 1982) W8MEP (Extra ),Ft Ord, California (1984) and finally K6MD in 1996.

Jerry has operated from three separate war zones attached to special ops forces and others--- YI0EP (Iraq,1991),YU8/K6MD (Kosovo,2003), and YI9MD (Iraq,2004). He also operated as DL/W8MEP, DL/K6MD, HL9DJ and TA/K6MD. He has 329 confirmed DX countries mixed), needing Montenegro and now the newer PJ series--these were created while he was in Germany celebrating his 70th birthday in October,2010--he operates primarily cw--He was inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame in 2008--Jerry retired from clinical practice in 2008, and now does research on immunology/immune suppression/infection in TBI/PTSD and vaccine development--he is also (again) a hospice doc--life is still verrrry busy for Jerry and he relaxes on the lower end of 20m or 40 m chasing DX--he is still married to his ever suffering bride of 46 years!! HOOAH!

Tools and Tips for Transmitter Hunting?

Don Ferguson, KD6IRE

Don Ferguson, KD6IRE, describes the tools and techniques used by amateur T-hunters to locate RF emission sources. Don will shows and demonstrates antennas and other tricks such as the use of beams, loops, body fade, attenuators, waveguide tubes, Doppler DF, phase interferometers, TOA (time of arrival), antennas and special receivers—all to locate a hidden “Fox Box,” a low power transmitter.

Bio:

Don Ferguson moved to California in 1976 and worked for IBM for 34 years. He became an Amateur Radio operator in 1992. His primary radio interests are in T-Hunting and Amateur Satellites. He is the President and CEO of Project OSCAR Inc. and is the team leader of "Tracking and Recovery" for the California Near Space Project.

Don and his wife Linda, KE6BEO, take part in monthly Bay Area T-Hunts. They have setup and hosted Elementary School contacts with the International Space Station astronauts. Don hosts the Echo/IRLP node for the W6RLW California state-wide repeater system on 1.2 GHz.

Magnetic Loop Antennas—The Best Kept Secret in Amateur Radio

Eric Norris, WD6DBM

Eric Norris, WD6DBM discusses the magnetic loop antenna. Magnetic loop antennas behave differently from dipoles and monopoles. Everything about a loop is different—its impedance, directivity pattern, how these depend on height above earth, earth's conductivity and dielectric constant. Also, the sensitivity of loops to near field noise pickup is different. Now for the good news. In nearly every aspect, the difference gives the advantage to the loop. Magnetic loop antennas do not have to be as high or as big to perform great. Eric explains the ins and outs of using magnetic loop antennas.

Eric's presentation is available online.

Bio:

Eric Norris, WD6DBM, amateur radio interests are CW ragchewing on 40m, moonbounce on 2m, meteor scatter on 6m, and QRP portable operation. Sometimes he uses PSK31, RTTY, and SSTV. Eric's rigs include the Elecraft K3, K2, K1, and KX1, Heath HW-16s, HW-8, HX-1681/HR-1680, Eico 720, and Rockmites.

Eric's amplifiers are Ameritron AL-1200 for HF, Henry 2002A for 2m, and a Carl SB-226 for 6M. His antennas include a Force 12 C3S for 20/17/15/12/10, a Butternut HF-2V for 30/40/80/160. He recently added 60 radials to the HF-2V. On VHF, he uses a 3-element Cushcraft on 6M, and two Cushcraft 17B2s with mast-mounted GaAs FET, M2 power divider, and phasing harness, and 7/8" Heliax feedline for 2M. He also has an 18-element M2 432 antenna that is not up most of the time.

When not hamming, Eric is an estate planning attorney at the Norris Law Firm in Santa Clara. Eric was first licensed as WN6RVG in 1972. His other interests include flying gliders, astronomy, and large-scale model trains.

Conjugate Matching Disproved

Steve Stearns, K6OIK

A popular book by Walt Maxwell, W2DU, called “Reflections” presents an incorrect theory of impedance matching. Steve Stearns, K6OIK, will show what's wrong with Walt Maxwell's concept of transmission lines and why Maxwell's idea of conjugate matching fails to do the very thing Maxwell claims it does—provide maximum power transfer from a source to a load through a line. In working out the correct solution to the maximum power transfer problem, Steve succeeded where Maxwell failed, and found the correct match solution for maximum power transfer. Be prepared to gain dB's as Steve guides us through controversial territory fraught with misconceptions, error and mistakes.

Also, before the regular program Dan Curtis, N6WM, talks about “2-meter Simplex Frequencies in Danger.” The Northern Amateur Relay Council of California (NARCC) is planning to take half of the available 2-meter simplex frequencies and reassign them to repeater use. A petition is being circulated among local Radio Amateurs that objects to NARCC's proposed plan. Dan Curtis, N6WM, will explain NARCC's rationale and how 2-meter band operations would be affected. He will also explain the grass-roots petition to counter NARCC's proposed action.

