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TLARC Monthly General Meetings - *NOW at
6 PM*
The general club meeting is
held
on the 3rd Wednesday
of every month,
starting at 6pm, at the Chota Recreation Center,
Room D, at 145 Awohili Dr, Loudon, TN 37774.
Remember
when attending the club meeting, be sure to
proudly wear your TLARC shirt!
Our
meetings feature updates from all officers and
special interest leaders, updates on what's
happening in ham radio around TN, and other TLARC
initiatives. By attending members get a good view
of everything the club is doing! We often have a
feature presentation
on an interesting aspect of our hobby, and many of
the members and spouses optionally gather for
dinner
before the meeting for camaraderie and good food.
TLARC
Weekly Net Meetings
TLARC
Radio Net
-- 1st, 2nd & 4th
Wednesday
of each month
7:00
pm on the 442.100 MHz repeater (PL 100.0)
Zoom
Meetings
-- For when we have them in parallel to the net
meetings:
Please check your email
for the current link!
How to join
TLARC
Just download the TLARC Membership Application
and contact

or any of the other club
officers!
Become a
'Net Control' for the TLARC weekly radio net!
You too can become a 'Net
Control' of the weekly TLARC radio net on the
442.100 repeater from 7-7:30pm! Just contact Robin
KO4PNC with your interest and he will provide you
with the standard NET
CONTROL SCRIPT and insightful guidance
to enable you to take the command seat on your
own!
TLARC Dues
Dues
for 2022 are $20 ... Send payment by check
(payable to "TLARC"), Money Order or cash to TLARC
Treasurer: George
Sifnotis, WB9TFR
Monroe County
ARC weekly net:
Tues, 7:00 pm
145.270, PL 127.3 Hz.
Also linked to 145.250 (PL 100)
Smoky
Mountain ARC net: Mon-Thurs, 9:00 am
146.655, PL 100 Hz in / 77 Hz out.
SMARC repeater requires
100 Hz encode (incoming tone) and 77 Hz decode
(outgoing tone). Users are encouraged to use Carrier
Squelch because if one uses a 100 Hz tone to open
their squelch then the controllers announcements
will be missed.
East Tennessee 2 Meter Nets and Repeaters
Directory
An amazing
resource of clubs and repeater frequencies within
a 114 mile radius of Knoxville!
When
are the bands open?
See the
probabilities for average HF propagation for this
month, as provided by the
ARRL on their Propagation
page.
Hamfest Fever?
K4MJF has a cure!
Dixie Trader Net --
Friday Nights at 8 pm via 4-plex
repeaters on 145.370 (T-100), 145. 410 (T-127.3),
147.195 (T 1000), 147.345 (T 118.8).
Tennessee Digital Amateur Group
Net -- An DMR
Tennessee Statewide TG3147 at 9pm every Friday
night. Good fellowship, discussions, tips and
tricks.
World Wide Net on Talk Group --
91 DMR starting every Saturday
morning at 11am. This net takes check-ins from
around the world and lasts until mid afternoon.
Frequency
List for the Greater Knoxville Tennessee Area
145.370 K4KEV
-600Hz shift 100.0 tone, linked repeater
system for all of East Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia.
North Carolina and Virginia to 145.41, 147.195 and
147.34, linked full time to 147.345 (W4KEV)
Crossville, TN, also connected to ECHOLINK 459455
W4KEV
145.470 -600Hz 118.8 tone WB4GBI Wide
Area Covers 5 States TN, NC, KY, GA, VA, also District
6 SKYWARN thru the NWS Morristown TN
146.850 -600Hz 118.8 tone WB4GBI Wide
Area Coverage: Middle East TN
146.940 -600Hz 118.8 tone WB4GBI Wide
Area Coverage
147.255 +600Hz NO TONE KJ4SI Wide
Area Coverage ( 50 mile radius )
443.050 +5Mhz 100.00 tone W4WVJ
Coverage Loudon, Blount, Knox, and Monroe County
Loudon County ARES Club Analog FM and Fusion Digital
444.250 +5MHZ 127.3 tone KF4DKW
Coverage Loudon County Analog FM and Fusion Digital
442.100 +5MHZ 100.0 tone WB4BSC 25
mile radius Analog FM ONLY
146.625 -600Hz 118.8 tone WB4GBI Wide
Area Coverage
147.180 +600Hz 118.8 tone W4GZX Wide
Area: Chattanooga to Knoxville 102 mile radius
145.270 -600Hz 127.3 tone KK4DKW Wide
Area: Blount, Knox, Anderson, Loudon, Monroe linked
fulltime to 145.250 (W4YJ) in Sweetwater, TN
146.655 -600Hz 100/77 tone W4OLB
Coverage: Blount County, including Cades Cove
Campground and portions of adjacent counties (25 mile
radius), linked to KK4XA/R 444.075 (+) DMR ID 314742
CC1 - Analog and DMR
147.300 +600Hz 100.0 tone W4BBB Wide
Area Coverage Analog FM and Fusion Digital
147.345 +600 118.8 tone W4KEV Super
Wide Area, Nashville to Knoxville, Chattanooga to
Tri-Cities
Linked to 145.370 in Knoxville, Sharps Ridge, 147.195
in Gatlinburg, Ski Mountain and 145.410 in Greenville,
Tn, Bald Mountain
147.195 +600Hz 100.0 tone W4KEV Super
Wide Coverage Area and the Smokies, linked to the
145.370, 145.410, 147.345 covering all of East
Tennessee, ECHOLINK 459455 W4KEV
147.150 +600Hz 118.8 tone WB4GBI Wide
Area Coverage
This list does not include and D-Star or WiresX
capable repeaters, and is current as of 9/26/2021


