SEKARC Meeting Sept 28th 9AM

We would like to invite you to the next meeting for the Southeast Kansas Amateur Radio Club! It will be Saturday September 28th at 9am and we will meet in the Pittsburg Fire Station#1 at 911 W. 4th in Pittsburg KS.

 

We will have the usual breakfast casserole, donuts, coffee and bottled water. We will meet and greet for a few minutes, enjoy breakfast then get our meeting underway. We have a lot to discuss as we move towards the end of 2024 and a new year and fresh start in 2025! Let's talk about your ideas for reviving interest and activities in 2025. We can discuss things like maybe having an area wide tail-gater in the spring, The annual Christmas dinner at Barto's, Field Days (Winter and Summer), radio operating outings... and build projects.

We will also be having a special drawing for those in attendance... the club has purchased a $50 gift certificate from HAM CRAZY for some cool HAM accessories for your shack or vehicle. All that attend will get a ticket to win the prize drawing. So mark your calendar, or tell SIRI, or HEY GOOGLE it or write in marker on your hand but we'd love to see a great turnout.

FIELD DAY 2023 SUMMARY

Well the SEKARC Field Day 2023 was a success! The location of the Crawford County Historical Museum worked out very well. So well that we told them that we are planning on this site for our 2024 Field Day as well. We gave a donation to their cause for the use of the facility and they appreciated having us. One of the things I learned is that we need to provide the museum lobby with an informational display about what we are doing in hopes to inform their visitors.

A morning thunderstorm delayed our setup but we were pretty much ready to go by start time. But it sure did add to the humidity level Saturday! WOW it was hot! Our trademark extension ladder antenna went up well and gets easier each time. Tyler mentioned on the net that we might want to make a mono band antenna built specifically for 20 as that seems to be the busiest band all day AND night on Field Day. We also raised a multi band dipole that seemed to have some issues with the signal getting out but seemed to receive well. Lot's of learning for us this time around.

Late Saturday we were not planning on staying over night to operate but about 10:30pm the air conditioning went out in the trailer which solidified the decision to not operate all night. We shut things down, moved the generator back to it's secure location for the night and came back the next morning. Back on the air about 6am and making lots of contacts. Weather was a lot better Sunday. Warm but a nice breeze and the humidity was much lower. We stopped at 1pm and the results are below.

Thanks to all that we able to contribute with their time and skills... special thanks to Tyler and Justin for what may be the best privately owned emergency communications trailer in the Midwest. Excellent work and we are planning on having a club meeting soon centered on the trailer. We are also as a club considering making a donation to the trailer equipment by purchasing a mini pc running about $350 so both stations in the trailer can have it's own pc to process with. If you as a club member want us to hold off and reconsider that donation then let us/me know. 

Here are the details from the Field Day Log Reporting! THANKS to all that helped.. let's make next year even BETTER. I am working on a slide show of photos from the event so stay tuned for that in the next day or so.

 

 

Field Day 2023 RSVP !!!

Please complete form below completely !!

Please submit your information so we can get some counts for operators, food and setup/takedown help at the Field Day 2023 site. It is at the Crawford County Historical Museum near 20th and the Bypass in Pittsburg. This should be a really great site for Field Day and we hope to have one our best ever. If you have any questions please email the group and we will get the answers! 

Click the text below for map if you are not familiar with where it is!

CLICK HERE for GOOGLE MAP

Field Day 2020 - Covid Version

This is a great video for everyone regarding Ham Radio Field Day 2020. It covers a summary of what FD is and also details the rule changes for Covid 2020. This would be a good link to share even with your non licensed friends on various social media platforms.

 

Short Stormy Field Day 2019

Stats and photos below below so check them out !!

Well the SEKARC Field Day 2019 was abbreviated but as always we learned things to improve and truly put emergency power generation to the test. We had a tri-band vertical on top of the tower for 2m, 70cm and 6m. Attached to the tower were 3 dipoles for 20m, 40m and 80m.

We used the Crawford County Emergency Management tower with generator. We were rolling good for a few hours. Sitting on 40m running pileup after pileup. Then everything went quiet and power was off. Generator failed, clogged fuel filter we suspect was the culprit. We made a trip to O'reilly for a replacement and a call was placed to Jason the Emergency Manager. And once again Jason saved the day and within 30 minutes he another BIGGER generator on site. And we were back on the air and fans were blowing again.

Jason later brought us the correct replacement filter he found at Tractor Supply. The one we bought was close but not the perfect fit. So it was a good test for Jason and he determined the tower trailer generator needed a tuneup and service check.

Another life saver was Bruce KØEMG who brought a grill, and chips and cooked us burgers for lunch and chicken for dinner. THANKS again Bruce. We just totally had not thought that far. Oh and by the way... the lights on top of large stand alone generator were awesome and DAYLIGHT BRIGHT. We lit up that park like never before. (Well we had to test them right?)

