-### Upcoming Meetings
+#Upcoming Meetings
-**Thursday, 16 February, 7:30 PM** Dolley Madison Library, McLean: (Note: Third Thursday). Jerry Wolczanski, KI4IO, will describe the high performance Low Frequency (LF) receiver he designed and built as well as his vintage German Torn E.b regenerative LF receiver. Jerry has logged many LF Non Directional Beacons (NDBs) with a very interesting LF antenna he designed.
+**Thursday, June 13, 7:30 PM, <a href="http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/dm/">Dolley Madison Library, McLean, VA.</a>
+AMRAD hosts a doubleheader for slow modes: DFCW and JT65.**
-### Recent Meetings
+The first presentation will be by **André N4ICK** titled **<i>An Arduino-based DFCW Beacon for the 479 KHz Band.</i>** André will discuss Dual Frequency CW (DFCW) and will update us on the ARRL petition to the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology regarding the new band. He will demonstrate his design of an Arduino-based 479kHz beacon, and will expand on the eventual possibility of "crossing the Pond" to communicate with British Hams who have been experimenting for a while with this new allocation.
-**Thursday, January 12** Greg LeSage, N6LYU, made a presentation on performance modeling of the Terminated Folded Dipole.
+Dual Frequency CW, or DFCW, is a technique where a CW signal is transmitted at a very slow symbol rate, typically at speeds from 1 to 80 seconds per dot. This allows reception in very narrow bandwidths.
-**Thursday, 15 December** AMRAD's Annual Meeting. Look for the minutes of this meeting in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of the AMRAD Newsletter. Elections were held at the meeting. Directors Bill Fenn, N4TS; Frank Gentges, KØBRA; and Paul Rinaldo, W4RI were re-elected for two-year terms, as were Alternates Paul Mooney, K4KRE and Rob Seastrom, AI4UC for one-year terms.
+**Terry McCarty, WA5NTI,** will make a presentation on **<i>The JT65 Weak Signal Digital Soundcard Mode.</i>** JT65 can decode signals many decibels below the noise floor making an exception to the old rule “if you can’t hear them, you can’t work them.” Terry has racked up an impressive list of contacts on nearly every band. The mode was developed by Joe Taylor, K1JT as an offshoot to his WSJT weak signal mode widely used in moonbounce contacts. Although JT65 was originally intended for troposcatter and Earth-Moon-Earth paths, Terry is one of the pioneers in using it for low power HF contacts. Terry will tell us where to get the free software, how to configure it, and what you can expect in a contact.
-**Thursday, November 10, 7:30 PM** Dr. Michael King talked on hardware design for Software Defined Radio systems.
+<img src="DFCW_Arduino-based_beacon_for_479kHz.jpg" height="300" width="400">
-### Upcoming Events
+Arduino-based beacon for 479kHz by André, N4ICK
-**January 14** Greenwood Hamfest, Greenwood, SC, www.w4gwd.org
+#Recent Meetings
+May 9, Karl Berger, W4KRL, shared his adventure exploring the possibilities for using the Arduino microcontroller in amateur radio projects. Karl set out a few months ago to make a stand-alone touch screen display for a portable antenna analyzer. He broadened his objective to include a flexible graphic display system that a ham can adapt to station control, test instruments and data logging. Along the way, he overcame challenges in converting his program from “in line” coding to the “object oriented” style and solving unexpected problems with hardware control.
-**January 14** Winston-Salem FirstFest 2012, http://FirstFest2012.w4nc.org
+April 11, Ron Payne, WA6YOU, demonstrated how to build UHF Yagi antennas for receiving off-air DTV stations, or, for any UHF band application. Ron demonstrated his method of building antennas using spun copper wire for the antenna elements and how to get great results with low cost construction.
+
+#Upcoming Events
-**February 4** Virginia State Convention (Frostfest 2012), Richmnd, VA, www.frostfest.com
+**June 9, Manassas Hamfest** Prince William County Fairgrounds, Manassas, VA
+<a href="http://manassashamfest.org/"> http://manassashamfest.org</a> Ole Virginia Hams Amateur Radio Club.
-**February 4** South Carolina State Convention, Ladson, SC, www.wa4usn.org
+**July 7, Maryland Hamfest and Computer Fest**, West Friendship, MD, <a href="http://bratsatv.org/hamfest/"> http://bratsatv.org/hamfest/</a>
-**February 26** Vienna Wireless Society Winterfest, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale, VA, http://www.viennawireless.org/winterfest.php
+**August 4, Berryville Hamfest** Berryville, VA, <a href="http://w4krc.org/hamfest"> http://w4krc.org/hamfest,</a> Shenandoah Valley Amateur Radio Club.
-**March 17** Charleston WV Area Hamfest, Charleston, WV, www.w8gk.org
+**August 8, Carroll County Tailgate Fest**, Westminster, MD, <a href="http://www.qis.net/~k3pzn"> http://www.qis.net/~k3pzn</a>
-**March 31** Greater Baltimore Hamboree & Computerfest, Timonium, MD, www.gbhc.org.
+**September 6, Maryland State Convention (CARAFest)**, West Friendship, MD, <a href="http://carafest.org"> http://carafest.org</a>
+**October 27, Mason-Dixon Hamfest**, Westminster, MD, <a href="http://www.qis.net/~k3pzn">http://www.qis.net/~k3pzn</a>
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[[amradwiki]]
-[[seastateradar.wav]]
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+<a href="mailto:webmaster@amrad.org">webmaster@amrad.org</a>
projects / amrad.git / blobdiff