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`
ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
1
The Chawed Rag
K5RWK EVENTS
Meeting-on-the-Air
First Monday of every month, 7:30 PM
RWK Repeater, 2 Meter
147.120 (PL 110.9 Hz)
Monthly Meeting
Second Monday each month, 6:30 PM
St. Barnabas Presbyterian Church
1220 W. Belt Line Road, Richardson
Next Meeting Program:
The Outernet
with: KR1ZAN
Monthly Breakfast Third Saturday each month, 8:00 AM
Southern Recipes Grill
621 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 229, Plano, TX
RACES Nets & Siren Test
See website for this month’s program information and calendar for latest
updates.
www.k5rwk.org
VHF repeater: 147.120 (PL 110.9 Hz)
UHF repeater: 444.725 (PL 110.9 Hz)
Wires X active 100%
Ham radio license exams
Every 3rd Thursday of the month at
7:00 P.M.
St. Barnabas Presbyterian Church
In this Issue:
• Presidents Corner …………………………………2
• HELLO, TESTING, TESTING …………………….4
• New Members Welcome! …………………….4
• Ham of the Month ………………………………..6
• DIY Frequency Counter …………………………….7
• Other Matters ………………………………………….11
HELLO, TESTING, TESTING Bill Owens AD5EW
Our Beginning
As with so many things we do in life, we stand on the shoulders of those
who have come before us. And this is true with the RWK Volunteer
Examiner (VE) Program. Dick Morgan, K6RAH, Dave Russell,
W2DMR, and Don Bowen, K5LHO, were our VE founding fathers, so to
speak.
It all started when Dick, our President in 2012, asked Dave to look into
what it would take to implement the ARRL VE testing sessions and to let
the Board of Directors know if a licensing program would be beneficial
for our Klub.
Dave quickly added Don to the discovery mission, and soon both were
attending several local clubs but especially the Garland VE Team. Janet
Crenshaw, WB9ZPH could not have been more helpful. She and her team
were happy to show Dave and Don the ropes.
Dave and Don concluded that RWK and our namesake City, Richardson,
would benefit from incorporating an amateur radio license testing
program in the Klub’s menu of ham radio activity offerings.
The Heavy Lifting
Dave and Don learned the policies of the ARRL VE program, created
forms and procedures, and recruited an all new VE’s who already were
accredited or were willing to become accredited in short order.
As if that were not enough, they had to locate a place to hold the sessions.
In typical fashion, a large number of RWK members took the Volunteer
Examiner, open book test. These new examiners, together with a couple
– See Testing Page 4 –
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ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
2
2018 Officers & Executive
Committee Members
OFFICERS & APPOINTEES
President: John Di Filippo, AF5MN, [email protected]
Vice President/Programs: Mark Beebe, K5YOL, [email protected]
Treasurer: Danny Siminiuk, K5CG, [email protected]
Secretary: Scott Greeson, KG5MKC, [email protected]
Appointee #1: Andrew Koenig, KE5GDB
Appointee #2: Jon Suehiro, NN5T
Past President: Grant Laughlin, W5XJ
DIRECTORS
Website: Bill Reed, NX5R
Repeater Trustee: Bob Coelln, KG5JL
Storm Siren: Don Bowen, K5LHO
VE Testing: Bill Owens, AD5EW
Mentoring: Dave Russel, W2DMR
EMERITUS DIRECTORS
Doug Kilgore, KD5OUG
Hal Wolff, N5BT
The Chawed Rag is the official publication of The Richardson Wireless Klub, Inc. You may reproduce any material contained herein unless otherwise noted, with attribution to original author(s), and The Richardson Wireless Klub, Inc. Please send us a complimentary copy.
Klub membership is open to all persons interested in amateur radio. Join at any meeting, by mail or on-line via www.hamclubonline.com - Annual dues are $15 individual, $20 family, or $5 student rate.
Archives of The Chawed Rag are available online at: http://k5rwk.org/rwk01/index.php/rwk-documents/rwk-newsletters.
April 2018 RWK President’s Corner
It was a relatively calm month of
March. The most notable area event
was the always great IARC Hamfest
at the Betcha Bingo Hall in Irving.
This hamfest is a great venue for
shuffling excess ham gear among
various members of the local
amateur radio community. You can
appropriately describe me with the
idiom “one man’s junk is another man’s vintage
electronics” because I managed to lighten the load of a few
sellers at the event. I was also happy to see lots of other
RWK members there enjoying the company of others that
share our common passion for the hobby.