We were rolling good until the overnight storms rolled in. We had a goal of 1,000 contacts and if we had kept the original pace we would have easily exceeded that goal. We did learn a few things. One of those being that if there are storms in the forecast next Field Day we will not even mess with the tower. We are bound to have some good weather one of these years... right ?

We even got some public service time and got to help out the Crawford County Emergency Management bu touching up some paint on the trailer. We repainted  the 4 wheels and cleaned and painted the two motors that operated the tower. Great job SEKARC !!

Thanks to all that showed up, help setup, operate, log, cook and visit. It was still a good weekend. By 6am Sunday we were back home packed away and tower and generators back at the county site. Now time to think about making Field Day 2020 even better !!

Avg Qs/Hr (breaks > 30 min deducted): 66.0
 Total Contacts by Band and Mode:
 Band      CW  Ph      Dig     Total       %
 ----       --   -----     ---   -----     ---
   80             0       1       0         1           0
   40             0     426       0      426      93
   20             0      21       0       21          5
   15              0       8       0        8            2
    2                0       1       0        1           0
            --   -----     ---   -----     ---
 Total            0     457       0     457     100

Radio Bird Update - Satellites

Here is some good current info on Satellites. Which ones are up, what they look like and a great explanation of how the antennas are deployed in space! Very good info for those interested in talking to the birds!

Should be a great activity to try and some nice bonus points!!

Field Day 2017 a Great Success !!

The ARRL Field Day 2017 for SEKARC was a huge success! Great weather and with the help of the borrowed portable tower from the Crawford County Sheriff's office, our Field Day took a huge leap forward! At one point and for most of the time we had 6+ antennas up and were able to work all of the available bands for Field Day. We covered 2m, 6m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 40m, 80m and 160m all using the tower to get air under them.

We had great participation as several visitors worked some pile ups, ate some great pulled pork (thanks Matt). I would hate to try and name them all for the fear of leaving someone out but a big thank you to the full time crew and the part time operators. And even those that just stopped by for a visit.

KØSEK call had 484 contacts from 64 sections including Hawaii, USVI, and most of the Canadian provinces. I think we about tripled any previous score so we will have to get even better next year! You can see more photos at this link....... SEKARC Field Day 2017

Museum Field Day - SEKARC and CCHM

The SEKARC held it's September meeting in the field on the grounds of the Crawford County Historical Museum. It was a great success! There were many places to setup our gear and the host was very interested and helpful! Thanks again to the Museum for welcoming us and from the great day we had there, no doubt that we will be back again!

Jack WDØCFH made a contact on QRP CW. Conditions on the bands were not too great and there was an RTTY contest going on that covered up most of the popular low power digital frequencies. You would think they would stay away from known operating mode frequencies. But it was still fun, Jeff KAØEGE was running WSPR and is logged as hearing several stations from all over the United States, Canada, Germany and England and his transmission was even heard by a station in Iceland.

Field Day 2016 Photos

Here are some photos from the 2016 Field Day at Big Brutus... you can click on the first one and start a slide show with larger images!!

Amateur Radio Field Day 2016

It is that time of the year again.... time to make your plans for Field Day 2016. The dates are June 25th and 26th. The last 3 years have been great from lots of heat and coyotes, to great thunderstorm watching and of course LOTS of radio contacts!

I will be operating a FT-817 using PSK and JT modes on 10 through 40 meters and I know of a few others are planning to setup and we will be finalizing our plans over the next few weeks as the event will be here quick!

We will have lots of gear setup and please bring your own and get on the air all weekend of even a few hours! I requested our camping site reservation today. We will be out there setting up early on Saturday June 25. We will have a big screen room for shade and bug relief and lot's of room for other operators.

One thing I would like to see us do better is when someone comes out to setup for a few hours, let's work together to give them time on the bands and frequencies they want to operate on while the full timers stand by. I think we can work together to give everyone a chance to make some contacts and have fun as well!

Field Day 2015 - Big Brutus

Field Day 2015 is here! This Saturday and Sunday SEKARC will be on site and on the air from historic Big Brutus! This will be the 3rd annual SEKARC Field Day at the site and we hope to see all of you stop by and even stay for the weekend!

All are welcome, you can bring your own portable station out to setup or we will have stations setup for you to operate if you prefer! Last year we had to fight some thunder, lightning and heavy rain but the forecast for this weekend is spectacular!

NEW YEAR for SEKARC - 2015 !!

Happy New Year... Welcome to 2015 !!

2015 should be a great year for the SEKARC as we have plans for many new activities and better meeting content with our new meeting facility and it will be exciting. Here is a summary of some of the thoughts we have on our agenda for 2015.

The first item on our list is a local CW practice night. Many in the club and the SEK area are learning CW or need a brush up so David NØWKZ suggested a local CW net or similar weekly activity. At the coffee QSO Jack WDØCFH mentioned maybe not an organized net but maybe an hour set aside each week for local CW practice sessions. Look for info on these to be announced very soon! Any suggestions for a night and time?