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Feature
News89
TLARC
Testing - April 15th
The
Tellico Lake Amateur Radio Club will conduct
testing for new licenses and upgrades in Room
B of the Tellico Village Chota Rec Center on
Friday April 15 at 1:00 p.m. If
you are interested in being tested for a
new license (Tech) or an upgrade to
General or Extra, please let Joyce know
names and the level of the test ASAP. We
have two individuals already scheduled to take
the Tech exam at that time. I
can be a VE for the them, but if anyone wants
to take a General or Extra exam, I will have
to get another VE.
All
applicants are now required to have an FCC
Registration Number (FRN) prior to taking
the exam, and to bring that number with
them. If
you are already licensed, you will find the
FRN on your license. If
you are a new applicant, here are the
instructions to get an FRN:
Go
to the FCC web at https://apps.fcc.gov/coresWeb/PublicHome.do
Click
on the left radio button REGISTER
Under
Registration Type, click An Individual, then
Continue
Follow
the instructions and click Submit.
Please
fill out the form 605, print out and bring to
the meeting.
Note:
This is a computer fillable form, so you may
fill it out in your browser then print it, or
print it and fill it out by hand.
Form
605
Applicants
must also bring a $10 check payable to
WCARS. This
covers administrative expenses of the Western
Carolina Amateur Radio Society, which
processes the tests and submits them to the
FCC.
Joyce
Tarbell
K1JAT
(865)
458-8040
Special
Request - Support Your Local 911 Dispatch
Operators Week
We have a
special request from the Fire Chief of the
Tellico Village Fire Department. Next week,
April 10-16, is National Public Saftey
Telecommuincator Week.
The Fire Chief, Jerry Dougherty, has contacted
31 various groups in Tellico Village and has
requested each of them to adopt one of the 911
Dispatch Operators that support our area.
TLARC has been assigned the 911 Operator named
Chelsey (see the email below). You can do
anything to show your support; send this
person a handwritten note, a thankyou card,
pictures, or even a small gift card. It's
amazing how impactful words are.
Send your mail to:
Chelsey
500 Parris Drive
Loudon, TN 37774
Since National Public Saftey Telecommuincator
Week will occur prior to our next TLARC
monthly meeting, your personal support would
be greatly appreciated.
Richard Meyer - W8CNY
TLARC President
TLARC and
MCARES Supports 5k Marathon
Several members
of TLARC participated in the CASA Monroe
Child Abuse Prevention 5k marathon in
Madisonville on Saturday, April 2nd. Monroe County ARES
volunteers, which includes several TLARC
members, successfully performed communication
duties in support of the marathon.
For more
information about CASA Monroe, you can visit
their website at casamonroe.org
WB4GBI
Tower Down!
I'm sure
you have heard by now about the falling of
Tim Berry, WB4GBI's Tower on Tower Road, Top
of the World. Three of his repeaters,
53.150, 146.625, 444.950 and some commercial
repeaters were affected.
Tim had only liability insurance on the site
so Tim is having to pay for the cost of
re-constructing a new tower along with
antennas and feedlines. As you can imagine
this is very costly. His repeaters give
great coverage into the Great Smoky
Mountains where cell coverage is not
available.
Please consider donating to Tim to assist
him with the effort of rebuilding his Tower
Site. There has been a GoFundME page set
up, below is the link.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/wb4gbi-tower-replacement?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=poster
Courtesy of Bob Wilson, KK4XA
Maryville, TN
FCC
License Fee to take effect April 19th, 2022!
The new $35
fee for Amateur Radio licenses takes effect
April 19th. All new licenses, upgrades, or
renewals will be subject to this fee. The
Volunteer Examiners will not
be collecting this fee, rather it will be
administered via the FCC's website. Upon
passing an examination, you will have a window
of 10 days in which to pay for the FCC's
administrative fees. This information will be
updated as it becomes available.
Update:
The FCC has clarified the upcoming fees. They
will NOT be charging fees for upgrades. They
WILL be charging for new licenses, renewals,
special variances, and vanity calls (even if
you do not get it -- so make sure you have
multiple selections!)
Jason/KC5HWB
from Ham Radio 2.0 has a YouTube
video with ARRL Hudson Division Director
Ria Jairam, N2RJ, where they discuss the
upcoming fees.
TLARC Fox
Hunt 2022
Never been to a
"fox hunt," but wanting to find out MORE about
it???
You've got questions?!?!?
Together, we can find the answers!!!!
Come join us Saturday, April 23rd at Lenoir
City Park for the
Tellico
Lake Amateur Radio Club Fox Hunt!
Come learn the "in's and out's" of direction
finding!
Where: Lenoir
City Park
Shelter #6
When: 4/23/2022 at 10:00 AM

March
TLARC Meeting
The March
TLARC Meeting was held on March 16th at 6:00
PM, at the Tellico Lake Chota Recreation
Center. The grand door prize was an
oscilloscope, donated by the good graces of
the estate of Don Hice WB5TVI, a silent key.
The winner was Alan, K1AT! Congrats to Alan,
as well as all of the other winners!
TLARC Has
a US Post Office Box
TLARC
now has a US Post Office Box. Our new address
is:
Tellico
Lake Amateur Radio Club
P.O.
Box 902
Lenoir City, TN 37771
The President and Secretary each has a key. The
PO Box is located at the Lenoir City Main Post
Office in the old downtown area.
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Ongoing
News:
AMSAT at Dayton
Hamvention
Phil
Smith, W1EME, AMSAT Hamvention Team Leader, reports, In 2019,
we had about 40 people assist with the AMSAT booth at the
Hamvention. It was the efforts of those volunteers that made
the 2019 Dayton Hamvention a success for AMSAT. The
interaction with AMSAT members, satellite operators,
designers, and builders makes the whole experience a lot of
fun.
"The
2022 Hamvention is May 20-22 at the Greene County Fairgrounds
in Xenia, Ohio. Would you consider helping AMSAT at the
Hamvention this year? Whether you're available for only a
couple of hours or if you can spend the entire weekend with
us, your help would be greatly appreciated.
Please
send an e-mail to me at w1eme (at) amsat (dot) org if you can
help.
Phil
Smith, W1EME
AMSAT Hamvention Team Leader
CAS-10
CubeSat will carry a ham radio transponder
CAMSAT's CAS-10 is
an 8U CubeSat that will carry an Amateur Radio VHF to UHF
linear transponder for SSB communications
A follow on mission from CAS-9 and also known as Hope-4 (XW-4)
CAS-10 is an 8U CubeSat, approx 228 x455x 100mm, with a mass
of 12kg. The satellite will carry:
1. A VHF uplink and UHF downlink linear transponder with a
bandwidth of 30kHz. This transponder will work all day during
the life cycle of the satellite, and amateur radio enthusiasts
around the globe can use it for two-way radio relay
communications.
2. A camera, and the pictures it takes are stored in the flash
memory on the satellite, we have designed a simple remote
control system based on DTMF, and amateur radio enthusiasts
around the globe can send DTMF commands to download the camera
photos.
3. A CW beacon to send satellite telemetry data, which is also
a feature that is widely welcomed by amateur radio
enthusiasts.
4. A AX.25 4.8k/9.6kbps GMSK telemetry downlink
Planning a launch in November 2022 from Hainan Launch Center
using a CZ-7 launch vehicle into a 400km circular 42.9 degree
inclination orbit.
Source IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination Status pages
http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/
December
Meeting Minutes Now Available
The
final minutes for the 2021 calendar year are now available.
This includes the End of Year report. The link for this and
previous minutes can be found in the left-hand column, titled
Meeting Minutes.
Classic
Ham Magazines Available Online
Are you getting a little bit
of Cabin Fever being locked up in your home during this cold
weather? Take a moment and check out the https://archive.org/ website. It is a
non-profit Internet Archive library of millions of free books,
magazines, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
How many of your remember the Amateur Radio magazine entitled
the "73 Magazine"? It was published from 1960 to 2003. Here
you will find the archive of this series. The magazine was
known for its strong emphasis on technical articles and for
the lengthy editorials in each issue. Take a Time Warp and
browse to your heart's content. Many of the technical
articles are still relavent today.
https://archive.org/details/73-magazine
Or, lets go way down under and check out Electronics Australia
or EA, it was Australia's longest-running general electronics
magazine. It was based in Chippendale, New South Wales. It
can claim to trace its history to 1922 when the Wireless
Weekly magazine was formed. Its content was a mix of general
and technical articles on the new topic of radio. The last
issue with Electronics Australia as the main title was
published March 2000. There were 432 issues in all up until
December 2000.
https://archive.org/details/electronics_australia
Getting back closer to home there was Radio-Electronics, an
American electronics magazine that was published under various
titles from 1929 to 2003. Hugo Gernsback, sometimes called The
Father of Science Fiction, started it as Radio-Craft in July
1929. The title was changed to Radio-Electronics in October
1948 and again to Electronics Now in July 1992. In January
2000 it was merged with Gernsback's Popular Electronics to
become Poptronics. Gernsback Publications ceased operations in
December 2002 and the January 2003 issue was the last.
https://archive.org/details/radioelectronicsmagazine
I dare you to go to the main website page at https://archive.org/ and do a simple
search for "software" or "amateur radio". It will really
amaze you with what is available at your finger tips...and it
is all free!
Happy hunting.
Exam
Session - December 8th - UPDATE!
The TLARC Admin Team held our
first licensing exam session of 2021 on Wednesday evening,
December 8, 2021.
Congratulations to Lisa Klein, W8LDK, who passed her Extra exam
tonight. Way to go, Lisa!
Happy Birthday to Gunther Stoltz, AK4OC, our newest VE,
who celebrated his birthday by becoming a Volunteer Examiner!

