The History of Building Elecraft

Wayne Burdick, N6KR

We teamed up with PAARA again this year to make this a bigger event. This event replaces the regular FARS membership meeting for January.

We had about $1,500 in prizes for the banquet raffle. The top prize which was an Elecraft KX-3. The banquet is by reservation only, so click the banquet link for all the details and sign-up information.

Bio:

Wayne Burdick (N6KR) is a co-founder of Elecraft, and principle designer of the Elecraft K2, K1, and KX1 transceivers. He also created the Wilderness Radio kits (NorCal 40A, Sierra, and SST), refinements of his popular NorCal QRP Club designs. Wayne and his co-founder, Eric Swartz (WA6HHQ) have both been inducted into the QRP Hall of Fame, and jointly received the ARRL's Technical Excellence Award for their transceiver designs.

Transistor Radios - How They Work and How to Make Them

Ron Quan, KI6AZB

If you are a serious radio builder or merely an electronics tinkerer, you will find Ron Quan's talk interesting. Ron covers these topics (following his book's organization):

1. How a book on transistor radios was written,
2. Conventional AM transistor radios,
3. Low power superhets,
4. A low power regenerative radio,
5. Fun with reflex TRF and reflex superhets,
6. Double reflex superhet … a two transistor superhet that drives a loudspeaker
7. One transistor superhet.

Bio:

Ron Quan, author of the books "Build Your Own Transistor Radios" and "Electronics from the Ground Up," has done design engineering of video and audio equipment for over 30 years. He designed a CRT TV monitor at Ampex, a wideband FM detector for an HDTV tape recorder at Sony Corporation, and a double-color-subcarrier-frequency (7.16 MHz) differential phase measurement system for Macrovision, where he was Principal Engineer. At Hewlett Packard, he designed a bar code reader integrated circuit and developed a family of low powered bar code readers. He holds 80 patents, and a BSEE degree from UC Berkeley.

Personal Computers and Operating Systems - Problems and Solutions

Rami Ersheid and Tasneem (Taz) Rafiq

Every Radio Amateur's ham shack probably has a computer. Computers were used originally for simple roles such as looking up call signs and DX zones from a database or logging contacts or programming the memories of an HT radio. Computers subsequently found a role controlling things such as antenna rotators. In satellite operations, they do tracking calculations continuously and move the antenna to follow the satellite. Today, computers increasingly serve as the front panel displays (graphical user interface or GUI) of many new software-defined radios or SDRs. Most hams will agree that the computer has emerged as a useful tool in the shack.

So what do you do if your computer breaks? In this day of throw-away electronics, should you hang on to that Windows 98 or XP machine a while longer? Can your legacy 32-bit software run on a 64-bit quad-core hyper-threaded machine? If Microsoft really stops supporting Windows XP on April 8, is Windows 8.1 a suitable replacement? Rami Ersheid and Taz Rafiq from QuickFix Computers answer these questions and more. They talk about common hardware problems, software and operating system problems, and IT problems - everything from what hardware breaks most often to how to configure Windows 8 to eliminate its most undesired features or how to get rid of Windows 8 entirely, how to protect against malware, how to recognize infections, and what to do about them. This presentation is a “must see” for the modern Radio Amateur.

Bio:

Rami Ersheid and Taz Rafiq are senior staff computer experts at QuickFix Computer Sales, Services & IT Solutions in Mountain View. They specialize in fixing hardware, software, and IT problems of desktop, laptop, tablet, and pad computers. If your computer breaks, they can fix it for you.

The Evolution of Handheld Radios from Walkie Talkie to Modern HT

Ed Fong, WB6IQN

The evolution has been 50 years—from 3-transistor walkie talkies that went a little farther than you can shout to today's full featured dual-band HT's using SDR architecture and costing only $35.

Ed Fong, WB6IQN, will share his 50-year relationship with the “walkie talkie” from the early days of the Allied Knight C100, 100-mW walkie talkie, to the present day inexpensive but yet effective Wouxun and BaoFeng radios.

