W6VIO Calling

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Amateur Radio Club PO Box 820, La Canada CA 91012-0820

Volume 36, Issue 4 July 2013 President: Jim Marr, AA6QI 3-1528 Emer. Comm. Mgr: Christopher Carson, KE6ABQ 3-3888 Vice President: Eric Archer, N6CV 4-7350 W6VIO Trustee : Rob Smith, W6GRV 3-7937 Secretary: Courtney Duncan, N5BF 4-8336 W6JPL Trustee: Eric Archer, N6CV 4-7350 Treasurer: Chuck Sarture, KG6NF 4-2706 WR6JPL Trustee: Jim Lux, W6RML 4-2075 Director at Large: Bill Weber, N6CI 4-0490 WR6AZN Trustee: Bill Wood, W6FXJ 760-256-9576

Upcoming Events: • Emergency Communications Net: Noon, every Monday, on WR6JPL 224.08/(-)/156.7 & 445.20/(-)/103.5

on Cerro Negro, or WR6AZN 223.96/(-)/156.7 on Table Mountain. • JPLARC Board of Directors meetings: First working Friday, every month, from Noon to 1pm in 180-703C.

Call-in: 818-354-3434 ID 7373. • JPLARC Regular Membership meetings: Second working Friday every month from Noon to 1pm in 180-

703C. Call-in: 818-354-3434 ID 7373.

QST, QST, QST: Regular Membership Meeting to be held July 19th at Noon in 180-703C (Telephone call-in: 818-354-3434 ID-7373). Talk by Will Michael KC6LOK, “The JPL Emergency Amateur Radio Service (JEARS)”.

In this issue: This issue covers activities through the end of June 2013.

• JPLARC Board of Directors (BoD) meeting held on June 7th

• JPLARC Regular Membership meeting July 19th • 147.15 Repeater back on the air! • Wilderness Protocol • Upcoming meetings

June 7th JPLARC BoD Meeting Minutes: By Courtney Duncan N5BF/6, Secretary

The meeting was held in 180-703C at Noon 2013 June 7, President Jim Marr presiding.

Present: Jim Marr*, Bob Dengler, Bob Cesarone, Jim Lux*, Courtney Duncan*; Phone: Eric Archer*, Rob Smith*, Walt Mushagian

*BoD member - five required for quorum. A quorum is

present (5).

Field Day: Mushagian: The Lightning Point campground in the Angeles National Forest traditionally used by JPL ARC and Caltech ARC as Field Day site will not be open this year, but will be in 2014. Occupation in 2013 would require someone to man the gate at the high-way.

Approval of meeting minutes:

Corrections provided for 5/10/13 meeting minutes. Lux moved to accept as edited. Archer seconded, no opposi-tion.

Typo corrections were provided for 5/24/13 meeting minutes. Lux moved approval as corrected, Archer se-conded, no opposition.

Officer Reports:

President Marr:

No news on Cerro Negro access. Still being reviewed by NASA Management Office. [Latest update: NMO has ap-proved. Now waiting for a JPL Safety Survey of the Cerro Ne-gro site.]

2 W6VIO Calling June 2013 Working on JPLARC antenna inventory.

Cleaned up B180-R6 shack 5/31/13.

Has trap CT-2 to R-7000 HF vertical, which is repaired. Will talk to Tope about where the rest of the R7000 parts are. Has e-mailed Cushcraft about how to tell the differ-ence between the '96 and '98 versions. CT-3 traps are dif-ferent. [Latest update: Both R7000 antennas are in B173. One is ready to install at B173. Parts have been received to complete restoration of the second to the ’99 configuration. Will schedule an installation work party for the B173 R7000 in the near future.]

Comparison to sister clubs at other NASA centers: Goddard Space Flight Center has a nice ham shack. Johnson Space Center has a new facility - don't know status. Ames Research Center has a big space. Marr has sent e-mails to other presidents to obtain photos and other status information. Will use to prepare presentation for senior management in support of ongoing club facility discussions. [Jim Marr AA6QI received a response from the GSFC ARC president. Fred Vescelus N6FV visited the GSFC ARC facility. Both be described in the next issue of VIO Calling.]

