Newsletter for December 2022

December 2022
LRA Membership renewal. Board updates. Upcoming activities. Member projects and successes.

Welcome to the November 2022 LRA Newsletter

Important December reminders

Don’t forget to sign up for the annual Christmas party on Dec 18 !!
Also, it’s that time of year again to renew your LRA annual membership. Don’t let this be your final newsletter. Many memberships expire on December 31. To check your membership status, send an email to secretary@kr9rk.com.

Lakeshore Repeater Association has been organized since 1975. We are a
non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable corporation dedicated to providing local area
Hams in SE WI and NE IL with excellent repeater coverage on both analog and
digital DMR modes.

WHO ARE WE? 47 Years Young and Still Ticking!

Our dual band transmitter antenna standoff is at 380 feet for 2m and 70cm analog/DMR digital repeaters. 3 Repeaters are maintained at our main site in Racine with a receiving antenna topping the tower at 465 feet. 2 analog and 1 DMR digital.

Our analog repeaters are 2m 147.270 + .6 PL 127.3 and our 70cm is 442.000 + 5
MHz PL 79.7.
Our DMR digital dual voice capacity time slot repeater is connected to the
Chicago Land C-bridge Network with Ham radio contacts and talk groups to be
accessed and heard from all over the world! This repeater has 5 plus digital
voted receiver sites for optimal portable coverage on 440.00625 + 5 using Color
Code 9. Our primary talk group is WI State 3155 on time slot one. Active full
time. See our DMR Sites page for more details on DMR.
Over 108 members strong, please consider joining our rapidly growing
organization. Visit our website at KR9RK.COM for membership information.

From the LRA Board:

Quarterly membership meeting minutes and the Treasurer’s report are attached to the email containing this newsletter.
No board meetings were held in November, but our Secretary Matt, AF9Q continues to improve our new website. Be sure to check it out at KR9RK.COM. It gets better every day.
President Dwayne, N9PYA, has made significant progress towards documenting all of the equipment owned by our organization.
Technical Director Kevin, N9OIG has been working on improving the repeater automatic notifications. He reports that all of the LRA repeaters are up and functioning properly.
The bylaws review committee has been making progress thanks to Chairman Steve, N9SEB.
Their report will be presented at the January membership meeting.
VP Fred, K9SO, is the repeater trustee and also gets the honor of writing this newsletter every
month. Please send news bits and information about your activities.

Upcoming LRA Activities

The LRA Christmas party

The LRA Christmas party will be held on Sunday December 18. 5:00pm at Tailgaters ( 7641 WI-38, Caledonia, WI 53108). Cost is $25 per person. Reservations may be made online at KR9RK.COM or by mail. If by mail, please send checks to the LRA PO Box 327, Franksville, WI 53126

LRA Quarterly membership meeting

The next LRA Quarterly membership meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 24 at the Sturtevant Village Hall / Police station. We will be hearing from the Bylaws committee among other things.

Fox Hunts!

Our first LRA Foxhunt was held last month. Thanks to Matt, AF9Q, for organizing this fun event. The winning team was the father/son team of Ryan, N7RSK, and Scott, KD9RHA, winning by only seconds. They used a simple 3 element “tape measure” yagi and a TinySA spectrum analyzer for their receiver.
There will not be a hunt in December due to the holidays, but the next one will be January 14, 2023 at 10:00am. We will meet at the Meadows restaurant in Franksville for breakfast at 8:00am.

If you’d like to learn more about the intricacies of foxhunting, click HERE

Jeff, KC9JOB has designed and built multiple “Fox Box” transmitters and transmitter controllers.

As our group gathers experience and confidence in our direction finding equipment and abilities, we will ask Jeff to lend us these transmitters to make hunt more diverse and fun for beginners and experienced hunters.

The Fox Boxes are being built in ammo boxes and will incorporate batteries, external antenna ports, internal Baofeng radios, and homebrew foxhunt controllers. The Foxes can be pre-programmed and ready to deploy on the morning of the hunt. All that needs to be done is hide them. No need to have humans present if hidden well. Each hidden transmitter will have a code on it to be recorded when found. The Foxes will automatically turn on at precisely 10:00 am and shut off at 12:00 noon.
Anyone wanting to build their own Fox Box using a different radio just contact Jeff for a controller PCB. He’ll have about a dozen or so extras. Based on Arduino Nano, the controllers will have programmable CW IDs, Real Time Clocks, duty cycle timers, and automatic on/off times (event start/finish). Total cost to build should be < $10.00.

Wisconsin QSO Party

It’s not too early to start thinking about this fun event on March 12, 2023. How about a club effort and club entry this year?

https://www.warac.org/wqp/wqp.htm

Taste of Field Day

Once again plan on joining us for the “TASTE”. Last full weekend in June. Last year’s event drew over 30 operators and their families. It was a ton of fun. This year it will be on Saturday, June 24, 2023. Just a “Taste” of this popular annual ARRL event.

● Skywarn Day – December 3, 2022 0000UTC – 2400 UTC
● The 3916 Santa Net – 11/25 – 12/24 Daily at 7:15 pm central.
● ARRL Straight Key Night January 1, 2023 0000 UTC – 2359 UTC
● ARRL RTTY Roundup January 7, 2023 1800 UTC 1/7 – 2359 UTC 1/8
● Kids Day January 7, 2023 1800 UTC – 2359 UTC

Support the ARRL’s youth fundraising event going on now.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/ns6VR8h-8T8

Support the ARRL’s youth fundraising event going on now.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/ns6VR8h-8T8

Net Activities

Public Service Net

The Public Service Net is now once a month on the 3rd Wednesday of every month at 7:30pm. Don’t miss it on the VHF repeater 147.270.
ARES RACES net will be at the same time and dates as the LRA psn nets.