Happy
New Year from your 2022 TLARC President...
I am Richard Meyer, your new
President of TLARC for 2022, and I would like to take this
opportunity to introduce myself to you. After 40 some years
in the Dallas, Texas, area I retired to Tellico Village in
December of 2020. I am a member of the Tellico Village
Volunteer Fire Department; trained as a Fire Ground Technician
and as a Medical First Responder. I immediately joined TLARC
and was impressed by the people I have met.
I am not the type of person that makes rapid changes to an
organization. TLARC is your organization and can only be as
great as its individual parts. I will need your input,
suggestions, and expertise for the coming year. Most of my Ham
Radio exposure has been with the equipment side, not so much
the operating part of the hobby. I will need your help as I
try to get more involved in on-the-air activities and the
various contests.
Okay, a little bit about me. I have been involved in Ham
Radio since I was a teenager almost 60 years ago. My mentor
(Elmer) was a retired TV Repairman and a Ham Radio operator,
W8CNY (SK). As a tribute to him I changed my call sign to
W8CNY last year when it became available, I have my Extra
Class license. My mentor had a basement full of electronic
parts, an experimenter’s delight. While in High School during
the mid-1960’s I built several Heathkit projects. My first
major DIY project was a fast scan black & white TV camera
that contained 8 vacuum tubes. The TV camera was soon on the
air operating at 420 MHz. I entered the TV camera into my
High School Science Fair, received awards at several Regional
Science Fairs and the US Air Force. After graduation I joined
the US Air Force and was trained in secure Crypto
Communications as an Electronic Technician, this was during
the Vietnam War. I was stationed at a remote Radar site on a
mountain top in Germany; this was the Air Traffic Control
Center for Berlin. During the day, along with my other
duties, I ran the MARS Radio Station and made Ham contacts at
night. Back then we used a state-of-the-art Collins KWM-2A
transceiver with a 1kW Linear Amplifier feeding a 3 element
beam antenna. The entire world was at my doorstep.
After the Military I received my Electrical Engineering degree
from The Ohio State University. Over my career I have;
developed Radar Missile Guidance Systems for the US Navy,
developed Bar Code Readers for the US Post Office, designed
50/60/400 Hz High Power Inverter Systems, been a Research
Professor at the University of Arkansas, a Chief Engineer at
two firms, and an Electrical Safety Engineer for Underwriters
Laboratory (UL). While working at Texas Instruments I was on
the team that developed the technology behind the new digital
televisions. I have 10 US Patents and over 40 International
Patents, all in Television and Optical Systems. My claim to
fame is my Patent 5,526,051 entitled “Digital Television
System”, as it was the beginning of High Definition Television
(HDTV) as we know it. The next time you see a DLP Conference
Room video projector or go to the Movie Theater and watch
their new Digital Projectors…those are mine also.
So, what is in my Ham Shack? It is currently under
construction as I am adding a rather large Man-Cave above the
garage and attic. My house backs up to the 16th Fairway of
the Toqua Golf Course, the lot is too small for a typical
antenna farm, not even enough room for a decent dipole
antenna. My HF rig is a Kenwood TS-480SAT, currently no
transmitting antenna for it at this time. My 2m/70cm UHF/VHF
rig is a Yaesu FT-7900R/E with a mag mounted Comet CA-2X4SR
antenna, good enough for the time being. At this time my
vehicle has no Ham radio mounted in it, so I use a Yaesu FT2D
HT for mobile operations.
What are my other hobbies? I enjoy the restoration of vintage
Vacuum Tube radio equipment. I have a Collins 51S-1 HF
Receiver (0.2-30 MHz range) and a Military R-390A/URR Receiver
(0.5-32 MHz range). I enjoy rebuilding, calibrating, and
selling old Vacuum Tube Testers; the Military TV-7 is the most
popular model. My electrical workbench consists of; a
Tektronix DPO3034 4-channel Oscilloscope (300 MHz BW, 2.5
GS/s), an IFR A-7550 Spectrum Analyzer (10 kHz-1 GHz range),
an IFR-1500 AM/FM Transmitter/Receiver Calibrator (100 kHz-1
GHz range), an EIP-545A Frequency Counter (10 Hz-18 GHz
range), plus a multitude of other test equipment. In short, I
have a complete RF Test Lab. I enjoy metal working with a
mechanical workbench consisting of; a Sherline CNC Metal
Lathe, a Sherline CNC Metal Milling Machine, plus other power
and hand tools. Over the years I have acquired a unique 250+
piece collection of vintage Simpson analog test equipment,
including the Simpson 260 Volt/Ohmmeter series
So, what can I offer you? I maintain a complete set of
resistors, capacitors, inductors, vacuum tubes, and other
electronic components. If you need some parts for your own Ham
Radio DIY project, just ask me. I am just returning the favor
of what my mentor (Elmer) did for me many years ago…tell me
about the project and these electronic parts are yours for the
asking.
Happy New Year and 73’s to All.
Richard Meyer – W8CNY
TLARC President
richard@krmeyerdotcom
...and Vice
President
Greetings and welcome to the
TLARC web site! I’ve pretty much had a life-long interest in
radio communications, owning numerous walkie-talkies and CB
radios over the years, but finally bit down and bought my
first HAM radio in the spring of 2019. Living in Tellico
Village at the time, I found the club and inquired about
membership since I figured that being around other Hams
would incentivize me to study and take the Technician test,
which I did at Field Day 2019.

My wife (Trisha) and I
currently live in Foothills Pointe in Greenback with 7 of
our 9 children … known collectively as the “Poff Clan”.
Other hobbies and interests include fishing (especially
catfishing and fly fishing), hiking, backpacking, shooting,
and emergency preparedness. Spent 9 ½ years in Uncle Sam’s
Canoe Club as a “navy nuke” with sea duty on “Ike” (CVN-69)
and shore duty at SUBASE Pearl. I retired from Los Alamos
National Laboratory in 2015, and currently work as a DOE
support contractor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I also
have my own business (side hustle) as an Environmental
Consultant and certified Lead Auditor for ISO 14001
Environmental Management Systems.
Shack equipped with a Yaesu FT-991A, Diamond GZV4000 power
supply, LDG Z-100A tuner, with Heil ProSet 7 headset, and
running through a Chameleon 6-band LEFS (Lightweight End Fed
Sloper). I have a Yaesu FT-70D HT with an Abbree 18" antenna
for UHF/VHF and mobile operations. Current DIY projects
include building a 2m/70cm Vertical Dipole for installation
in the attic, and building a LiFePO4 battery system for my
QRP rig (Yaesu FT-817) that will include solar power input
for off-grid/power down operations.
Although I find all aspects of the ham radio world
fascinating, my focus is really on off-grid/power down
operations, QRP, POTA, and EmComm. I also believe that
community outreach, especially to the younger generation, is
important as we consider the future of our club and its
mission.
Currently studying for the General license exam.
I’m looking forward to serving the club as Vice President in
2022 and continuing to absorb and learn from the wealth of
knowledge and experience from this incredible group of
people.
73
Ben-KN4VIF
Holiday Party - December
4th - UPDATE!
The TLARC Holiday Party was
held at the facilities of Grain Bin Commodities, in
Sweetwater.
What a lovely setting for a
holiday party!
The decorations were beautiful!
The food was wonderful!
All of the decorations were available for sale!
2021 TLARC President Mike, KK6OKU gives his final speech of his
tenure ..
As a special treat, we
were honored to see the Starlink satellite deployment!

