December, 2010 Sierra SIgnals

http://www.sf-arc.org/

OFFICERS

PRESIDENT Al Martin, NI2U amartin4@wavecable.com VICE PRESIDENT Charles Baker, AE6LR ae6lr@yahoo.com SECRETARY Bill Mahl, W6WEM wemahl@wildblue.net TREASURER Bob Balthrope, KD6WTY kd6wty@yahoo.com DIRECTORS George Simmons, KG6LSB grsim@mindspring.com Gary Cunningham, KQ6RT kq6rt@sbcglobal.net Frank Sharit, W6DHN n6gp4900@sbcglobal.net

December 2010

PO BOX 1005, NEWCASTLE, CA

RESOURCES

REPEATERS 145.430 (-0.6 MHz/PL 162.2) 440.575 (+5.0 MHz/PL 94.8) 223.860 (-1.6 MHz/PL 100.0) CLUB NET Thursdays, 7:30PM, W6EK/R 145.430 CLUB MEETINGS Second Friday of the month, 7:30PM at the Library, 350 Nevada St, Auburn CA CLUB BREAKFAST Last Sat of the month at Susie’s Café, Cirby at Riverside, Roseville – 8:00 AM NET CONTROL OPS Dave Jenkins, WB6RBE Gary Cunningham, KQ6RT Norm Medland, W6AFR Casey McPartland, W7IB REPORTERS NEWSLETTER EDITOR Satellites: Greg, KO6TH Matthew Diridoni, KC6RUO History: Gary, KQ6RT 916-749-3032 Misc Radio: Fred, K6DGW matteod@comcast.net Sunshine: Richard WA6RWS WEBMASTER: Carl A Schultz, WF6J rkuepper@ymail.com 916-482-5027

At the Key and Meeting Information Page 1 From The Presidents Shack Page 2 ARRL Testing Sessions Page 2 Miscellaneous Radio.

Page 3 New Web Page Page 5 Fifty Years Ago at SFARC Page 5 Club Meeting Minutes Page 6

December 3 -5 ARRL 160 Meter Contest December 10 SFARC Christmas Party December 11-12 ARRL 10 Meter Contest January 1

Straight Key Night

January 8-9

RTTY Roundup

SFARC CLUB MEETING PRESENTATION December’s meeting is the Christmas party. It will be December 10th at 6:30pm at Newcastle United Methodist Church located at 410 Buena Vista Ave. Bring your favorite side dish. The club will provide the Turkey, Ham and drinks.

Grand prize will be cash. The ladies can bring a small gift for ladies raffle.

We encourage members to receive Sierra Signals via email to save the Club the cost of reproduction and mailing Sierra Signals is published monthly by the Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club for the information of it's members and friends, and is distributed via E-mail and USPS mail. Opinions expressed are those of the authors. Newsletter exchanges with other clubs via E-mail are welcomed. Contact the editor to be placed on the E-mailing list. The contents of Sierra Signals are copyrighted by the Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club, and all rights are reserved. That said, we will gladly permit republications for non-profit uses of all text material. Photos require the consent of all persons pictured in them, and some of our material is copyrighted by others and published by permission. You'll need to contact them for permission.

From the Presidents Shack Al Martin, NI2U President’s Thoughts SFARC has testing sessions on the first Saturday of each month at Raley's on the corner of Auburn Folsom Road & Douglas Bl. in Granite Bay. Sessions are in the multipurpose room in the back left hand corner of the store. The session starts at 8:00 AM

It the end of the year already, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, or a Happy Chanukah or Happy Holidays. Thank you for all of your help the past year.

Please give thought to helping out by offering to be the Club Secretary..

Al Martin

2011 ELECTION RESULTS President - Al Martin, NI2U VP - Chuck Baker, AE6LR Secretary - Open Treasurer - Bob Balthorpe, KD6WTY Director - Mary Ann Balthorpe, KE6EST Director - Jim Griffith, KI6AZH Director - Gary Cunningham, KQ6RT Field Day Chairman, Dave Hund, N6SHD

CLUB BREAKFAST

Last Saturday of the month Susie’s Café, Cirby at Riverside, Roseville 8:00 AM

Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club

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December 2010

civilizations [with ham transceivers] out there at any given time.