Bio:

HF phone: Golden Bear Amateur Radio Net, 3,975 kHz LSB at 1900 Pacific time daily.

E-Mail: k6oik AT arrl.net

Articles: /docs/k6oik

Steve Stearns, K6OIK, started in ham radio while in high school at the height of the Heathkit era. He holds an FCC Amateur Extra and a commercial General Radio Operator license with Radar endorsement. He previously held Novice, Technician, and 1st Class Radiotelephone licenses.

He studied electrical engineering at California State University Fullerton, the University of Southern California, and Stanford, specializing in electromagnetic theory, communication, engineering and signal processing.

Steve worked at Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Electromagnetic Systems Laboratory in San Jose, California. He retired as a Northrop Grumman Technical Fellow.

Steve is serving as vice-president of the Foothills Amateur Radio Society, and served previously as assistant director of ARRL Pacific Division. He has over 100 professional publications and presentations and ten patents. Steve has received numerous awards for professional and community volunteer activities.

Premature Antenna Destruction, Its Causes and Cures

Rick Huisman, N6DQ

Why would any ham in their right mind take down a magnificent HF yagi antenna on a 65 foot mast, sell the antenna, and have the tower taken away? For the lure of life on the beaches of Southern California? Uh, well yes, that's exactly what happened. Come and learn how Rick, N6DQ, quickly saw the error of his ways...but not before the great antenna and mast went bye-bye. But more importantly, learn how Rick turned this ham tragedy into a ham triumph!

Bio:

Rick received a degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

Rick became a silent key.

Automated Antenna Design and Optimization

Dr. Jason D. Lohn, Associate Research Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
Silicon Valley Campus

Current methods of designing and optimizing antennas by hand or computer are time and labor intensive, allow limited complexity, and require significant expertise and experience. Evolutionary design techniques can overcome these limitations by searching a design space and automatically finding effective solutions that would ordinarily not be found. Dr. Lohn discusses automated antenna design optimization that produced the “evolved” antennas that flew on NASA's Space Technology 5 (ST5) mission, the first ever artificially-evolved objects to fly in space. He also describes the software tools that he and his colleagues developed to automate the design of these evolved antennas.

Bio:

Dr. Lohn is an Associate Research Professor at Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley Campus, and he recently co-founded a start-up company called X5 Systems to commercialize automated antenna design technology. Previously he led Evolvable Systems research at NASA Ames Research Center, worked at Google, held a a Visiting Scholar appointment in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, and worked at IBM.

He received his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park, and his BS in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University.

He has over 50 technical publications and his work has been featured in Wired magazine, MIT Tech Review, and Popular Science. Dr. Lohn is a ember of the IEEE, ACM, and Sigma Xi. He was a co-founder and co-chair of six NASA/DoD Conferences on Evolvable Hardware, and serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation.

Amateur Radio in Ethiopia

Jim Deloach, WU0I
United States Foreign Service

Have you ever wanted to be that rare DX station and be on the other end of the pile-ups? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be in a country where you can count the number of amateur radio operators on your fingers and toes, instead of being yet another Silicon Valley Ham? Come hear Jim DeLoach, a United States Foreign Service Officer recently returned from Addis Ababa, talk about Amateur Radio in Ethiopia! Ethiopia should be Ham Radio paradise, but shipping and import constraints, high noise levels in this crowded third world city, and most importantly suspicious and unmotivated local officials make hamming a challenge. Learn how Jim overcome these obstacles, what it was like to be that rare DX station for a change, and how the Ethiopian Amateur Radio Society (EARS) club station, ET3AA, and its founder Sid, ET3SID, have played a critical role in keeping Ethiopia on the air!

Predicting HF Ionospheric Propagation by Ray Tracing

Steve Stearns, K6OIK

Did you hear Steve talk about using VOACAP to predict HF propagation paths at the FARS February 26, 2010 meeting. This is the sequel. Ionospheric ray tracing is a method entirely different from VOACAP for predicting HF propagation. In many cases, ray tracing gives better insight into propagation effects than VOACAP. Steve will explain why and show real time examples using a program called Proplab-Pro 3.0. Proplab-Pro is priced within reach of the serious DX'er. Steve will show what it can do that VOACAP can't. Steve will talk about the limits and future of both approaches to the problem of prediction.

Bio:

HF phone: Golden Bear Amateur Radio Net, 3,975 kHz LSB at 1900 Pacific time daily.

E-Mail: k6oik AT arrl.net

Articles: /docs/k6oik

Steve Stearns, K6OIK, started in ham radio while in high school at the height of the Heathkit era. He holds an FCC Amateur Extra and a commercial General Radio Operator license with Radar endorsement. He previously held Novice, Technician, and 1st Class Radiotelephone licenses.

He studied electrical engineering at California State University Fullerton, the University of Southern California, and Stanford, specializing in electromagnetic theory, communication, engineering and signal processing.

Steve worked at Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Electromagnetic Systems Laboratory in San Jose, California. He retired as a Northrop Grumman Technical Fellow.