Ohhh... look! A comfy
fireplace...

..perfect for the after party!

Thank you to everyone who
has participated in the Tellico Lake Amateur Radio Club this
year, as well as since it's inception!
May everyone have a
wonderful Holiday Season
and a Happy New Year!
73 to all... and to ALL A GOOD NIGHT!
ARRL
Field Day 2021 Final Results are IN!
The
results for ARRL Field Day 2021 have arrived! TLARC
received a total of 5,474 points!
Thank
you to everyone who participated, whether
at GCA or remotely. We are looking
forward to an even better Field Day in 2022!
First Annual TLARC
Chili Cook-Off and November Meeting
Winner
Team Ferguson!
The first TLARC Chili
Cook Off is in the books! With 8 entries to choose
from, the competition was fierce but very tasty!
I must admit the chili champ
is now the chili chump with all the very strong competitors
yesterday, I did not stand a chance, I was just elated to be
there to get a taste of all the goodness.
Congratulations to Team Ferguson!
Outstanding chili!
Thanks to all who attended,
helped set up and tear down, competed and subjected themselves
to the delectable delights.
TLARC
Meeting - Wednesday October 20
Another GREAT Club Meeting is
in the books. Many thanks to ALL who came out and showed their
support for the Club.
As you know, the Club met at
Bert's in Madisonville, TN for dinner, and then we had our
normal Club meeting afterwards.
As you can see, we had a full
house!! Club member Ralph, KM4TUY, who was on the nominating
committee, told members about how he went about finding people
who had an interest in being Club Officers.
The Officers gave their
reports about past events, and plans for the near future! Like
Nominations for next years Club Officers and the Holiday
Party.
We had an awards ceremony to
recognize those who participated in the Lenoir City Fall
Festival and Car Show on 9/25/2021.
 Those who
participated received a plaque and a long sleeve tee shirt
with the Club logo on it.
Recipients included Brad,
KM4OJK Mike, KK6OKU Mike, K4MJF David, KF4DKW Dave, N9KMY Tom,
W8MKL Brent, K4BNN Chuck, N4CSF Karen Foley
In addition, Brent, K4BNN, received a
certificate and shirt for his help at the Lenoir City Fall
Festival during a recent POTA activation.
TLARC Holiday Party
The TLARC Holiday Party will
be held at Grain bin Commodities, 5209 Hold Road, in
Sweetwater, on Saturday, December 4th, 2021.
The menu is as follows:
- Smoked Chicken
- Lasagna
- Green Bean Casserole with bacon
- Loaded twice baked creamed potatoes
- Tossed salad
- Caesar salad
- Garlic bread/knots
- Variety of appetizers
- Variety of individual desserts
- Sweet and unsweet tea
- Assortment of soft drinks and water
This will be served buffet style. They will not be serving
any alcohol. If you wish to bring your own, you must bring
your own glasses, openers and beverages. They are NOT
ALLOWED to open, pour or serve. You MUST take your
bottles/containers home with you. Also, they WILL NOT have
any set-ups!
We hope you and your spouse/significant other will join us
in celebrating the end of a great year. We do ask that let
us know how many in your party will be coming, so we can
make sure we have enough food for everyone. We must have a
count no later than November 15, 2021.
To RSVP, please email Mike/K4MJF at k4mjf.1@gmaildotcom
2021 POTApalooza
(Or.... everything you wanted to
know about Parks On the Air, but were
afraid to ask)
You
could not have asked for a nicer day to introduce people to
activating a park. A beautiful, sunny fall day with mild
temperatures.
The group set up at Lookrock Overlook on Foothills Parkway,
park K-0034, with a beautiful view overlooking Maryville and
the surrounding counties.

Operators from left:
Mike (OKU), Gunther, Ken, Tim, John, Karen (non operator,)
Mike (MJF)
Front: Lisa, David (Not pictured: Ned, K1GU)
We had the perfect
spot to activate the park. Plenty of room for parking, picnic
tables and room to put up antennas.
And yes, we had a small cook-out as well! Everybody brought
what they wanted to cook. We had everything from hot dogs to
steak...

We had 2 HF stations
set up, each operating on different bands. We made contacts
all across the US, including Alaska!
Everybody got to make contacts, if they wanted to. Everyone
made at least 10 contacts to qualify for activating the park.
Lisa did most of the logging for us, and provided everyone the
file to send the activation manager once we were finished.
Thanks to ALL who participated and we hope you had FUN!
You can bet we will do this again... SOON!
Lenoir
City Car Show and Fall Street Festival is a Huge Success