The March meeting presentation, by our very own Dave
Russell W2DMR, was on antenna analyzers. Judging by the
questions, the presentation was very well received by the
attendees. Dave covered both theory and practice with an
emphasis on helping users make an informed purchase
based on desired features. Bob Coelln KG5JL also showed
us his home-brew Arduino-based antenna analyzer based
on the article in the November 2017 QST issue.
Mark Beebe K5YOL is our VP responsible for scheduling
the programs for the general meetings. He has been very
busy lining up some truly outstanding programs for the
coming months. As you may have already read on the
website, Frank Krizan KR1ZAN will be presenting on the
Outernet Project at the April meeting. This is a satellite-
based form of data-casting that provides various media
content to the far reaches of the globe.
In May, Carl Solomon W5SU will be preparing us for Ham-
Com by giving us some pointers on what to look for in used
ham gear if we’re thinking of making an acquisition at the
event. FT8 Mode is the latest bright shiny object in the
amateur radio digital world and Dick Morgan K6RAH will
be bringing us all up to speed on that topic in the June
meeting. Mark has also lined-up John Padgett, from
PhaseCom, for the July meeting to give us a tutorial on
Lightning Protection/Grounding. For the August meeting,
Bill Brady KF5ZBL and David Cappello KG5EIU will be
President’s Corner
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ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
3
making their much-vaunted presentation on
Digital Voice Hotspots.
The Klub is also about to shift into high-gear
in preparation for this summer’s Field Day
event on June 23-24. The City of Richardson
has graciously offered the use of the EOC
again this year. We were happy to accept their
generous offer. Reserve the weekend and
watch the website, Facebook page, and your
email for details.
At the April Board of Directors meeting we
also discussed lots of exciting possibilities for
our Klub repeaters. So stay tuned for
announcements in the coming months as we
roll-out new features and capabilities.
On a personal note, I finally got a new HF
antenna back up after my old, home-brewed
dipole got ripped out of a tree during a storm.
My new antenna is a store-bought all-band 80-
6M MFJ-1777 Doublet. I also have an LDG
RT-100 remote tuner but I haven’t
permanently installed it on my chimney yet.
I’m really looking forward to getting back on
the air after more than a year offline.
73 de,
John Di Filippo / AF5MN
Amateur radio needs
younger hams to get on.
Help promote radio to scouts in your area. To
learn more check out these radio scouting sites:
www.k2bsa.net – national site
http://circleten.org/circle-ten-radio - local BSA site
for radio scouting in Richardson
RWK Wednesday
"Hungry Hams" Lunch
The RWK lunch bunch meets each Wednesday at
noon at Sonny Bryan's BBQ on West Campbell
Rd. two blocks East of Coit Rd. All are invited to
enjoy the benefit of a lot of "eyeball QSOs."
NOTE: On the first Wednesday of the month,
RWK helps the City of Richardson conduct siren
tests, so lunch is delayed until around 12:30 P.M.
If you go often, you should get your "frequent
customer" card. If you don't yet have one, get one,
for a free sandwich and cobbler after 10
purchases of any kind. Of course, members of
other ham clubs and guests are very welcome to
join in the fun and fellowship.
`
ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
4
Testing Continued from Page 1
of others from the WB9ZPH VE Team, held the
first RWK VE session on May 5th, 2012 at the
Richardson Senior Center.
In October of 2012, the VE session was moved
to St. Barnabas Presbyterian Church and the day
and time was changed to every third Thursday of
each month at 7PM. The VE session still meets
at that time.
Dave continued to manage our VE program until
July 18th 2013 when he wanted to pursue other
interests, one of which is the Elmer/Mentoring
program for RWK.
The Next Chapter
On July 18th, 2013, Bill Owens, AD5EW,
assumed the VE Liaison and Session Manager
position for RWK.
The license testing program has continued to
flourish, since its inception we have administered
424 individual tests to 324 candidates, and our
VE’s have worked over 1500 hours of volunteer
time.
The “secret sauce” of our success is due to our
VE’s and their helpful and friendly attitude. We
all want to see each candidate succeed. To
accomplish that, we strive to offer a relaxed, quiet,
and non-hurried atmosphere. Remember, all of the
VE’s are hams and we all have had our own
experiences when we took our tests. We want each
person to have the best chance of getting that new
ticket or upgrade. The candidate has worked hard
learning the material, we don’t want to add to
those common jitters of taking a test.