MISCELLANEOUS RADIO Fred Jensen, K6DGW

Twenty five or thirty years ago, after a couple of weeks working in the DC-area, I was on the evening United flight from Dulles to Sacramento.

Having worked enough, I was reading a Scientific American article which asked that question …

“What is the probability of an intelligent civilization somewhere in the galaxy?” In it, they gave an answer in the form of an equation:

I'm writing this on Fri, 19 Nov, next week is Thanksgiving and I would be guaranteed to miss Matt's Sierra Signals deadline if I waited until the end of the month.

The venerable ARRL Sweepstakes Phone section starts tomorrow, the weather is awful today, and is scheduled to be worse over the weekend, so I figured now was a good time. Sunspot Cycle 24 has definitely begun. The Smoothed Sunspot Number is 40 today [it has been up near 80], and the 10cm solar flux is at 92, close to as high as it has been since early 2008. At approximately 11 years per cycle, 24 cycles means we've been counting sunspots for around 250 years.

where: R* is the average rate stars form per year fp is the fraction of those that have planets

Over a lunch-time cup of coffee with a couple of friends not long ago, one was joking that by the time Cycle 48 gets started in the general vicinity of 2260, DXCC will include “countries” on other planets circling other stars. It was good for a laugh, and of course none of us will be around to watch that not happen. There are a myriad of reasons why direct interstellar communications isn't likely to happen … unless Albert is wrong. It would take about 4 ½ years after you finished your CQ for someone on a planet circling Alpha Centuri, our nearest star, to hear you, and 4 ½ more years for you to hear his reply, for starters.

Even if Mars were inhabited by intelligent beings, little, green, or otherwise, and with ham radios, in the Interstellar Sweepstakes of 2200, there would be times when Mars was on the opposite side of the sun from Earth that a one-way transmission would take over 18 minutes. Talk about killing your rate in a contest!

ne is the fraction of those that might support life fl is the fraction of those that do develop life fi is the fraction of those that develop intelligent life fc is the fraction of those that develop radio L is the length of time those release radiation into space This was called “Drake's Equation” for Frank Drake who, in 1961, proposed it at a SETI conference at the National Radio Astronomy conference in Green Bank, WV. The article also pointed out that while R* has been known with some degree of precision for some time from many astronomical observations, values for all the rest of the parameters were just guesses.

One for us is missing – the fraction of such life who are LGH's [Little Green Hams]. Today, in 2010, fp is actually becoming more precise. Since the 80's we have found planets circling other stars, several hundred in fact, and the number is getting close to being large enough to make some sensible estimates of the parameter. As we find them, and find more that are close enough to their star for warmth but not too close so they have the possibility of liquid water, and aren't too big with too high a gravity, and not too small with not enough gravity, ne may become more than just a wild guess. The rest are a long way off, however.

Acknowledging that, unless our knowledge and understanding of the physics of the universe proves to be grossly wrong, interstellar communications is not likely to ever happen, the idea does raise some interesting questions, and for me, a point that puzzled me a couple of decades ago. Let's assume for grins that our signals will travel at an infinite speed , and that we can either put out as much power as we want, or can so focus our signals in any desired direction as much as we need to that we actually can communicate anywhere in the Milky Way galaxy. Under these assumptions, whether or not we get an answer to our interstellar CQ will depend on the likelihood that there are intelligent Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club

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its limitations – just the message -- to announce our presence to the universe as intelligent beings, what would you select? The movie producers did and with maybe the only simple answer … prime integers. 23 is prime in base-10 counting, it is divisible without a remainder only by itself and 1.