A learned experience. Kudos to
the dedication and professionalism of the HAM Radio operators
that participated in, and attended the Annual Lenoir City Fall
Festival and Car Show this past Saturday, September 25, 2021.
To say the least, it can be very trying when dealing with the
public. HAM Radio operators are great communicators when
speaking with strangers. This experience is invaluable for an
event such as this one to go smoothly.
With an invitation to return next year from the event
coordinators, goes to show just how well we adapt, especially
for a function we have not done in the past. It's the push to
represent, the patience, and the urge to help others that
makes great communicators, and with experience, whether on the
hf rig or in a mutual aide scenario, the knowledge and
experience that Ham Operators obtain via operating is
outstanding.
We wish to thank the following, whether communicating with the
Civitan Parking Staff, vendors, show car owners, LEO's or
attending the booth:
You all made this event truly fun, and a success.
Chuck N4CSF
Tom W8MKL
Mike KK6OKU
Dave N9KMY(SMARC)
Mike K4MJF
Brent K4BNN
Brad KM4OJK
David KF4DKW
XYL Karen Foley
The dedication these folks have to support our hobby and make
it shine, stood above and beyond the call, and before we even
left the event, the invitation from the event coordinators to
return next year to help, speaks volumes to the exceptional
volunteers that did such a fantastic job.
Also thank you to the Club members that helped run the booth,
made contacts, whether in-person or on the portable rig,
demonstrating the hobby, passing out information, talking to
those who showed in interest in our Club, and to what we
represented to the community.
KK6OKU, K4MJF, N9KMY,
KF4DKW, N4CSF, K4BNN
KM4OJK and his YL daughter
K4MJF and XYL Karen manning
the booth
N4CSF and XYL Dianne
KK6OKU bragging about his
contacts
WB9TFR 2021
Tennessee QSO Party
Reminder, the logs for the
Tennessee QSO Party are due by October 5th. Visit their website
at tnqp.org for more
info.
East
Tennessee Hamfest 2021 - September 25th
The
East Tennessee Hamfest is going to be
held on September 25th at the Sevier County Fair Grounds, 754
Old Knoxville Highway, Sevierville, TN. The hamfest will
feature the infamous Bone Yard, with 17 acres of ham radio and
GMRS gear, as well as numerous indoor vendors, forums and
prizes!
The
keynote speaker will be Tom
Medlin/W5KUB, host of the YouTube show Amateur Radio Roundtable. He will be
launching a Pico balloon from the fairgrounds!
Gates
open at 8am. Talk in frequency is 146.940 (no tone.)
Visit
their websites at http://www.easttennesseehamfest.com/
or https://seviercountyars.com/hamfest-2021
W4DXCC
2021 Convention - September 24th and 25th
The W4DXCC DX and Contest Convention will be
held in Pigeon Forge, TN. The Ham Radio Boot Camp will be held
on Friday evening.
Sterling Man, N0SSC, has
recently been added to the lineups for both the Bootcamp and
the main program. He joins a list of other presenters,
including Gary
Wise, W4EEY, whose YouTube channel features classes that has helped
many amateurs get or upgrade their license.
They will be performing VE
testing and QSL Card Checking at the convention. Visit their
website, w4dxcc.com for
more information.
2021 Tennessee QSO
Party
Tennessee QSO Party
stared at 1800 UTC Sunday, September 5th and ran until 0300
UTC, Monday September 6th. All bands except
60m, 30m, 17m and 12m, were allowed.
Operating modes Phone (no repeater operation,) CW, Digital
(must choose one) and Mixed. Categories are Fixed or Mobile;
High Power (QRO >150W,) Low Power (<150W), and QRP (5W
or less); Single-Op or Multi-Op.
For more information, visit website at https://tnqp.org/
TLARC
Summerfest 2021
TLARC
held Summerfest 2021on Thursday,
August 19th at the Tugaloo Beach in Tellico Village.
Club
members and guests met at the Tugaloo Pavilion in Tellico
Village for an evening of good food, fellowship and fun.
And
everyone got a raffle ticket for the drawing
later that evening.
Lots of smiling faces at the meeting...
A LOT
of good food was brought in. Everything from fried chicken,
meatballs, jalapeno poppers, pasta salad, strawberry pretzel
salad, potato salad, sliders, chips, all manner of desserts
and drinks were available as well. What a feast!
After the feast, we had a fox
hunt. There were 2 foxes available to find, and we had several
who had never participated in a hunt. We gave them all the
information and help they needed.
Prizes were given to the ones who found them first. Randy,
WK9M, and Lisa, W8LDK, both took home a $10 gift certificate
from Casa Fiesta Mexican Restaurant in Lenoir City. Thanks to
all those who participated in the fox hunt!
After those prizes were
awarded, we held the raffle for a free medium sandwich from
Firehouse Subs. Two tickets were drawn. Karen Foley won the
first one, and Brad, KM4OJK, won the other. Congratulations to
our raffle winners!
Afterwords, the general club meeting was called to order by
President Mike Wagner, KK6OKU. Information about upcoming
events was shared with all those present.
July
2021 Meeting
The
July 2021 Meeting was held on Wednesday, July 21st at Z
Fish House, 846 Mulberry Street, in Loudon.
Antenna
Party at KK6OKU's House!
Mike/KK6OKU recently
performed some antenna work with the assistance of some of our
club members who volunteered their time to help with this
project.
Mike/KK6OKU spent some time a few months ago putting the
cobweb together, as well as fabricating insulator blocks for
the driven element and gamma match poles.
Randy/WK9M and Mike/KK6OKU
spent five hours working on the new cobweb to get it tuned for
the 6m-40m bands.
They had to relocate a J-pole
up another 10 feet on the truss. The balun for the end-fed
Chameleon, which does 160m-6m, was relocate to a different
position. They used the EZ Hang sling shot to get the rope for
the block-and-tackle 20 feet into a recently pruned tree, and
ran the support rope for the far end of the antenna to the
tree.
Dave/KF4DKW, Randy/WK9M and
Rob/K4MBZ reworked the connections on the beam and swept it
through all the bands.
Mike reports that utilizing
the lift from Monroe Rentals was a real time and back saver!
Kudos to Randy, Dave, Rob and Mike for a job well done!
Here's a few pictures showing all the hard work performed:
 
TLARC
Field Day 2021
- A resounding Success!
What an event! What a day! See the
photo recap of the club's activities
at this year's TLARC Field Day at God's Cozy Acres on June 26-27.

And
with a little coaching by Mike
KK6OKU, Robin KO4PNC makes several
contacts at the GOTA (Get On The Air)
station:

RamSat
Deployed from ISS on June 14:
RamSat, the CubeSat project developed
by the Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge, TN, was
successfully deployed from the International Space Station
on Monday June 14th. Post deployment activation occurred,
and we have been receiving telemetry transmissions
indicating nominal conditions. In the next week we expect to
receive our first set of Keplerian elements, allowing
accurate tracking by ground stations across the world.
We have an excellent blog detailing
the efforts, including the fantastic videos of the actual
deployment. Check it out at:
https://sites.google.com/view/ramsat/home
Additionally, we are working to create
an online dashboard to view current and historical telemetry
with visual trending. Stay tuned for additional details.
de N1ESK
May
2021 Meeting: "All About POTA"
Our in-person general club meeting for
May was conducted in the open pavilion at the Toqua Golf
Club in Tellico Village. The meeting's feature
presentation, delivered by Sam Howard KV4XY and Robert
Howard WW4WTF, overviewed their Parks On The Air (POTA)
operating experience out in the fields, mountains and trees
of East TN. More photojournalism coming soon, but for now
click the photo below for a shot of the larger group in
attendance!

Museum Ships Weekend Event:
More than 80 ships were on the air
over June 5-6 weekend, each with separate callsign! See
this link below (click image) and see the K4MFJ message
below it.

Starting Friday at 6pm, it's Museum
Ships Weekend! All you Ham Radio operators tune in for this
48 hour continuous broadcast from the historic naval fleet.
This year, 75 ships have signed up to participate in the
program. The Deep South Amateur Radio Club will be
broadcasting out of the USS ALABAMA's Radio Central, using
the ships original antenna. Call letters are: K4DSR. The USS
DRUM will be activated too. Call letters are: K5LDA. Radios
operating between 20 and 40 mm frequency. Museum Ships
Weekend broadcast will go through Sunday afternoon at 5:00
p.m. Tune in!
~k4mjf
SpaceX launches Robertsville Middle School students'
satellite to ISS
David N1ESK
reported live from Cape Canaveral yesterday with the team of
Oak Ridge middle school students.
After five years of work, Robertsville Middle
School students got to see their satellite blast off into
space.
RamSat, a nanosatellite designed and built by
students, successfully launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9
rocket on Thursday. 50 middle schoolers who worked on
RamSat traveled to Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday to
watch the launch.
N1ESK:
“Successful launch Busy day. The kids were interviewed via
remote by WBIR Knoxville, then food, then walk to the beach.
Rain and wind had us concerned, but it cleared and launch
went well. Lots of pics. Kids are all smiles.”

When does the
team’s CubeSat go live with telemetry?
“Hopefully
soon. We need to wait until we have visibility, but the
system is configured to activate 30 minutes after deployment
and immediately start relaying telemetry.”
Congratulations
to active TLARC member N1ESK and the student team that he
and other teachers has been mentoring for more than a year!
See
details of this huge adventure in the
WBIR coverage
See also
NASA coverage of SpaceX CRS-22.
Space
Weather for a Modern World
Take a look at this interesting video
in which Tabatha Skov (she's a ham too) describes how the
Sun stirs up "space weather" that directly affects
communications here on Earth. I think you'll like this one,
as well as Tabatha's semi-regular Space Weather Updates that
we post here in the TLARC website for all to enjoy. Hope
you like this space weather backgrounder - I know I did!
~n2apb

The
Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 1921
A fascinating read
on the geomagnetic storm’s impacts 100 years ago and the
potential effects of a similar event today.
~ Chuck N4CSF

Retired
cryptologist traces former naval base’s history
Another
interesting part of radio history from the
perspective of an ex-Navy cryptologist's tour at The
Elephant Cage in northern Alaska. (See prior article
about this site further down on this page.)
Contributed by Jim Jenkins AA1J
The Basics of
Soldering
N2APB recently
produced a short video demonstrating the basics of
soldering, in concert with a professor from the EE
department at the University of Tennessee. It might be
interesting if you are new to homebrewing and kit building!