As much time and work as it takes to pull off a
great testing program, we do this because we
derive pleasure from seeing a new ham or
currently licensed ham, upgrade. It is such a great
feeling seeing the smile on someone’s face after
they have passed the exam. It is great knowing we
had a part in their achievement.
Here are the VE’s who have administered exams
since January 2017 through February 2018.
Welcome New Members!
Kib Reed
Larry D Hoffman KG5UWF
Andrea Hoffman KG5UWE
David R Hartwig KG5YXA
LEJO JOSE KG5YXY
Register on-line now!
Smile.Amazon.com is the website to use when making purchases on Amazon! Once you subscribe to smile.amazon.com, Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases to The Richardson Wireless Klub! Sweet!
Amazon paid RWK $120 for the Year 2017! Nice Job to all!
Click this quick link to register on smile.amazon.com
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ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
5
Bill Owens-AD5EW, Bill Werner-AE5FM, Dave Russell-W2DMR, Dick Morgan-K6RAH, Don
Klick-KG5CK, John Di Filippo-AF5MN, JF Bedard-WB5JF, Don Bowen-K5LHO, Grant Laughlin-
W5XJ, Jim McCasland-KC5BZY, Dave Mehrl-AF5DM, and Bill Richards-KM5VZ.
VE’s not pictured are: Katherine Blankenburg-KB8DAA, Nolan Kienitz-KI5IO, Leonard Pruitt-
KG5DNO, Philip Rains-KG5DDZ, Dwight Ramsey-KE5SAS, and Allen Yoder-NG5Y.
Don Bowen K5LHO, was also presented with a
special RWK VE HIGH FREQUENCY AWARD
for his outstanding record of making 67 out of a
total possible 68 VE Sessions. The plaque Don
received not only points out Don’s high
frequency of participation, but incorporates the
tag line “steady as a rock since 2012” and is
depicted with a large crystal which is often
referred to as a “rock”. As if Don is not busy
enough, Don often helps the Garland based
WB9ZPH VE Group.
The Richardson Wireless Klub holds license exam
sessions on the third Thursday evening each month,
starting at 7:00 P.M. We have an excellent group and
the numbers that sit for tests is growing each month.
Know someone who might like to become a ham?
Please tell him/her about the RWK VE program. Our
VE testing project also has produced quite a few new
RWK members. We're anxious to help new hams
learn and enjoy!
Interested in helping with VE testing?
An open book orientation exam for Volunteer
Examiners is all it takes to receive ARRL accreditation.
If you are a General, Advanced, or Extra Class, why
not get your accreditation?
For more information, contact Bill Owens at
972.380.2859 or email [email protected].
`
ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
6
Ham of the Month
Scott Greeson, KG5MKC
Where were you born or where did you grow
up? Born in Dallas, 5th generation Texan! I spent
most of my life in Texas but my father was in the
Air Force. As an "Air Force Brat" I spent time
oversees in both England and Spain only to come
back to my home state but a little further south
(San Antonio). What age were you when you first got
interested in ham radio? Seriously interested
when I was 35.
Who got you interested in ham
radio? Hurricane Katrina. I was in Louisiana at
the time in emergency management. I saw first
hand the great benefit of what others had called
antiquated technology. That “antiquated
technology” saved a lot of lives and provided a lot
of benefit for response and recovery efforts while
we saw numerous failures of "modern
technology". I was sold so to speak. I made a
point to work with our HAM operators via
RACES, ARES or just HAM Operators
independently from that day on. There is a lot of
know how in this field and a lot of passion. When did you get licensed? Although I had
interest for numerous years it took me until
2016. I received some needed prodding from my
Elmer Kevin Sims, and my RACES Officer Roger
Stierman, to finally take my classes and pass my
test. It was a great day when that happened.
Why did you join The RWK? Many of the
City's RACES members are proud members of
RWK. They told me of the great camaraderie of
the club and the opportunity to learn. It seemed
like a natural choice to make. I have enjoyed several presentations most recently the Collins
presentation since joining.
Please tell a friend about us, come take your
upgrade from us, or if you would like to be a
VE, give me a call at 972-380-2859 and I will
make sure you get what you need to become
one. It is easy!
I hope to hear you on the air and/or see you
soon!