Vice President Archer:

No progress on B173 replacement.

WR6JPL Trustee Lux:

Taking a truckload of stuff up to the mesa this afternoon for the 147.15 repeater re-activation.

Will take more photos of 35A including the top of the antenna pole. Will move antenna related stuff out of 161-124. Pad for generator is there. There are batteries in the battery box.

Dengler: Does the Air Conditioning have backup power?

Secretary Duncan: No report.

Treasurer Sarture:

JPL ARC CEFCU account for April 2013: Beginning Balance: $ 2,274.43 Deposits: $ 0 Withdrawals: $ 0 Ending Balance: $ 2,274.43

JPL ARC CEFCU account for May 2013: Beginning Balance: $ 2,274.43 Deposits: $ 250.00 Withdrawals: $ 95.72 – to E. Archer for cleaning supplies for T-1745 work party on 2013Apr05 Ending Balance: $ 2,428.71

At Large Weber: Not present.

EmComm Mgr. Carson: Not present.

Committee Reports:

Education: Archer removed from this committee at his request.

Membership: Weber and Nolte absent. Currently have 29 paid members and 2 more pending.

Repeater:

Dengler attended last month's TASMA meeting. TASMA is upset and is getting "paper repeaters" de-coordinated and re-assigned. TASMA, however, has not yet given JPL ARC the standard 45/60 day notice but we shouldn’t delay getting the 147.15 repeater back on the air. [Latest update: It’s back on the air. See later in this issue.]

Lux: The equipment for the 147.15 repeater is on the mesa ready to be cabled up.

Archer/Lux: Tarsala has a firmware upgrade from Kenwood. Was not able to get it to lock up in any of the old ways. Ran it overnight, leaving it on the bench this afternoon.

Plan to take up the six-can Phelps-Dodge duplexer for the installation. Plan to put the MASTR-II on the air (147.15).

May have a work party to hook it all up next week.

Facility - non repeater:

Marr: ARRL News didn't play on last week's EmComm net. Dengler: It's an IRLP problem. Sometimes the con-figuration file is on the computer, sometimes it's not. If problem persists, have Hammock look into it. [Later determined that ARRL will not be producing news this summer. Will resume in the Fall].

Power shutdown scheduled for B180 6/15/13, 6 am to 6 pm. Will affect shack operations (IRLP, ampr.org). Need back up for the EmComm net.

Marr: Has traps repaired; need work party to put up the R7000.

Marr: Has talked to Tope about the club mailbox at La Canada post office. Will submit renewal soon.

12:30 Archer* departed the meeting - no longer have a quorum

Constitution/Bylaws: Marr: Waiting on the Liability Waiver issue to be resolved since it will likely require a constitution/bylaw change. [Latest update: Now resolved, as reported in the June VIO Calling.]

Internet: A coding issue is being worked.

Bulletin (VIO Calling): Marr: June issue in production now. Weber will summarize the JPL ham's survey.

EmComm:

ATS 120 antenna on EmComm van is missing. [After the BoD meeting, the antenna was found lying on the top of the

3 W6VIO Calling June 2013 CommVan. Moved it inside of the rear CommVan compart-ment].

Lux: Archer, Lux, Tarsala, and Marr are named as emer-gency contacts with JPL. This may have to do with Will Michael's total rewrite of the plan.

Field Day:

Mushagian offered to be added to the committee and was accepted. Suggests we start working on FD14 now -- get the site permit (Lightning Point Campground, ANF) in place.

Main Topic: Regular Meeting

Survey results: Strong preference for one hour, once a month, noontime meetings with technical talks.

Time and place: Noon on working Fridays. Proposed to give up one of the two monthly board meetings for that. Now that many activities are under way and com-mittees are beginning to run, one board meeting a month should be workable. 180-703C (this room) is already reserved (seats about 40). There will be issues with getting retirees and visitors on lab, but the previously used Visitor Center meeting room is too small (seats about 12). What about refreshments? At first, expect people to bring lunches (e.g. from 167 cafeteria).

