Just to clarify timing, the regular August monthly meeting of the DVRA is held during the club’s Annual Picnic for members and their families. The picnic begins at 6:30 PM (note this is one hour earlier than the actual meeting itself) on Wednesday, Aug 13th. The club provides the hotdogs and hamburgers to grill, but everyone attending should bring a side dish, desert, drinks or picnic supplies (plates, charcoal, etc.) to share. Please e-mail the Club President at with what you are planning to bring so he can coordinate things.

This year the picnic will be held at the pavilion at Ewing Township’s Watson Park, (formerly called Rambling Creek Park) located just off Scotch Road just east of the airport. A covered pavilion, grills and picnic tables are there but you might want to bring a lawn chair if that makes you more comfortable. Although the weather forecast looks good, we can hold the picnic even if it rains due to the large pavilion. This site is easy to reach from I-95.

DIRECTIONS:

• Take I-95 to Exit 3 (Scotch Road) South. Note this is NOT the I-95 exit by the DVRA Shack!
• Follow Scotch Road south to the Glenn Rock Shopping Center. The airport runways will be on your right). At the traffic light at Scotch and Upper Ferry Road, make a left onto Upper Ferry Road. Just past the Ewing municipal building (which is on the left) you’ll see the entrance to the park on your right. There’s a sign out front by the driveway for the park.

Here’s a link to the park location on Google maps.

Talk-in will be available on the 146.67 (PL 131.8) and 442.65 repeaters. See you there!

Thanks

Gary Wilson, K2GW

Program Director

DVRA’s August “Second Saturday” event will be an Open House and Work Party at the Red Cross Amateur Radio Station N2ARC. We’ll be showing off the base station and new satellite communications trailer there, as well as relocating the antenna feed lines within the building to the new radio room that has been created for the station. The activity will run from 9AM until Noon on Saturday August 9.

The Central New Jersey Chapter of the American Red Cross is located at 707 Alexander Road in Princeton Junction just south of US Route One. Gerry Jurrens, N2ARC is leading the event, and can be reached at if there are any questions.

All are welcome to attend. I hope to see you there.

73

Gary Wilson, K2GW

DVRA Program Director

No, I’m not being redundant; repeaters repeat things. The DVRA meeting on Wednesday July 9th will feature Bob Schroeder N2HX as he gives a history of the Technician Class License, and the development of Radio Repeaters. He’ll also be explaining some of the bells and whistles on the clubs current repeaters.

The Delaware Valley Radio Association meets on the 2nd Wednesday of each month at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church 137 West Upper Ferry Road in West Trenton, NJ. Meetings begin at 7:30pm and are open to the public. Refreshments are served following the meeting.

Also I hope everyone enjoyed Field Day as much as I did. Since it’s the holiday weekend and you might have some spare time, find a piece of rope and try tying the tautline hitch twice a day from memory for the next week to burn it into your memory. As you found out on Field Day, it’s a great knot for guying temporary antennas and keeping tents from blowing away. Here are some pictures to help you get started.

http://www.iland.net/~jbritton/tautlinehitch.htm

73

Gary Wilson, K2GW
DVRA Program Director

DVRA will participate in the annual ARRL Field Day on June 28-29, 2008, at Mercer County Park in West Windsor NJ behind the Skating Center. We’ll transform a quiet wooded grove into a bustling, exciting 100-watt radio station! Station setup begins about 9 AM Saturday, and we’ll be on-the-air nonstop from 2:00 pm until about 2 PM on Sunday. Yep! You read it right! We will operate for 24 hours! And outdoors, with portable generator power only to show our emergency capabilities! Woo-hoo!

Throughout the event we will use our Extra class club call sign, W2ZQ, so anyone can operate on any amateur frequency using all of the Extra class privileges! This is a great chance for all the new Technicians (and even non-hams) to get a taste of HF contesting. During this event, amateur stations from all the corners of the nation try to contact as many other stations as possible—many even outside the USA! During an event like this, stations exchange a small amount of information, and then move on to another contact. The exciting result is that you can make hundreds of contacts in a very short time!

Mark all your calendars and make plans to attend Field Day!

Invite your friends and family members to come out and see an emergency radio operation in action. We will have a “GOTA” (Get On The Air) station, specifically designed for them. Boy Scouts who attend can also meet some of the requirements for both Radio and Emergency Preparedness Merit Badges

Visitors are also welcome during the lunch and dinner hours, when we typically see many family members show up for free food! If the daytime turns out to be too hot for them, invite them to come in the evening. We’ll be there all night!

Check out the photos and details from Field Days of past years.

Our station will be located behind the Skating Center in the middle of Mercer County Park in West Windsor. This year you can find our location by searching for “W2ZQ” on the ARRL Field Day Locator. A Google map shows stations that have registered to operate Field Day—including DVRA! “Zoom out” and see the other stations around the USA.

Not yet convinced? Then check out this short video to see the excitement of Field Day : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=varHL752Odk . See you this weekend!

Hams are needed to support the American Diabetes Bike Tour this Saturday beginning at 6:30 AM. Also known as the “Tour de Cure 2008″, the event is an extended bicycle ride that starts and ends at the Educational Testing Service in Lawrenceville and winds through Mercer and Hunterdon counties.

Hams with 2 meter mobile rigs in their cars are needed as well as hams with HT’s and magnetic mount antennas to ride in support vehicles. Meet at at ETS at 6:30 AM and, if possible, contact Mark, N2KIV at beforehand to let him know that you’re coming.

The DVRA meeting on May 14^th will feature Tim Reeg, K1TFR, as he shows us “How to Keep it Up Longer”. Tim will lead a contingent of former Scoutmasters in explaining “Ropes and Knots for the Radio Amateur”, something of great value when we erect our masts and antennas for Field Day in June. This will be a “hands on” experience, so each person attending should bring a six foot length of rope to maximize their pleasure. We’ll have some extras for those who are naughty and forget. Hope to see you there!

The Delaware Valley Radio Association meets on the 2^nd Wednesday of each month at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in West Trenton, NJ. Meetings begin at 7:30pm (except for where noted), and are open to the public. Refreshments are served following the meeting. Some months there will be a guest speaker following the meeting as well.

Another story linked via Make Magazine, this one on how to build your own satellite tracker using a BASIC Stamp 2.  It’s not a step-by-step howto, but gives the basic information and has the source code available too - so if you’re inclined to put soldering iron to breadboard, and you like working the birds, this could be a fun project during the rainy spring weekends.

If you’ve never seen Make Magazine before, it’s an interesting publication for homebrewing just about anything.  Their website is just as nice, giving step-by-step instructions for building things that either many people would just buy, or that don’t exist in the marketplace.  Definitely a neat read for any tinkerer.

Today they have a story up linking to someone who built their own loop antenna with copper & PVC pipe, which looks interesting.