73,
Bill Owens, AD5EW
VE Liaison/Session Manager
RWK Siren Testing Services
The City of Richardson tests emergency
sirens on first Wednesdays, at noon
(weather permitting). We do not conduct
the test if the weather looks threatening,
to avoid confusing residents. Hams
assist each month by going to a
designated siren, checking into the net
on 147.120 MHz, watching and listening
to the performance of the siren, then
reporting on the net. Most sirens have
an assigned ham, but there often are
unassigned sirens. New hams are
welcome to participate and learn!
Please contact Don Bowen K5LHO,
972-235-3063,
if you can help with siren tests.
Have You Got What It Takes to have
the Shack of the Month?
Email me with a picture and
some history behind your
equipment!
`
ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
7
Simple Arduino-based Frequency Counter
by John Di Filippo - AF5MN
I acquired an old but working 2MHz function
generator from a ham at the Main Trading
Company Ham Radio Day in Paris, TX a couple
of years ago. It worked great, but the frequency
setting potentiometer covered a decade and was
difficult to set with any degree of precision
without the aid of an oscilloscope or external
frequency counter. I thought a simple digital
frequency display would make a nice addition to
an otherwise great piece of test equipment.
Briefly I contemplated my buy versus build
options and then made my decision.
For me, the lure of electronics is primarily hands-
on experimentation and building. To quote
National Semiconductor analog designer Robert
Pease, “my favorite programming language is
solder.” Within reason I’d much rather build it
myself and maybe learn something along the way
than buy an off-the-shelf product.
When I have a specific project in mind I usually
start by googling to see if someone else has
already done the heavy lifting. Sometimes I find
a website or YouTube video with exactly what
I’m looking for and other times I find something
close but must “tweak” it slightly to meet my
specific needs. Very rarely do I find that I need to
start completely from scratch.
Once I’m satisfied that I’ve got a solid design, I
collect the parts, breakout the breadboard and get
to work. Sometimes, but not very often, the
project might eventually migrate from the
breadboard to a permanent, stand-alone
enclosure.
I’ve always been open to better ways of doing
things and that is why I was so intrigued when I
saw Brady Pamplin’s (W5LH) presentation
“What is Arduino?” at the March-2014 meeting.
It seemed from Brady’s presentation that the
Arduino’s breadboard-friendly digital and analog
I/Os, along with the user-friendly Integrated
Development Environment (IDE), had a lot to
offer to the experimenter.
I typed “arduino frequency counter” into the
YouTube search bar and the very first video that
popped up was “Super simple Arduino
Frequency Counter” from a YouTube Channel
called learnelectronics. The channel is run by an
amateur radio operator named Paul and contains
446 videos about electronics, Arduino, Raspberry
Pi, 3D printing, and ham radio.
What caught my attention was the video’s
description that said this was the easiest and
smallest frequency counter the author could come
up with. It just used two components; an Arduino
Nano and a cool little OLED display about the
size of a postage stamp.
Refer to the schematic in Figure 1 to see just how
simple this circuit actually is. Besides PWR
(+5V) and GND, the OLED display only needs
two jumpers to talk to the Nano. The serial clock
pin (SCL) on the OLED display connects to pin
A5 on the Arduino, and the serial data pin (SDA)
on the OLED display connects to pin A4 on the
Arduino. The input is on digital pin D5.
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ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
8
Figure 1. The Complete Frequency Counter
Schematic!
You can get Arduino boards locally at Tanner
Electronics, Fry’s, or Microcenter. Additionally,
you can order them online at Amazon, eBay,
Adafruit, sparkfun, Element14, or many others.
The OLED display is a little harder to come by
locally, so I ordered it and the Nano board from
Amazon.
The OLED display was $7.49 and the Arduino
Nano was $3.95. I know you can find both
cheaper on eBay if you’re willing to wait, but by
ordering from Amazon I had them in two days. I
already had the breadboard and jumper wires as
well as a USB cable with a mini-USB connector
(not a micro-USB connector like your Android
smartphone).
Note that there are two different flavors of OLED
displays. For this project you’ll want to get the
one with the two-pin serial Inter-Integrated
Circuit (I²C or IIC or I2C) interface. Not the one
with the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) which
requires four or five pins to talk to the Arduino.
See the Resources section at the end of the article
for a link to the version that I used.