Along the way, he will discuss the famous Motorola HT220 and its architecture, the Tempo S-1 which was the first hand held synthesized radio, and first mini dual band HT's. The first mini HT's being the Standard 508C, the ICOM IQ7a, and the Yaesu VX2.

For military history buffs, Ed will show a Motorola SCR536 (the radio that landed on Omaha Beach), a PRC77 (the primary backpack radio used in Vietnam), a GE Pocketmate (the radio that was used in the Watergate Break-in) and many more.

Bio:

Ed Fong, WB6IQN, teaches RF Wireless Communications and I/O Design Fundamentals for UC Santa Cruz in Silicon Valley. He taught RF Wireless at UC Berkeley from 1998 to 2011.

Ed is the owner of Ed’s Antennas https://edsantennas.weebly.com. More than 12,000 of his DBJ-1, DBJ-2, and TBJ-1 antennas have been sold to hams, commercial users, and agencies. These popular antennas have been featured in QST (March 2017, February 2003 and March 2007), CQ (Summer 2012), ARRL Antenna Compendium Vol 8, and ARRL VHF/UHF Antenna Classics.

Ed’s past presentations to FARS were on single-sideband modulation (January 2023), ground-independent vertical antennas (August 2019), and DMR radio (April 2018).

Maxwell's Equations in 45 Minutes

Kristen McIntyre, K6WX

Maxwell's Equations are mysterious to many, but they are really a beautiful work of mathematical art that is at the heart of radio. The mathematics seems impenetrable without advanced calculus, however, there is another way to look at it: visually.

Kristen McIntyre, K6WX, takes you inside a Gaussian surface, around a curl, and away from a divergence so that you too can see how these four simultaneous differential equations combine to bring the world of radio to life. You will learn the meaning of Maxwell's Equations in about 45 minutes.

Bio:

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.

Weird Electromagnetic Waves

Steve Stearns, K6OIK

Steve, K6OIK, presents Part 2 of “Novel and Strange Ideas in Antennas and Impedance Matching.” Steve presented Part 1 in February 2013. In Part 2 he describes localized waves. Examples or localized waves are vortex waves, knotted waves, and linked waves. These are electromagnetic waves that follow topologically interesting paths in space. Such waves have properties which some communication engineers hope to exploit for multiple access communication.

Isaac Newton taught that light travels in straight lines. Albert Einstein taught that light consists of discrete particles called photons. Reasoning from Newton and Einstein, we might conclude that photons travel in straight lines. Steve surprises us by showing this conclusion is wrong. The relationship between photons and electromagnetic waves is more complicated than anyone imagined. Steve describes the electromagnetic properties of vortex waves, including properties that are unknown, counter-intuitive, or just plain weird!

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.

Batteries. Make them Work Better and Last Longer

Charlie Morrin, KI6FXY

This program has been rescheduled for August 22, 2014 as we were locked out of our meeting place on July 25.

Bio:

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Batteries. Make them Work Better and Last Longer

Charlie Morrin, KI6FXY

Charlie, KI6FXY, talks about the important subject of batteries. Batteries are everywhere in our lives and run all of our portable electronics. We rely on them work reliably, keep us connected, and last for years.

Charlie talks about: battery safety, battery selection for ham applications, battery maintenance, and more. Learn how to make your batteries work better and last longer.

This program was originally scheduled for July 25th. Our meeting room was not available, so an abbreviated meeting was held that evening.