To begin with, the January meeting on 1/31/15 will feature the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network ( SATERN ) communication vehicle from Kansas City.  We will get a look around the truck and discuss what SATERN does and how we can get involved. Here is a link to the national webpage SATERN.

March, or the the first sign of warm Wednesday weather we will head to a park after the Coffee QSO for some field work! This is always fun and this year we will be trying new locations for our Wed park days so stay tuned for that.

Field Day at WW1USA

Great video from the WWI Memorial in Kansas City !

WW1USA and ARRL Field Day 2014 at the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial from Jacque Dupuy on Vimeo.

Field Day Results, Sights and Sounds

Field Day 2014 is in the books and behind us. I think that overall it was a success! Certainly an improvement on last year and our thanks go to the Hams that contributed! If I missed anyone below please let me know and I will get them added to the list!

KAØEGE - Jeff    KDØRTX - Loren    WØMQY - Joe  

WDØCFH - Jack    KBØPQP - Tyler    KCØSHN - Jordan

NØIGZ - Frank    N3LRH - Leon    N2UHC - Tom  

ADØHW - Gailen    KDØCUR - Justin    KDØDET - Mike

KEØAKP - Keith

Quick News and Reminders !!

Quick news... I spoke with Steve N5SD today and let me know that the 444.8 repeater is up and running! PL tone of 91.5, and it is 500 ft up on the cable tower South of Pittsburg! This is great news and should expand the areas reach by a great deal! Give it a try! He said it still needs some adjusting and some other work but he said spread the news and give it a call! Thanks to Steve and those that completed this work, what a great surprise!

Reminder... Today is the beginning of the 13 Colonies Special Event Station. I was able to work them all last year and get my Clean Sweep stamp! They have added an additional bonus station for 2014. Check out the details and the great looking certificate when you get all 13! Click the image below for more details!!

*** Field Day Logs are being compiled and I should have that completed tomorrow! Watch here for updates !!

Field Day Plans Come Together

Field Day is Saturday and Sunday. We will have at least 3 stations set up at all times and will be operating as a Class A site. This means no commercial power will be used to transmit signals. All stations will be using the SEKARC club call sign of KØSEK.

Saturday we will decide the numeric portion of the identifier based on how many stations we have set up and will be running most of the time. We most likely will use 3 or 4. Final call on that will be made at start time.

Please try to stop by, and you can just pop in and out or you can operate one of the radios we will have set up, or you can BYOS (bring your own station) and make some contacts for KØSEK.

Field Day Trial Run

Testing two things today. My field day portable set up and posting a piece from my Android phone.

On the radio side... set up is good! Figured out a way to improve my SWR on my fishing pole vertical by straightening out the ground radials instead of letting them just lay on the ground! The copper j - pole is in a tree hanging up about 20 feet and getting me to 4 area repeaters.

Flashback to Field Day 2013

Field Day 2014 will be even bigger and better !! Be sure and plan to come by and stay a while!

WWI Museum Field Day 2014

Here is a great post regarding the WWI Museum and the events this month including Field Day with Amateur Radio! One of our members, Gailen Gillespie ADØHW will be participating with the club in Kansas City operating from the museum on Field Day! I am hoping for photos from the event! Below is an excerpt from the article, and the YouTube video within the post. From the Museum website... Enjoy!

Meeting Recap

SEKARC had a very succesful meeting Saturday. One of the best in attendance and news! We had 12 hams and one interested for a total of 13. There were 2 first time attendees, one came when Justin brought Michael KDØDET and the other was a VIP of sorts in the name of Phil Rankin KØPR.

Phil made the most news by offering to join forces with the currently mostly inactive PRO group, and offered the funds in their treasury for a potential new repeater for the area. Possibly a 440 repeater on the 500ft tower south of town. He has previously mentioned that he had internet access at that tower and that would allow us the options of linking to other repeaters and to add an Echolink access to the area! There will be much discussion going forward and we would appreciate your input in the possibilities that this offers the club. In the weeks to come, we will be getting together and developing a plan for moving forward. This is a HUGE step for amateur radio in the Southeast Kansas area. Thanks to Phil and the PRO group!

We had some giveaways provided by All Spectrum Electronics when they sent us some sample reference cards. Be sure and visit their website (link above) as they seem to have a wide variety of electronic supplies and equipment. I have a few left and will have them on Field Day if you would like one! Below is a sample.

Field Day was discussed and it looks like we will be having at least 4 overnight campers and hopefully lots of operators stopping by and making some QSO's with the KØSEK call sign! Please feel free to bring your own mobile rig setup if you would like or we will have radios setup for use also. Remember it is June 28th and 29th so mark your calendar! This will also double as our June meeting so it should be a great weekend.

One note... if our group contnues to grow like it has, we may need to look at a larger more robust meeting location. Everyone please keep an eye open for a possible location to hold our monthly meetings! It could be city buildings, churches, hotels or any place with a meeting room. ( A coffee pot would be kind a requirement or I guess we could bring our own? )

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for the club you all have helped build! Let's keep it rolling into bigger and better things!!