The Technician license class this semester has been going very well so far. We have gone through the material for Chapters 2, 3, and most of chapter 4 corresponding to the ARRL Technician license manual. If you are interested in joining us, the rest of the classes will be in the IDEA lab in TIW (EER 1.632). Big thanks to Roger of Texas Inventionworks for making this possible!

In each class, we go through the material and answer and discuss FCC exam questions.
If you would like to have a copy of the notes we have gone through so far, please email me. My email is posted here.

At the end of the class, I recommend taking a few practice tests at HamStudy and making sure you are consistently scoring more than 90%. Then you can sign up for an online Tech class exam with GLAARG or take another exam of your choice. Note that GLAARG is strict about what stuff you can have around you, like multiple monitors, so make sure you prepare your workspace following their guidelines before going to the exam.

More resources

Here are some resources I have shared via email, but might be useful.

• Regarding propagation, there’s all sorts of “space weather” and “solar weather” data and predictions which are useful to predict the success of various modes of propagation. One website providing this data is the NOAA.
• Earlier, I mentioned the “ham bands have boundaries” – these boundaries are documented informally in this chart. It’s useful to have a copy near you when on the air. We have two nice laminated ones at N5XU. We will talk about this in more detail in the regulatory part of the class.
• W2AEW’s video on reflections on transmission lines.
• Mr Carlson’s Lab’s video on reflections on transmission lines.
• APRS spots at aprs.fi
• WSPR spots at WSPRnet

Field Day 2021 at Mt. Bonnell was a blast! We had 6 people join us, and made 8 contacts on 20 meters before we had to clean up and leave. Two people made their first PSK31 contacts. The setup was as follows:

• Yaesu FT-450D, up to 50 W out
• OCF dipole around 6 feet up on the summit of Mt. Bonnell (Covert Park, EM10ch)
• Solar and battery power
• PSK31 via fldigi on a laptop

We also set up a second station with an end-fed wire and the club’s FT-847, but did not end up using that one. It was also a whole lot of fun to meet club members in person after more than a year of online meetings!

A quick (unofficial) tabulation of points follows.

We’d also like to thank Stefano N5STT for letting us use his transceiver, tuner, and antenna, and Glen WB4KTF for the complete solar system, and many other hams around Austin for their valuable advice.

• If you are in or around campus, the repeater to use is 441.325+ (tone 97.4). If you’re in North Austin, try one of the other repeaters. Note that the 444.85 repeater is currently offline.
• If you can’t hit any of the repeaters, try the EchoLink node KA5D-R. If you need help getting set up with a HT or with EchoLink, or need an HT, feel free to reach out!
• If you don’t have your license yet, we can fix that 🙂 and until then, we can arrange something.
• Thanks to Kyle KA5D and the other operators of the KA5D system for making this system available to us, and to Gil KI5BPK and the WCARC New Hams Net for help and resources regarding nets!

After the hotly contested election last spring, the ballots have finally been validated, and the officers for 2019 were forced to STAND UP at last night’s meeting.

From left we have Sameer Bibikar, Treasurer; Kenneth Mitra, Vice-President; and leading us in 2019 is President, Michael Taleff.

Both congrats and sincere thanx to this team for providing the leadership for N5XU for the upcoming year!!!