The Sounds of Ham Radio
This is way cool. It’s a 10-band audio
equalization filter, in which all modes of communication are
‘hidden’ in the audio stream – just dial up/down the
respective control to hear the data being transmitted.
Quite amazing. Read more on it on its web page – love it!
(Thanks to David KF4DKW for spotting this gem.)




Results of the TLARC
Fox Hunt
2021
Rain didn't
stop us this time and on April 24th TLARC's second Fox Hunt
was successfully conducted and the results are in! (See
lots more details and photos!)
So
... "WHAT THE HECK IS A FOX HUNT?!"
Check
out the great presentation done by our very own Fox
Hunt Wizard: Dave Andrews N1ESK

April 2021 TLARC Meeting
... in-person and a blast!
We had our first in-person general
club meeting last night at the Countryside Restaurant in
Vonore - over 25 members were in attendance ... almost half
the club! Good country-style food was served in the large
room in the back, interesting officer/committee reports were
delivered and discussed

A terrific "Fox
Hunt Overview" presentation was given by David
Andrews N1ESK, just in time for the TLARC
Fox Hunt being held this Saturday. View the N1ESK
presentation in its entirety, and see the full
photo report of the meeting
HERE.
Our newest ham: Robin
Monserrat, KO4PNC
Please welcome Robin Monserrat into
the wonderful world of amateur radio. Robin attended the
SMARC ZOOM study session for the Technician Class License
last month and took the test Saturday. She passed with all
35 correct exam responses and is just received her new
callsign from the FCC! Congratulations Robin, we are looking
forward to hearing you on the air SOON!

HF
Ionospheric Propagation
Het, instead of sitting
around at the end of the day and watching the boob
toob for an hour, why not watch something really
interesting to us hams: “HF Ionospheric Propagation”.
The presenter is the famous
Frank Donovan, W3LPL and I guarantee you'll learn
something about how the Sun affects the Earth's ionosphere
... and hence how we hams are able to communicate! Let us
know if you do watch this and what you think about it!

Juan AC6ZM
and Randy WK9M do it again!
The records are in for the 2020 160
Meter Contest and AC6ZM and WK9M took first
place for TN *and* took DIVISION HONORS for
the four states in our Delta Division. They operated out of
K0EJ (Mark) station in Soddy Daisy, TN and they traveled
home for daytime break and drove back to the shack for the
evening hours since 160 meters is primarily a night time
band. They missed a clean sweep, but logged 57 of 63
sections, working all 49 states (missed ND) and missed the
following VE-land sections LB, NF, NT, NU, and YT.)
Rig: TS-590S Kenwood
Amp: Alpha 78
Xmit Antennas: Inverted-L with 120 radials
RCV Antennas: Four 800 ft. beverage antennas
Logging: N1MM+
Way to go guys! TLARC contesting team
shines!


... by Brad KM4OJK
At one of our meetings, these
upcoming events were mentioned. Mark your calendars
now!
The
TLARC T-Shirts are here!
Contact Mike KK6OKU
to pickup your order or to see if there are any leftovers
yet to purchase.
 
AC6ZM
and WK9M score big in 2020 RTTY Contest
The results are in and AC6ZM &
WK9M came in third place for this annual event, operating as
a 'Multi-2' station. They missed 1st place by 7 country
multipliers ... So close yet so far! Juan reports that they
were in the lead many times throughout the 48-hour contest.

The contest was hosted by WV4P (Ron)
and N4RL (Trina) in Savanah, TN. The team used a pair of
Flex 6600 SDR transceivers with phased verticals, two
tribanders for 20,15,10; dipoles for 40/80 and K9AY receive
antennas for the low bands. Linears were an AL1200 and Alpha
99. Way to go Juan and Randy!

TLARC
Meeting of Feb 17, 2021
"Here we sit, broken hearted, wanted to meet but
only ... ZOOMED!"
Good meeting this month - click on photo below for bigger
view. Chuck N4CSF voted in as club secretary and N2APB
presented on the Nostalgic-Yet-Still-Alive Joys of QSL
Cards - click on presentation below that as well.

God's Cozy Acres now on
the map!
... by David KF4DKW

The once-hidden operating
outpost at God's Cozy Acres is now on the map!
With some help from your club President, we placed a
permanent marker at the site.
Look for the blue and white reflective street numbers on a
post at the entrance to the driveway.
The address is:
2315 Big Sandy Road
Philadelphia, TN 37846
Google Maps doesn't route you to the correct address.
Program the information below in your GPS or cell phone
for future contests, picnics and get togethers:
35°41'21.9"N 84°31'12.1"W
https://goo.gl/maps/oChkVUfiSP3JAXgW8
East Tenn. middle school first in country
to send satellite into orbit with NASA
by David Andrews, N1ESK

For
some time now I’ve been involved with the STEM
program at Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge
and their efforts to construct a 2U CubeSat. The project
is about to complete a major milestone. On March 8th,
Dr. Peter Thornton and I will hand deliver the satellite,
known as RamSat, to our launch integrator contractor in
Houston. We will place the satellite into the PPOD
(Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployer) which will then be
integrated into a Cargo Dragon capsule atop a SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket for delivery to the International Space
Station in May.
Further details here.

WVLT-TV produced a video segment recently on the
program. I’ve also included a link to the RamSat project
website. Start at the bottom of the page and work your way
up to work forward in time. Lots of detailed descriptions
and photos. We have an operational ground station at the
school, and a backup ground station for redundancy and
after-hours access.
Here's
a handy chart!

TLARC assist in annual Whitestone 30k road race
Loudon County ARES assisted Roane
County ARES for the fifth year with the Whitestone 30k road
race (18.6 miles) on Sunday, Feb 21 in Paint Rock (Roane
County). This joint public service event helps strengthen
our relationship with our neighboring agencies and helps to
practice our skills as communicators.
The communications volunteer duration was from about 07:00
to 13:00. The race began at 08:00 and ended around 12:00. A
pre-operational briefing was conducted at the old (vacant)
Paint Rock Grocery at the corner of Highway 72 and Paint
Rock Road. Each communications member was paired with a
Roane County or Loudon County ARES member.
We operated on a portable repeater. The backup was simplex,
which means you needed a mobile radio with a mobile antenna.
The event is also designed as an exercise to practice skills
such as relaying messages when other stations are out of
simplex or repeater range. A dual-band HT with an extended
range antenna will probably work just fine. Bring a backup
battery or radio.

  
  
The
Last Elephant Cage
A must-see
video from the NSA regarding some fascinating radio
history. And for those thinking Morse code is irrelevant!
Sit back and enjoy the video.
de N1ESK


The
Smoky Mountain Amateur Radio Club is offering an entry
level ham radio technician class. This course will be
offered online via Zoom. Licensing exams will be offered
following the last class. Each session will offer a review
of the previous class and then introduce a new topic.
For further info:
Flyer and the
Course Goals
Winter
Field Day & 160 Meter Contest at God's Cozy Acres
2 The contesting
sub-group of the TLARC club activated the club call KN4DUA
for this annual event on Jan 29-31, with good participation,
great food and lots of fun! Preliminary Scores
show really impressive year-to-year performance. Click below
for all the photos!