With all the hardware in hand, I proceeded with
implementation. I clicked on the source-code
URL (https://pastebin.com/G6x7tsge) and
cut/pasted the code into a blank sketch in the IDE.
The sketch itself is surprisingly small. That’s
because it relies on additional libraries to handle
the low-level tasks of serial communications,
OLED display control, and frequency counting.
So in addition to the sketch, you’ll need to
download and install the following libraries to the
IDE: Wire.h, FreqCount.h, and
Adafruit_SSD1306.h
Once everything was properly installed I hit the
upload button and voila – it didn’t work! After
more googling I finally determined that the
original sketch was missing one additional library
for the OLED display. I don’t know how Paul got
his original sketch to upload but I had to
download and install the library Adafruit_GFX.h
to the IDE and then edit the library calls section
of the sketch to include it. Once that was done I
once again hit the upload button and voila – this
time it worked!
Figure 2. Arduino Nano and OLED display hooked-
up on my bench and running the original sketch
The first thing you notice in Figure 2 is that the
original sketch uses a small font and displays two
digits behind the decimal point that always read
00. It also displayed the period but only down to
0.01ms which was fine for audio frequencies but
not that useful above 100KHz. For a close-up of
the display see Figure 3.
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ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
9
Figure 3. Close-up of OLED Display using
display.setTextSize(1)
I didn’t really care about displaying the waveform
period or fractions of a Hz and the tiny font size
was kind of a bummer. After more googling I
found out how to enlarge the OLED display font
size. display.setTextSize(1) is the small font and
is what Paul used in his original sketch.
display.setTextSize(2) doubles the character size
which seemed better for my eyes. So I edited the
sketch to use display.setTextSize(2) and re-
uploaded it. The result is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Close-up of OLED Display using
display.setTextSize(2)
I have another laboratory-grade function
generator, a Wavetek model 288, that I know is
very precise up to 20MHz. After playing with the
frequency counter for a while, I noticed that it
didn’t match that closely to the Wavetek or to the
frequency counter built into my oscilloscope. The
Arduino-based frequency counter always read
slightly low with a consistent error of over
2200ppm. I’m not sure what caused this problem.
Perhaps my particular Arduino Nano had a cheap
crystal or ceramic resonator or maybe there was a
problem in the FreqCount.h library. Whatever the
cause I wanted to improve the accuracy if
possible.
After characterizing the Arduino-based frequency
counter (see Table 1) I determined that a
correction factor of 2290ppm was needed, so that
it matched the more accurate signal generator and
the oscilloscope. To implement this, I simply
added a multiplier to the final display.print
statement which improved the accuracy to within
a few ppm.
Wavetek
(kHz)
Arduino
(Hz)
Error
(Hz)
Error
(%)
5 4,988.5 11.5 0.230000
10 9,976.5 23.5 0.235000
50 49,881.5 118.5 0.237000
100 99,763.5 236.5 0.236500
500 498,818.5 1,181.5 0.236300
1,000 997,633.5 2,366.5 0.236650
2,000 1,995,393.5 4,606.5 0.230325
Table 1. Comparison of actual versus displayed
frequencies.
For my last edit I wanted to get rid of the numbers
behind the decimal point. After more googling I
found a round function could be added to the
display.print statement to accomplish this.
To summarize, the major changes I made to the
original sketch are as follows:
#include <Adafruit_GFX.h> and,
display.setTextSize(2); and,
display.print(round(count*1.00229));
Figure 5 shows what the display looked like
after the three edits above were incorporated into
the sketch. Notice that the driving frequency in
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ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
10
this case was 1MHz. Note that it is now within
4Hz (4ppm) of an exact match with the Wavetek
model 288 function generator.
Figure 5. Readout of 1MHz signal after edits to
sketch. Compare the display’s readability to Figure 2.
Final thoughts:
You need a relatively high voltage swing on the
Arduino’s digital inputs for it to recognize valid
H-L and L-H transitions. That’s due to a couple
of factors.
• The specification for a USB 2.0 supply
is 5V (+0.25 / -0.6). That means if you
power your Arduino from a USB 2.0
port its supply can be as low as 4.4V or
as high as 5.25V and still be within spec.
• The maximum specification for a low on
an Arduino digital input is 0.3*VCC or
0.3*4.4V = 1.32V and the minimum
specification for a high on an Arduino
digital input is 0.6*VCC or 0.6*5.25V =
3.15V. To guarantee that the Arduino
sees valid logic levels, it must be driven
on its digital inputs, by a signal that is
greater than 1.83V, and that crosses both
of those thresholds.