Proposed General Club Meeting Agenda: 5 min. Introductions - new people 5 min. Summary of BoD results 5 min. For general membership votes 5 min. For announcements. 30 min. Feature talk / presentation 10 min. Discussion Discussion of Agenda: The Board suggested that normally only Introductions and Announcements would be needed (with any essen-tial BoD results folded into the announcements).

General votes might be special (i.e., not every time), and take longer when they occur. Do these case-by-case, maybe as the meeting program if needed.

Cesarone will approach Ray Juergens about giving his hotel-window-antenna talk (suggested by Weber) at the first meeting 6/21/13. Will let the program committee know early next week. [Ray wasn’t available for the 21st]. Many program ideas have been suggested. The program committee is Smith, with help from Marr. The Internet group needs to change the meeting location information on the three websites. (Website contacts are Kapell / Wood / Wiki (could be anybody) talk to McDuffy.) [Latest update: Done]

Smith and Marr will meet next week to discuss future program planning.

Cesarone suggested Webex or TinyChat for offlab partic-ipation.

The meeting ended at 12:59 p.m.

Regular Membership Meeting, July 19th By Jim Marr AA6QI The first JPLARC Regular membership meeting of 2013 (actually for a couple of years) was held from Noon to 1 PM in 180-703C, with fourteen hams in attendance. These were: Vaughn Cable K6ZTA, Bob Ceserone WA9JIB, Mike Ciminera WC6A, Bob Dengler NO6B, Courtney Duncan N5BF, Scott Howe KJ6OUL, Jim Marr AA6QI, Walt Mushagan K6DNS, Steve Noland WA6KLC, Rich Rebele WK3F, Leonard Reder KB6DVG, Rob Smith W6GRV, Mike Tope W4EF, Bill Weber N6CI. Following introductions, Jim Marr gave a Brief overview of the JPLARC status, followed by the feature talk by Courtney Duncan N5BF, Small satellites in amateur radio and at JPL. Both presentations are available upon request to Jim Marr, aa6qi@arrl.org. We hope to have a web site in the near future where Regular Meeting presentations will be posted so as to be available to all JPLARC members who were unable to make it to a meeting. The overview presentation provided a status update of all of the activities needed to restart the JPLARC that the BoD has been using to keep track of things that still need to be done, showing good progress. Next, the current committee membership was presented, as follows:

Education (members with VE credentials) Courtney Duncan, N5BF/6; Jim Marr, AA6QI; Jan Tarsala, WB6VR; Merv MacMedan, N6NO

Publicity/Membership Bill Weber, N6CI & Scott Nolte, K6SN

Repeater Bob Dengler, N06B; Scott Howe, KJ6OUL; Jim Lux, W6RMK; Jan Tarsala, WB6VRN; Bill Wood, W6FXJ; Randy Hammock, KC6HUR; Chris Carson, KE6ABQ

Station Facility (non-repeater) Eric Archer, N6CV, W6JPL; Rob Smith, W6GRV, W6VIO; & Jan Tarsala, WB6VRN as NASA Net Liaison; Mike Tope, W4EF as Government-Owned Property Custodian

Constitution/Bylaws: Courtney Duncan, N5BF/6; Bob Dengler, NO6B; and Jim Marr, AA6QI

Internet Services: Bob Dengler/NO6B, Randy Hammock/KC6HUR, Jim Lux/W6RMK, Scott Nolte/K6SN, Bill Wood/W6FXJ

4 W6VIO Calling June 2013

Meeting Program Committee Rob Smith/W6GRV (chair), Jim Marr/AA6QI

Club Bulletin (VIO Calling) Committee Courtney Duncan, N5BF/6; Bill Wood/W6FXJ; and Jim Marr/AA6QI

EmComm/JEARS Committee Eric Archer/N6CV, Chris Carson/KE6ABQ, Will Michael/KC6LOK and Rob Smith/W6GRV

Field Day Committee Derek Lewis, AA8YP; Bill Weber, N6CI; Eric Archer, N6CV; Rob Smith, W6GRV; Walt Mushagian, K6DNS