New
TLARC Officers for 2021
Welcome to the new board for
2021. Meet them more personally here:
President: Mike
Wagner KK6OKU
Vice President: Mike
Foley, K4MJF
Secretary: Chuck
Ferguson, N4CSF (interim)
Treasurer: George Sifnotis, WB9TFR
And meet them more personally
here
Raising
the new satellite antennas at N1ESK on Jan 16

Brush
Clearing at God's Cozy Acres by
Randy WK9M
Randy WK9M, Mike KK6OKU and David
KF4DKW doing a little cleanup work out at the club's "field
location" in late December for improved
Beverage antenna installation.

Programming
your FT3 to use the ISS Repeater by
K4MJF

Here
is a
YouTube video on how to program your radio to use
the repeater on the International Space Station. Many have
tried to do this with some success, and others have asked
how to do it. Maybe this video will help explain it. I
know that I'll program my FT3 and use my dual band
handheld beam to see if I can make contact..... how about
you?!?? Good luck and talk to you "on the air" soon!
73, Mike, K4MJF
Increased
Solar Activity Ahead! (click on
image)

Final
Club Net & Meeting of 2020 (Dec 16)
If you missed our final meetings on Dec 16,
they were quite fun! The weekly
TLARC radio net on the 442.100 repeater, expertly hosted by Sam
KV4XY, had some 15** check-ins and we each reached out to welcome the
newest club member:
Tim, KO4JLL. After the net meeting our
weekly Zoom session
main topic of discussion and hilarity was "Where
and how to use an ATU with an external power amplifier." Recommendations for use of the
Alpha-Delta coax switch were quite valuable.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all
TLARC members and their families!
Stay safe until we next meet you individually and/or at
the next TLARC radio net meeting on January 13.
** A new
feature of 2021 will be an ongoing list of the check-ins
for each net meeting!
Saturn-Jupiter
'Christmas Star' Conjuntion! (click
on image)

Jupiter and Saturn will form rare
"Christmas Star" on winter solstice
On December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer in
Earth’s night sky than they have since 1226 A.D. You can
watch the event live
here, courtesy of Lowell Observatory.
TLARC
gathered in cool November evening for monthly meeting!
Lots accomplished at this month's
in-person meeting at the Toqua Pavilion, including election
of next year's officers and discussion of annual dues,
disposition of the 442.100 repeater and the upcoming Holiday
Party. Details on all forthcoming!


October
Meeting Features An Auction!
So many good items auctioned off
for the benefit of TLARC during the October meeting! ...
NorCal 40 QRP CW transceiver, a Morse code key, a Sinclair
Scientific TMS 1000 microcomputer and printer, a magnified
'third hand' pcb vise for the homebrewer's bench, and a
Shortwave Regen Receiver (featured in QST circa 2000 and
built by a Boy Scout back then), and more. What can you
bring to the next meeting to auction off for the benefit
of TLARC?!


Juan AC6ZM has been presenting a
three part presentation on HF Contesting during the TLARC
weekly Zoom sessions.
Part 1 was on October 7. Part 2 was on
October 14. Part 3 on Nov 4th. These presentations
overview HF contesting for the licensed ham who wants to
explore one of the most fun aspects of ham radio - also
known as Radio Sport. (We'll soon have Part 3 available
for download.)
TLARC October Meeting
Recap

This month's meeting was
a hoot, held in-person beneath the (open) pavilion at the
Toqua Golf Club. We received the slate of officers for 2021
from the Nominating Committee. Voting to come in a
forthcoming meeting. Nominations so far include:
President: Mike Wagner KK6OKU
Vice President: Mike Foley, K4MJF
Secretary: Eric Ressler, KD8LHZ
Treasurer: George Sifnotis, WB9TFR
The Financial Review
Committee was also appointed, and a couple of impromptu
"special entertainers" took the floor: one to auction off
some cool, vintage and eclectic items (N2APB), and the other
gave a demonstration of numeric mental prowess (KM4TUY).
After these acts it's hard to imagine what will come next
month!
'TEAM TLARC" Scores
big in 160-Meter contest at God's Cozy Acres last weekend

Another TLARC member
gets on the HF bands for the first time ... KM4TUY !!

Congratulations to Ralph
Monserrat (KM4TUY) for his first ever HF contact!
At 23:13 local last night, Ralph logged his first contact
with KW4Z in Florence Alabama.
The Earth gets a new
'mini-moon' mid-November

Around mid-month in November,
Earth will have a new temporary moon. Designated Asteroid
2020 SO, the object is instead manmade. In 1966, the
failed Surveyor 2 moon mission was powered to the
moon by a Centaur upper rocket stage which was discarded
near the moon. The rocket body went into orbit around the
sun and after 54 years, is returning home.
Here is the link to Phys.org
article:
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-fake-asteroid-nasa-expert-ids.amp
Amateur astronomer Kevin Heider
said on Twitter that around the time of closest approach on
December 1, 2020, 2020 SO will only brighten to about
apparent magnitude 14.1, and would require a telescope with
roughly a 150mm (6?) objective lens to see visually.
(Thanks to TLARCer Space Cadet
Ben Edwards AD4BE for this heads-up reporting.)
TLARCers joined in on SMARC's October Foxhunt

SMARC conducted
their foxhunt on a sunny Saturday Oct 17th morning in
Everett Park, Maryville.
It was an "on-foot" hunt for two (2) small battery-operated
"Fox" transmitters hidden somewhere in the park. Click on
the photo to search for participants from TLARC, including
K4MJF and KK6OKU.
ISS SSTV Experiments by TLARC Members
Several
TLARC Space Cadets have been attempting to receive and
display the SSTV images from the International Space
Station, as transmitting during the SSTV this month. Images
are downlinked at 145.800 MHz using an FM HT coupled to an
Android app or the MMSSTV app on a computer. See
this good backgrounder. The latest image is shown
below, courtesy of KF4DKW. Great fun!


TLARC Meeting - A
September Evening @ Tugaloo Beach
What fun! An in-person meeting after some 7
months via Zoom! Awesome turnout. And we had a Unicorn
leading people in from the road. The 19th is the big Sevier
County Hamfest and the 26th is the Sweetwater Hamfest. We
had a non-ham visiting from Lenoir City.(Name?) Ralph,
KM4TUY was introduced. Nominating committee volunteers
stepped up. DJ Unicorn brought his equipment for music and
meeting audio.



On Solar Flares
-- CfA Scientists and Team Take a Look Inside the
Central Engine of a Solar Flare for the First Time.

Using
a Software Defined Radio (SDR) on the FM Broadcast Band to
Foretell 2-Meter Band Openings


(Click photo for larger view)
Solar Storm Forecast 08.10.2020
--
Three Bright Regions and a
Storm Generator

TLARC Officers at Work

The
Perseids are Here Again!
The
annual
Perseid Meteor Shower peaks from August 11 to 13.
The Perseids are considered the best meteor shower of the
year—thanks to meteors streaking across the sky every
couple minutes and pleasant summer temperatures. Find out
when to watch for the Perseids in 2020 and how to maximize
your chance of seeing a shooting star!