Weather Net

Our Weather net will resume in the Spring.

Newsline

Newsline, an amateur radio news podcast, will be played at 7:30 pm every Wednesday on 147.270 @ 7:30pm except on the night of the other nets. On those days it will follow after the net.

Happy Hour Un-Net

We’re seeing an average of 30 check-ins per day and a recent high of 37 “Chickins” on the Happy Hour Un-Net. This group meets daily on both the 442 and 147 repeaters linked together at 5:00pm sharp. Moderated regularly by K9WBT, K9SO, and KD1Z. Fridays and Sundays feature our guest moderators. Join us! A beautiful certificate courtesy of Dave, NP2I, is awarded for 100 check-ins. Over 35 certificates have been awarded to date.
A very special callout to our greatest supporter Bill, KD1Z, who just set the mark for consecutive check-ins: OVER 700 days in a row!!
A private Happy Hour email email group is also available on Groups.io. Stay in touch! Contact me, K9SO, or Matt, AF9Q for details.

Membership Activities

Jeff, KC9JOB, and I continue working on antennas to use in the upcoming Foxhunts but our project lacks direction. Nevertheless, we shamelessly stole the idea of using a mini spectrum analyzer as the receiver from last month’s winners N7RSK/KD9RHA. We may not win, but we’ll look good while doing it.

Membership Activities:
Jeff, KC9JOB, and I continue working on antennas to use in the upcoming Foxhunts but our project lacks direction. Nevertheless, we shamelessly stole the idea of using a mini spectrum analyzer as the receiver from last month’s winners N7RSK/KD9RHA. We may not win, but we’ll look good while doing it.

Tom, W9FL, scored over 100 DX contacts in the CQWW CW contest last week. CW activity was incredible on all the bands. Congratulations to Tom on his first CQWW CW contest entry. My NC link problems prevented my participation this year but at least LRA was represented. Here’s what the 20m CW band looked like on Saturday morning at Q-SO Corners. Always room for one more:

WINLINK WEDNESDAYS:

Bruce, K9WBT, has started WINLINK WEDNESDAY to promote WINLINK use. Send him a WINLINK email every Wednesday. Details on the Happy Hour reflector. Last week’s participants were AB1Z, K9QKL, K9WBT, K9WNG, KB9SIG, KD9KHV,KD9SAW, and N9UUO. K9SO is still having cockpit problems.

Gary, N9GE, has been busy wiring up his new FlexRadio 6600 transceiver

Fred, KD9SAW, finally bit the bullet and ordered a new IC-9700 radio. Watch for his big signal on the Happy Hour whenever HRO gets them in again. Very popular radio.

… and Mike, K9MWG, has his new ALS-1306 amplifier on line and running a KW on HF now. QRO is the way to go! Another ex-K9SO or K9SO modified HF KW amplifier in LRA hamshacks.

This makes 3 now.

Keith, K9RXG, has made incredible progress on his Northwoods cabin. All built by hand. We all know it’s just his new remote Hamshack, but don’t tell the XYL.

Bruce, K9WBT, along with Jason, K9QKL, Fred, KD9SAW, Brad, K9WNG, and Kevin, N9OIG are having a ball with APRS and the new repeater (see last month’s newsletter for pictures).

Steve, N9SEB has reported that his new APRS digiPeater is up and running from his home QTH now.

As for me, K9SO, I like to continually keep on simplifying my stations and making it more user friendly and intuitive. Keepin’ that cable modem warm on these cold winter nights:

We Need More Stuff:

Wireless Speaker/mic for ICOM radios?


https://qrznow.com/using-a-uniden-wireless-mic-for-icom-radios/
A Uniden CB radio speaker/mic conversion. Anyone brave enough to try it? On
Amazon for $80.23 right now!
https://www.amazon.com/Uniden-BC906W-Wireless-Microphone-Compatible/dp/B00B3QBRQQ/ref=sr_1_2?crid=18FNGPMY1NL9D&keywords=uniden+wireless+cb+mic&qid=1669666472&sprefix=uniden+wireless%2Caps%2C91&sr=8-2

NEW IC-905

If you don’t have enough spectrum on 144/440/1200 MHz with your new IC-9700, then you need an IC-905 which adds 2400MHz, 5600MHz, and an option for 10GHz: https://youtu.be/FVkrQqiMXEE (about 22:00 minutes in).

For Sale

Icom ID-5100A – (like new, original packaging and accessories, nifty desk stand included) – $350
Yaesu FTM-400XDR – (Less than 1 year old, excellent condition, original packaging and accessories, MARS mod done by Gigaparts, BT module installed) – $450
Uniden SDS100 – (Less than 1 year old, excellent condition, original packaging and accessories, Remtronix 800Mhz antenna) – $575
Contact Brad, K9WNG


IC-775DSP sporting two HF receivers, 200 watt output, internal tuner and internal power supply: $1100
Contact Fred, K9SO

73, and thanks for listening!
Fred Glenn, VP LRA
K9SO