• For my application this is not a problem
since the function generator has a TTL
level sync output that can drive the Nano
perfectly well. But for other applications
where signal levels in the tens of
millivolts range may need to be
measured, then some sort of pre-
amplifier will be needed.
I also observed that the Arduino-based frequency
counter could not measure frequencies above
7MHz. I think this is because the ATmega328P
uC is only running at 16MHz, and therefore
cannot sample the input fast enough for accurate
readings above 7MHz. This again isn’t a problem
in my case, since my function generator only goes
up to 2MHz but for higher frequency applications
a pre-scaler may be needed.
I wanted to add commas every third digit to
designate thousands, millions, billions, etc. but
apparently there is no easy built-in command to
do this. I didn’t want to write a bunch of
additional code just to handle that formatting.
It was at this point that I decided to declare
victory on this project. Unfortunately, at least so
far, the frequency counter has not yet made it off
the breadboard and into that elusive permanent
enclosure. But it was great fun doing something
so useful in such a simple and elegant way.
Thanks again goes to Brady Pamplin for
introducing Arduino to the Klub back in 2014 and
to Paul and his learnelectronics YouTube channel
for the inspiration for this project.
Resources:
Arduino Nano V3.0, 3 for $11.86 which is ~$3.95
each, http://a.co/3K5vQiS
Some soldering is required to attach pins to the board
4-pin I2C 128X64 White OLED Display, $7.49 ea.,
http://a.co/0NRi2jr
learnelectronics main YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSRTiJhBE5Gs
P-1fCbpFRWg
“Super Simple Arduino Frequency Counter” video:
https://youtu.be/jCkrgSbVNBs
The original sketch:
https://pastebin.com/G6x7tsge
My modified sketch:
https://cloud.k5rwk.org/index.php/s/SiapGvfy19686Y
c
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ARRL Affiliated Club Since 1952
11
Other Matters ARRL "The Doctor is in" podcasts
available on-line so check it out!!!!
"The Doctor is in" podcasts with ARRL's
Joel Hallas W1ZR are now available on
InetRadio. They are located under "Talk" in
the "Amateur Radio" category. Selecting the
Blue Info button in the menu listing will let
you set it to AutoPlay, so new episodes
automatically play when they are posted.
InetRadio is a free app for iOS and Android,
giving the user complete control of what they
listen to...music, news, podcasts and more. A
player is available for desktops and laptops.
Other ham-related podcasts are also available
on the same InetRadio site. To try a podcast,
click on: http://www.inetradio.com.
Letters to the Editor
Want to make your voice heard? Write a
letter to the editor. It is a simple and
democratic method. Please be sure to follow
these criteria:
• Be courteous
• Stick to the facts
• Be concise (50 – 150 words)
• All letters must be signed
The editor reserves the right to select which
letters are published. The editor may also
require revisions or removal of parts that do
not meet the above criteria or for content
deemed inappropriate by the editor. This is
the same rigor that the rest of the newsletter
is subjected to.
A lending library like no other! Here is a
sampling of the things your Klub has to lend
to members. Simply contact a board
member to arrange it.
• Kenwood TS-590SG (include the
RadioSPort headset and power supply)
• Kenwood TS-440S/AT (includes a Heil
ProSet Headset and power supply)
• Kenwood TS-430S (includes a Koss SB-
40 headset and power supply)
• Powerwerx 12 volt supply
• SDRPlay Receiver
• Rig Expert AA-30 Antenna Analyzer
• Radiosport Comm Headset
• LDG 100 Antenna Tuner
• LDG 1000 Antenna Tuner
• Balun Designs Baluns
Write an article for the Chawed Rag
We're always on the lookout for ham radio-
related articles by our members. You choose
the topic and simply draft your article. You
don’t need to be a writer as I will help you
with the process from start to great article!
You might describe your most memorable
QSO, or put together a technical description
of an antenna design that you have used
successfully. Tell other members the ham
activities that most interest you and tell why
you find those aspects so compelling. Your
article can be as short as three or four
paragraphs, or as long as a page...or two.
Remember that pictures are a plus!
Send ideas and feedback to Joey, KG5MKQ
Note that articles must be submitted as .doc,
.docx, .odt, or inline in an email. Thanks!