We have overwhelming evidence that 23 is base10 prime everywhere in the universe. So we send a series of pulses: 1 pulse, then 3 pulses, then 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 27, 31,… So we send enough of this sequence so that it is basically impossible to have been randomly generated by natural processes, and it is fairly trivial to look at a long enough sequence of these integers and deduce they are prime in a particular counting base. If we heard that message, believe me we'd know somebody was CQ'ing from out there!

The L intrigued me however. My first thought was, “Hey, we discovered radio [and TV and radar, and everything else], it's useful technology, why wouldn't it be around forever?” Well, let's fast-forward from my complimentary first-class seat on United's Boeing 757 somewhere over Nebraska to 2010 and the picture looks a lot different [my employer had me traveling a lot on business and United took care of their high revenue customers then ☺].

In the movie “Contact,” the “other guys” sent recordings of television signals on their “contact signal,” Adolf Hitler, if I remember right. How many people in 2010 still get their television with an antenna and receiver? The majority in the US are probably on cable, which doesn't radiate. Many of us without cable get it via direct broadcast satellite using sharply focused beams directed at the Earth, not into space. We still have high powered radar, but there is a transition underway to alternative, more accurate technologies.

LORAN-C, very high power LF transmissions that at least partly ignore the ionosphere has shut down – it lasted less time than I've been alive. Much if not most of our microwave communications systems have been replaced by fiber optic systems … which also don't radiate. Phone service has migrated from twisted pair to digital radio in the low GHz ranges, but at very low powers. In fact, I can see now that using high power electromagnetic radiation to communicate intelligence can and probably will give way to other technologies which might make Earth more silent in the radio spectrum in the future.

OK, the “intelligence” part of that sentence probably excludes a major part of 75 meters in the evening ☺

There's some evidence that some places in our solar system could be conducive to life [at least as we understand it].

Whether it's actually floating around in some ocean on some moon of Jupiter or Saturn, or on Mars, has yet to be determined. I think, however, the odds are very small that, if it exists, it has discovered SSB on 75 meters.

73, Fred K6DGW

I've been running “SETI@Home” for the University of California, Berkeley since close to when it started, early 90's I think. When I'm not using the computer, it downloads some incomprehensible data taken from the 1,000' radio telescope at Aricebo, PR, processes it looking for signs of intelligence, and sends the results back to Berkeley. They assure me, if my computer finds ET, they'll tell me. So far, no answer. Looking back on Drake's Equation, I guess I'm not surprised. And, keep in mind, this was all based on the assumption that our signals traveled at infinite speed. They don't, and unless Einstein was terribly wrong, they never will.

VISIT OUR WEB PAGE AT

http://www.sf-arc.org/

The movie “Contact” did bring up a possibly interesting point. If tasked to come up with a message – forget the transmission medium and Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club

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December 2010

New Website to debut in January

The Home page will always have the clock, latest news and of course the date of the next meeting and breakfast. Sort of one stop shopping.

By Carl A Schultz, WF6J The webbies have been busy putting together a new website that is a step forward for SFARC, yet keeps our “look” from the old site and the Newsletter.

As webmaster, I serve the club, so any ideas, items, changes, problems.. just call Al! Kidding, email me at wf6j@sbcglobal.net

Over the past months, we have asked for your suggestions. A few folks put in their 2 cents worth, thank you. But the rest of it all was determined as a need and a step into the future.

73, Carl

We have always had photos of events and now they can be on the webpage under Photos (how novel). Same with the few videos (mostly Tech 4 Ten segments) including some old footage for fun. So keep your photos and videos coming.

Fifty Years Ago at SFARC Gary Cunningham, KQ6RT December 14, 1960 The regular monthly meeting of the Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club was called to order at 8:20 by President Carman in the home of Mike Bauman.

For video, I made a YouTube account for the club and will place the videos onto their server, but have the link on our site (you see them without having to go over to YouTube).

The secretary read the minutes of the previous month's meeting and they were approved as read.

The treasurer's report was given.

