K4PJS is relocating to Flordia. Phil was a great member of the CNYARA and he and his wife will be dearly missed. Phil asked us to pass this along to all members.

Phil asked me to pass this to all CNYARA members.

The trailer is full, the house is empty. We head out tomorrow. Please tell all we said BYE, and 73. I’ll be listening on 14.300 in the AM as soon as I get the radios set up. Please keep us in your prayers for a safe landing there. I’ll call you by phone to let you, and all, know we arrived.

Phil S.”

The 2013 NY QSO PARTY is next weekend, October 19th & 20th

We have a record number of awards available this year, so get on the air and have some fun, and win a plaque.

Check out the rules and award availability on the homepage of our Sponsor,
the Rochester DX Association at: http://www.rdxa.com

See you on the air next week-end, CQ New York QSO Party !!!

Thanks, Paul K2DB

http://radiobuilder.blogspot.com/2010/05/tactical-antennas.html

Excerpt from Website:

LESSON DESCRIPTION:

In this lesson, you will learn about the types of tactical antennas and their radiation patterns. In addition, you will learn about fabricating field expedient antennas using various repair techniques.

TERMINAL LEARNING OBJECTIVE

ACTION: Explain basic antenna theory.

CONDITION: Given this lesson.

REFERENCES: The material in this lesson was derived from FM 11-32, FM 11-64, FM 24-18, FM 24-19, and TC 24-24.

INTRODUCTION

Tactical antennas are designed for efficiency and ease-of-use, and are ruggedized to take the abuse they receive in the field. Some antennas are easy to use, such as a whip antenna that is used in high mobility operations. Others, like directional antennas, require a working knowledge of antenna engineering. All antennas either release or capture electromagnetic radiation.”

This is a great video I came across. I think we’ve all been here at one point or another. Remember, you never know who is on the other end of the mic.

http://www.k0nr.com/rwitte/2Mssb.html

This is a great article I came accross written by K0NR, all the way back in 2003. This is something I have interest in and am definitely going to try.

Excerpt from the website:

Why SSB?

FM is the most popular mode primarily due to the wide availability of FM repeaters. These repeaters extend the operating range on VHF and enable low power handheld transceivers to communicate over 100 miles. FM is also used on simplex to make contacts directly without repeaters. The main disadvantage of FM is relatively poor performance when signals are weak, which is where SSB really shines. A weak FM signal can disappear completely into the noise while a comparable SSB signal is still quite readable. How big of a difference does this really make? Perhaps 10 dB or more, which corresponds to one or two S-units. Put a different way, using SSB instead of FM can be equivalent to having a beam antenna with 10 dB of gain, just by changing modulation types. So this is a big deal and radio amateurs interested in serious VHF work have naturally chosen SSB as the preferred voice mode. (You will also hear them using Morse code or CW transmissions, which is even more efficient that SSB.)

Just as an example of what is possible on SSB, during one VHF contest I was operating portable on Garden of the Gods Road in Colorado Springs. I had just dismantled my 2M yagi antenna and was listening to 2M SSB on a short mobile whip antenna. Suddenly, I heard WA7KYM in Cheyenne, Wyoming calling CQ from about 160 miles away. I figured that with my puny little antenna and only 10 watts of power, there was no way he was going to hear me. But, what they heck, it was a contest and it would be more points so I gave him a call. To my surprise, WA7KYM heard me and we made the contact without much signal strength to spare. Now, to be accurate, this contact has more to do with WA7KYM’s “big gun” station (linear amplifier, low noise preamp and large antenna array) than it had to do with my 10 watts and a small whip. The key point here is that this contact would not have happened using FM and was only possible because of SSB.