Bio:

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Annual Amateur Radio Homebrew Contest

This meeting is about you. Yes you, our members and guests. Our Annual Amateur Radio Homebrew Contest is a opportunity to show off a project that you have worked on in the past year. Each participant has a few minutes to show and explain his project to our audience and has a chance to win one of our four prizes:

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

Nuclear Reactors for the Complete Ham Shack, Emergency Power, and Clean Green Power

Dr. Alexander Cannara of Cannara Consulting

Suppose someone told you there is a way of generating heat and electrical power on an industrial scale without the fuel emissions, nuclear materials, and waste we now produce, and do it for the whole world for thousands of years, using a cheap, plentiful source. What would you say? Suppose these power sources:

1. Can't explode because they're unpressurized and produce no flammable materials.
2. Shut down naturally, without power or people, if something goes wrong.
3. Are independent of water cooling, so can be built anywhere, using little land.
4. Get their energy from cheap material abundant on Earth, Moon, and Mars.
5. Can be made to consume nuclear wastes.
6. Produce valuable industrial/medical/scientific isotopes now becoming scarce.
7. Have already been tested and shown to work.
8. Can be built and operated more cheaply than coal, oil, or gas power.

The technology is the Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR), and the specific variant is Liquid Fluoride-Thorium Reactor (LFTR), developed, designed and operated in the 1960s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory www.thoriumremix.com/2011. Come and learn what might be the best kept secret for powering your emergency station while combating global warming in the not so distant future.

Bio:

Alex Cannara is in his second career. After a distinguished career in the Silicon Valley chip and software industry, he is now consultant on science policy and technical investment. He lectures widely on energy alternatives and climate-related policies. He has four graduate degrees from Stanford MSEE, Engineer (Plasma Physics and Systems), MS Statistics, and PhD (Mathematical Methods in Educational Research). He is an IEEE Life Member and member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Holiday Ideas for the Ham Shack

Don Anastasia, AA6W of Ham Radio Outlet

Just in time for the start of the holiday shopping season, Don Anastasia, AA6W, of Ham Radio Outlet presents a pre-Holiday extravaganza. Don shows us all the new and wonderful gift items available for the complete ham shack. Bring pencil and paper, so you can make your list for Santa!

Bio:

Don Anastasia, AA6W, was first licensed as Novice WD6EPV in 1977. After advancing to Extra, Don earned his Satellite DXCC award from ARRL in 1989. He confirmed 125 countries via 2-way satellite. Don has been a member of AMSAT since 1998 and has operated through Amsat AO-40, AO-13, AO-10 and many others.

Don has organized numerous ARISS (Amateur Radio Onboard International Space Station) school contacts, to allow school children to successfully communicate with onboard astronauts and ask them science questions from school via 2-way Amateur Radio.

Don is a substitute school teacher in Saratoga and Menlo Park, where he teaches language arts, social sciences (history), and other subjects to K-8 children. Don holds an AA degree in liberal arts from West Valley College and a B.A in social sciences - history from Santa Clara University. You can meet him at Ham Radio Outlet in Sunnyvale, where he works part time.

Electronics from the Ground Up

Ron Quan, KI6AZB

Ron Quan, KI6AZB, has done it again—written another top selling book. You may remember he spoke to FARS in February about his book, “Build Your Own Transistor Radios”, McGraw-Hill, 2013. Now he's come out with a sequel: “Electronics from the Ground Up”, McGraw-Hill, 2015. The book is massive at 526 pages. It is a book of do-it-yourself experiments through which the reader will discover and learn the inner workings of electronics through innovative experiments. Experiments progress from basic electricity to circuits for RF and communication systems:

• Batteries, lamps, and flashlights
• Light emitters and receivers
• Diodes, rectifiers, and associated circuits
• Transistors, FETs, and vacuum tubes
• Amplifiers and feedback
• Audio signals and circuits
• Oscillators, AM and FM signals and circuits
• Video basics, including video signals
• Video circuits and systems.

Bio:

Ron Quan, author of the books "Build Your Own Transistor Radios" and "Electronics from the Ground Up," has done design engineering of video and audio equipment for over 30 years. He designed a CRT TV monitor at Ampex, a wideband FM detector for an HDTV tape recorder at Sony Corporation, and a double-color-subcarrier-frequency (7.16 MHz) differential phase measurement system for Macrovision, where he was Principal Engineer. At Hewlett Packard, he designed a bar code reader integrated circuit and developed a family of low powered bar code readers. He holds 80 patents, and a BSEE degree from UC Berkeley.