Finally, an overview of JPLARC facilities and the http://jplarc.ampr.org web site was provided. Courtney Duncan’s Small Satellites in Amateur Radio and at JPL talk touched on a number of topics, as follows:

• Small Satellite Terminology • CubeSats • History of small satellites, including Ham satel-

lites • What’s happening with small satellites at JPL to-

day • How small satellites communicate and navigate • Spectrum use by small satellites

147.15 Repeater Back On The Air! By Eric Archer N6CV With special thanks to Jan Tarsala WB6VRN and Jim Lux W6RMK the JPLARC 147.15 repeater system is back on the air. This is the new Kenwood NXR-710 with a Crescend 100W power amplifier placed in the new Bldg 35A equipment shelter on the JPL Mesa. We have a tem-porary 4-element, vertically-polarized yagi pointed to the SE so coverage will definitely be skewed towards Pasadena and should be good all of the way down to South Orange County. Coverage is still good off the backside of the antenna into La Crescenta and La Canada. We are running about 75-80 Watts into the antenna.

PL for the machine is either 100.0 Hz (PL-1Z) or Digital Coded Squelch (DCS) 365 (if you have it on your radio), and input offset is +600 KHz. Feel free to give the repeater a test drive. For an explanation of DCS see http://onfreq.com/syntorx/dcs.html.

Note: There is still a bug in the NXR-710’s time-out timer algorithm that makes its operation somewhat unpredict-able. The courtesy tone may NOT indicate that the time-out timer has been reset. Waiting until the carrier drops, though, does seem to reset the timer. This bug will be fixed but not immediately. For the time being, just be aware of this behavior and don’t be surprised if you or others time the machine out occasionally.

Equipment enclosure 35A on the JPL Mesa, which houses the 147.15 repeater (and will house the 224.70 and a 440MHz repeater in the future).

The 147.15 repeater installation in equipment enclosure 35A on the JPL Mesa.

5 W6VIO Calling June 2013

Wilderness Protocol By Jim Marr AA6QI

With the summer vacation season upon us, some of us may find ourselves visiting the backcountry with the ability to observe the Wilderness Protocol.

The Wilderness Protocol (see page 101, August 1995 QST) calls for hams in the wilderness to announce their presence on, and to monitor, the national calling frequencies for five minutes beginning at the top of the hour, every three hours from 7 AM to 7 PM while in the wilderness. A ham in a remote location may be able to relay emergency information through another wilderness ham who has better access to a repeater. National calling frequencies are: 52.525, 146.52, 223.50, 446.00, 1294.50 MHz.

Upcoming Meetings By Jim Marr AA6QI

All JPLARC meetings are being held on Friday’s from Noon to 1 PM in 180-703C for the time being. Call in is via MeetingPlace 818-343-3434 with ID 7373. Slides will be broadcast via http://meetingplace.jpl.nasa.gov also with ID 7373.

July JPLARC BoD Meeting: There wasn’t a July JPLARC BoD meeting due to the 4th of July holiday.

July JPLARC Regular Meeting: Friday July 19th. This meeting will begin the discussion of one of the big winners from the JPL Ham survey (see last months VIO Calling for the survey results) -- Emergency Communications, with a talk by Will Michael from JPL Security Operations on the proposed JPL Emergency Amateur Radio Service, or JEARS. This is a service in which all JPL hams are implicitly members, regardless of their level of participation. Come hear about how your involvement in JEARS can help you and JPL be better prepared for circumstances that might require action from JPL hams.

August JPLARC BoD Meeting: Friday August 2nd.

August JPLARC Regular Meeting: Friday August 16th. Our guest speaker, Bob Dengler NO6B, will address another big winner from the JPL Hams survey (see the June issue of VIO Calling for the survey results) -- JPL Repeaters. Bob’s talk will discuss: Intro to repeaters; Specific goals/purposes of the JPLARC repeaters; History; Overview with block diagram; Details of the Cerro Negro, Mesa, TMO and City of Industry sites; Summary of features (JPL>TMO link, ILRP, Echolink); Future Plans; and finally, A discussion about repeater Frequency Coordination in Southern CA.