Friday, February 27, 2015

"Frozen Lakes on the Air" expedition (FLOTA)


KD2ETP; Steve is doing his “frozen lakes on the air expedition”; FLOTA, at Onondaga Lake this Saturday 2/28/15. Catch him on his HT on the KD2SL 146.67 repeater for details. See his planned times and HF frequencies listed below:

 - this will be my band plan for my frozen lakes on the air expedition this weekend. I will plan to get on the ice and set up between 10-11 am Saturday morning.

40m 7.285 (7210 at 3:10pm)
20m14.285
17m 18.115
10m 28.885


Starting at 11am and one hour on each of those frequencies will also have a HT and be monitoring 146.67 while out on the ice. Running QRP on my KX3 and a Buddipole antenna.

(UPDATED with a some pictures fresh from KD2ETP, N2DOW and WO2R)

Please give me a call!

Steve; KD2ETP


Monday, February 23, 2015

WN8Z with A Fusion demo at this weeks QCWA meeting


Image result for yaesu fusion picsAt the February QCWA meeting this Friday 2/27/15, WN8Z; Pat will be conducting a demonstration of his Yaesu Fusion Digital radios. Fusion is coming to several repeaters in CNY this spring. Come learn from one of the areas pioneers of Digital Voice.

The Quarter Century Wireless Asssociation (QCWA) meetings are held the last Friday of each month; 11:30 am at the Denny's Restaurant on South Bay Rd (corner of Lawrence Ave) in North Syracuse (near the Syracuse Airport). QCWA meetings are open to the public.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Check out this interesting web site!

Over the last several weeks I have had a few conversations with other Hams about how to share information with newer Hams or Hams just returning to the hobby after an absence of years. What is the best coax to use? Which connectors solder or crimp-on? How are you grounding your radio?

One of the most useful web sites that I have found for sound technical amateur radio advice is K0BG.com (link:http://www.k0bg.com/). I find myself going back to this site quite often. K0BG; Allen Applegate has done a very nice job pulling together a large amount of very detailed information.

Quoting Allen; "With safety as a byword, there are articles on amplifiers, antennas, bonding, impedance matching, installing hardware, mobile equipment, noise and RFI abatement, wiring, and much more. The suggestions contained on his web site are based on a best foot forward approach, from my experience". The site is well laid out and very easy to navigate.

There are several dozen topics down the left side of the page.
Some of my favorites are:
- Coax annd PL-259 connectors: http://www.k0bg.com/coax.html
- Grounds, RF & D.C.: http://www.k0bg.com/ground.html
- Installation Noteshttp://www.k0bg.com/install.html
- Tricks of the tradehttp://www.k0bg.com/tricks.html

....just to name a few! Check it out. I don't think you can go wrong spending a few minutes on this site.

Another source of useful Amateur Radio information is the LARC Bootcamp training series on the 4th Thursday of each month prior to their regular club meetings. Learn more at:
http://www.liverpoolamateurrepeaterclub.org/index.php

And don't be afraid to ask for help! ......and to the more experienced, don't be afraid to share some of that knowledge you have gathered through Amateur Radio. That's part of what makes this hobby great; sharing your experience with others.


Wednesday, February 18, 2015

The Rochester VHF Group

Are you interested in FM DXing and the world above 30 Mhz? The Rochester VHF Group has Monday and Thursday evening nets on both 2M and 6M. We have mentioned them on this site once before, but we heard some folks talking about this group and thought we should get out a link to their web site. The Rochester VHF Group is the oldest continuously operating amateur organization dedicated to VHF and above activities. Be sure to learn more about this group at the address listed below.
Image result for vhf rover pictures
The group meets twice a week on the air for an open net. Why not give them a listen, better yet a check-in?

144.260 Mhz SSB on Monday's at 9pm 

50.200 Mhz SSB on Thursday's at 9pm

Learn more about the group at:http://www.rvhfg.org/

Friday, February 6, 2015

Learn more about System Fusion



There is quite a bit of discussion of Digital Voice (DV) modes on the local repeaters lately, especially System Fusion. There are several Fusion repeaters in the works here in Upstate NY and all are expected to be on-line before this summer. We found some helpful information from a club that was part of Yaesu’s Beta program and thought that we would share it on UpstateHam.com. The Yaesu System Fusions FAQ's can be found at the link below.

See our Digital Voice for Amateur Radio page at: http://www.upstateham.com/p/digital-voice-for-amateur-use-discuss.html
(then scroll down the page to the "Yaesu System Fusions FAQ's")


Drumlins Hamfest, April 18th, 2015


We just revived the Drumlins 2015 Hamfest poster. This is always a very good Hamfest, so put it on your calendar!
More information at : http://www.drumlinsarc.org/hamfest.htm