Most of the other “buttons” are self explanatory, ie: Nets, Meetings, Newsletters, Officers, Links (If you have a good suggestion for a link, please pass it along!) and membership.

However things like: Breakfast, Field Day, Picnic, Special events, etc. will be under: Activities.

The primary business of the evening was the election of officers. Last month Sage Otow and Lindell Hunter were nominated for president. Sage stated that he wished to withdraw his name, After-some discussion, this was done. Sage then nominated Walter Dowdy.

Dick Lund moved that nominations be closed, and Bob Davis seconded the motion, A vote was taken by counting raised hands. Walter Dowdy 2 votes and Lin Hunter 7. Lin is our next president.

Jim Carman was made Vice president by Acclamation.

Sage Otow was made Sec.-Treas. by acclamation also. Inasmuch as the V. P. isn't called on to do too much, it was moved and seconded that Jim Carman be Activities Manager also.

Other new things: Club email link. A button you push to send an email to SFARC officers, directors and support folks. VE exams is place to recognize our members and dates of this great club activity.

A discussion of a meeting place was once again held.

Bob Davis is to check with the Southern Pacific Railway to see if it would be agreeable with them for the Stockton Box Company to sub-lease the building near the fairgrounds to us. Some discussion was held relative to finances, etc., but nothing was definitely decided. The meeting was adjourned at 9:25.

Respectfully submitted, Richard H. Lund - Sec.

Classifieds is something new to try. A spot where you can post your wants and needs (Ham Radio Related of course hi). Will give it a go and hope not to have any spamers.

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NOVEMBER 12, 2010

Satellite Report – Greg KO6TH reported that the Space Station has been making random earth contacts lately. Also the Japanese Satellite FO29 has been sick from being too hot.

Meeting started at 1800 hours at the Round Table Pizza in the Elm Ave. Shopping Center.

Sunshine Report – Richard WA6RWS reported that Joe KF6OQY and Doty K6DMS check in regularly on 7.245 at 10:00 most mornings.

Officers present were – President Al NI2U, Vice President Chuck AE6LR, Secretary Bill W6WEM, Officers Mary Anne KE6EST, George KG6LSB, and Gary KQ6RT. Also present were Richard WA6RWS, Dave N6SHD, Eldred KD6ZSL and Gene KG6NYH. Absent was Treasurer Bob KD6WTY.

Tech-Ten – Greg KO6TH gave a presentation on antennas for satellite contacts.

Old Business – A reminder to be sure to give donations for refreshments. Elections took place.

Re-elected were President Al NI2U, Vice President Chuck AE6LR, Treasurer Bob KD6WTY, Officers Mary Anne KE6EST and Gary KQ6RT. Newly elected was Jim KI6AZH. Secretary position is still open. Dave N6SHR will be taking over Field Day to lighten the load on the Vice President. Chuck AE6LR asked for participation in building antennas for demonstration for different events such as swap meets etc. Christmas party drinks were discussed and coffee and water were agreed upon.

The upcoming budget, the Christmas party and raffle and the club Officer elections were discussed. President Al NI2U asked Secretary Bill W6WEM to send a thank you to Ron Murdock W6KJ for his donations and participation in our White Elephant Sale.

New Business – Mary Anne KE6EST asked that all receipts be in by the end of the year.

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

Guest Speaker – Lonnie Moore, KI6ZYY, Vice President of the Sutter Amateur Radio Club gave an informative talk on “12 Volt in the Shack”.

Lonnie gave a talk on different types of batteries their properties and maintenance.

Meeting started at 1930 hours in the Placer County Library on Nevada St. in Auburn with the Pledge of Allegiance, Officer introductions, then club member and visitor introductions.

Secretary Report – Bill W6WEM reported on the Board Meeting minutes.

Meeting adjourned @ 2135 hours.

Respectfully submitted, Secretary Bill Mahl W6WEM

Treasurer Report – Mary Anne KE6EST reported in Bob’s absence that we started with $827.26 had $393.00 in income and $271.88 in expenses with a balance of $948.59.

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