Steve is serving as vice-president of the Foothills Amateur Radio Society, and served previously as assistant director of ARRL Pacific Division. He has over 100 professional publications and presentations and ten patents. Steve has received numerous awards for professional and community volunteer activities.

Homebrew Contest

This is your time to shine. Bring your amateur radio project to this meeting to show and describe to our audience. Everyone has a few minutes to explain and describe her/his project. Then the audience votes on the best ones to award prizes. The following prizes are awarded:

$40	First Prize
$30	Second Prize
$20	Third Prize
$10	Fourth Prize

CQP Expedition to Trinity County

Joanna Dilley, K6YL and Kristen McIntyre, K6WX

From a cabin in beautiful Lewiston, California, Joanna and her pals N6DQ, K6WX, and K6RHO activated Trinity County for the California QSO Party (CQP). Trinity County is north of Mendocino County, west of Shasta County, south of Siskiyou County, and east of Humboldt County. Lewiston is a beautiful historical gold mining community on the Trinity River by Lewiston Lake and home of Bigfoot. Come and hear Joanna tell about the adventure and excitement of setting up and operating CQP in Bigfoot territory!

Bio:

Hi there, I'm Joanna and I'm lucky to hold callsign K6YL. My husband is Rick N6DQ and we both love HF. This year, 2016, we have been enjoying National Parks on the Air, and our park activations can be found under club callsign WK6KW. 73.

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Kristen McIntyre, K6WX, has been interested in radio since she was five years old. As a youth, she built many radio kits including her favorite: a one-tube radio kit.

Kristen started in Amateur Radio by getting her Technician’s license in the late 1970s while an undergraduate student at MIT. She built a 2-meter repeater with an autopatch to use while on campus at MIT. Kristen now holds an Amateur Extra class license and also is licensed in Japan as JI1IZZ. She is active on 2 meters, 1.2 GHz, and HF. She built an Elecraft K2 while on vacation. Kristen likes to work HF mobile using the K2 and a hamstick. She also operates from her apartment using an Icom IC-7600 driving an Ameritron AL-811H power amplifier into a homebrew helical vertical dipole. She loves to chase DX using mostly CW, and works contests from time to time.

Kristen’s professional career has been diverse. In the early 1980s, she designed high-power linear amplifiers. She spent five years in Japan, architecting and designing precision analog test systems while learning the Japanese language and culture. Kristen returned to the U.S. and has worked at or consulted for Silicon Valley tech firms. At Adobe Systems, she architected PostScript Level 2 and its RTOS underpinnings as well as AppleTalk networking for PostScript printers. In the early 1990's, she became a consultant and later founded an Internet service provider and a network consulting firm. At Sun Microsystems Laboratories, she did research on the robustness and emergent properties of large distributed computer systems. She is currently a senior software engineer at Apple Computer, working on OS X and iOS.

Kristen holds a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was officer and president of the Palo Alto Amateur Radio Association (PAARA). She was ARRL Technical Coordinator for the East Bay Section, and in 2018 became ARRL Pacific Division Vice Director. Kristen is currently serving as ARRL Pacific Division Director and ARRL First Vice President.

Ham Radio Holiday Treats

Howard Califf, W6HOC
Ham Radio Outlet

In time for the holiday season, Howard Califf, W6HOC, shows the newest and popular amateur radio gear. Be sure to attend to find out about special holiday promotions too. Happy Holidays!

This meeting is our annual membership meeting where we are electing directors to the board of directors. Members are encouraged to attend and exercise their right to vote.

Bio:

Howard became a silent key on December 7, 2015.

Moonbounce and Meteor Scatter for the Masses

Eric Norris, WD6DBM

It used to take big antennas, big amplifiers, and a lot of patience to work EME. Now with the WSJT revolution, many hams may already have the equipment they need to get 'er done. Eric will show us how.

Bio:

Eric Norris, WD6DBM, amateur radio interests are CW ragchewing on 40m, moonbounce on 2m, meteor scatter on 6m, and QRP portable operation. Sometimes he uses PSK31, RTTY, and SSTV. Eric's rigs include the Elecraft K3, K2, K1, and KX1, Heath HW-16s, HW-8, HX-1681/HR-1680, Eico 720, and Rockmites.

Eric's amplifiers are Ameritron AL-1200 for HF, Henry 2002A for 2m, and a Carl SB-226 for 6M. His antennas include a Force 12 C3S for 20/17/15/12/10, a Butternut HF-2V for 30/40/80/160. He recently added 60 radials to the HF-2V. On VHF, he uses a 3-element Cushcraft on 6M, and two Cushcraft 17B2s with mast-mounted GaAs FET, M2 power divider, and phasing harness, and 7/8" Heliax feedline for 2M. He also has an 18-element M2 432 antenna that is not up most of the time.

When not hamming, Eric is an estate planning attorney at the Norris Law Firm in Santa Clara. Eric was first licensed as WN6RVG in 1972. His other interests include flying gliders, astronomy, and large-scale model trains.