TLARC
Space Cadets News:
Starlink: SpaceX's satellite internet project
Starlink is the name of a satellite network that the private spaceflight company SpaceX is developing to provide low-cost internet to
remote locations. While SpaceX eventually hopes to have as
many as 12,000 satellites in this so-called
megaconstellation, the size and scale of the project have
flustered astronomers and amateur skywatchers, who fear
that the bright, orbiting objects will interfere with
observations of the universe.

TLARC
Space Cadets Make It Big

TLARC
Online Meeting: July 15

Brief Summary from Secy' N1ESK ...
- K4MJF stated the Sevierville Hamfest is
scheduled for September 19; see
www.seviercountyars.com for updates.
- KV4XY reminds all to complete their 2020 FD logs before
the deadline in two weeks.
- KV4XY reported great participation in the 13 Colonies
event. Please send pictures of your 13 Colonies awards to
N2APB for the website.
- No responses yet to the club flyer mailing. Time will
tell if these efforts yield any fruit.
- KK6OKU seeking volunteers for NCS and logging duties for
the weekly TLARC Radio Net.
- Revisions to the current Constitution and By-Laws
discussed and questions answered. No objections heard. Vote
to approve the new documents will be held on August 15.
- Full minutes here.
Solar
Dynamics Observatory -- A Decade of Sun
June 2, 2010 -- June 1, 2020
Every second is a day in the video
below ...

As of June 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory
— SDO — has now been watching the Sun non-stop for over a
full decade. From its orbit in space around the Earth, SDO
has gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the Sun,
amassing 20 million gigabytes of data over the past 10
years. This information has enabled countless new
discoveries about the workings of our closest star and how
it influences the solar system. (More at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3QQQu7QLoM&feature=emb_rel_pause)
13
Colonies Special Event
On-air activity was like cannon blast!
TLARC participation included: KV4XY,
WW4WTF, AC6ZM, WK9M, KK6OKU, N2APB and a few more!



New
QRP Radio Makes Big Splash in Ham Market

MCARC Hamfest held
in Athens, TN on 7/18/2020
It was a hot one for about six
TLARC members who were able to make it down to Athens for
the annual MCARC Hamfest this year. Everyone was wearing
a mask and some were even wearing gloves. The usual hamfestalia
were hanging out, including some nice boat anchor
sightings, so I heard! Even had some unicorn sightings
...

Jumping Off The Grid
(Contributed
by TLARC Anonymous)
A lot of amateurs want
to go off grid.
The demand and desire to take
amateur radio off grid is absolutely there. The problem is
that information about off grid radio is sprinkled around.
It’s hard to find straight answers. Many radio and
survival blogs occasionally address the issue, but to my
knowledge, Off
Grid Ham
and OH8STN
are the only two outlets that deal with off grid radio
radio exclusively.
For readers who are not
off the grid, or seek to expand off grid capabilities,
I’ve put together this “off grid radio guide” for
beginners that will answer the most common questions in
one compact package. This is not a comprehensive guide;
we’re just going to summarize main points. At the end of
this article there will be links to additional information
on the topics covered
here.
// Lots of great resource links
are at the end of this article. Thanks to Anon for
submitting! - n2apb

Field Day 2020
is now in the history books. It was a great event for those
that operated. Many operated from their QTH and many opted
for portable operations somewhere in their own back yard,
mobile or nearby location. Social distancing has definitely
changed things but one thing that didn’t change is the great
participation during field day. I personally operated for
21 hours. I participated in a Distributed M/M with the
Tennessee Contest Group http://k4tcg.org/ and the
Deep Dixie Contest Club
http://www.john-mcvey.com/ddcc1/ in preparation for
the HF IARU Radio Championship
https://www.iaru.org/on-the-air/iaru-contests/rules/
July 11-12, 2020. We are representing the U.S. IARU HQ
Society and will be using the callsign W1AW/4.
...
Submitted by Juan Lopez, AC6ZM
Follow the SpaceX Program ...


KV4XY
wows SMARC with WSPR
Sam KV4XY presented
on the digital mode called WSPR to the Smoky
Mountain ARC gang April 27. Over 24 people in attendance on Zoom!

The
Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 1921...
Contributed by David Andrews, N1ESK
Ninety-nine years ago this week, people around the
world woke up to some unusual headlines. They didn’t know it
at the time, but those newspapers were covering the biggest
solar storm of the 20th Century. Nothing quite like it has
happened since. [Read
more about this fascinating event]

Held on June 14,
2020 @ Chota Wellness Center
The first ever TLARC Fox Hunt was
deemed a success, according to those in attendance on Sunday
morning, June 14th. Eleven licensed amateurs
participated in the event, assisted by the first and second
harmonics of Jacob KN4WAV and Kayla KO4DEG Lindsey. Two
foxes were laying in wait at the Tellico Village Wellness
Center. The group was split into two groups and set out for
two hours of frustration and learning. Most everyone found
the hidden transmitters, which were hiding in plain sight.
With the first effort completed,
participants have some data points to improve their
techniques and equipment for the second TLARC fox hunt.
Early planning has already begun. Now is the time to start
building your portable antennas, attenuators, and other
tools to find those foxes.

How
To Build a 20m Dipole

Spot the
Station ... N1ESK reels in the ISS on a clear
& cool April morning!
Dave N1ESK
says: "Your post [Mike] got my juices flowing. Sunday
morning was overcast, so scratch that attempt. Looking at
the prediction table and the weather forecast, Monday
morning had potential. Set the alarm for an obscene time,
pack everything up and head to a dark hill (back of the
wellness Center). Take a few test shots, make final
adjustments, then wait and freeze. Finally she appeared. 15
second exposure."
Way to go
ESK!

Spot the Station (Sign-up for email
notifications like this here.)

Long-Lost U.S. Military Satellite Found By Canadian
Amateur Radio Operator
(From
the
Daily Timewaster)
There are more than 2,000 active
satellites orbiting Earth. At the end of their useful
lives, many will simply burn up as they reenter the
atmosphere.
But some will continue circling as "zombie"
satellites — neither alive nor quite dead.
Scott Tilley,
an amateur radio operator living in Canada, has a
passion for hunting them down.
Recently, Tilley got interested in a
communications satellite he thought might still be alive —
or at least among the living dead. LES-5, built by the Massachusetts Institutehe found a
paper describing the radio frequency that LES-5, an
experimental military UHF communications satellite, should be operating on — if it was still alive.
So he decided to have a look.
"This required the building of an antenna,
erecting a new structure to support it. Pre-amps, filters,
stuff that takes time to gather and put all together," he
says.
British
Columbia, where Tilley lives, was on lockdown. Like many
of us, suddenly Tilley had time on his hands. He used it
to look for LES-5, and on March 24, he hit the ham radio
equivalent of pay dirt.
"The
reason this one is kind of intriguing is its telemetry
beacon is still operating," Tilley says.
In
other words, says Tilley, even though the satellite was
supposed to shut down in 1972, it's still going. As long
as the solar panels are in the sun, the satellite's
radio continues to operate. Tilley thinks it may even be
possible to send commands to the satellite.
The
MIT lab that built LES-5 still does a lot of work on
classified projects for the military. NPR contacted its
news office to ask if someone could say more about LES-5
and whether it really could still receive commands.
But
after repeated requests, Lincoln Laboratory finally
answered with a "no comment." It seems that even elderly satellites still might have a few secrets
they want to keep.
<
Thanks to Barry K8NWB for this contribution. >
Newest
Hams in the Maryville, Tellico Lake and Lenoir City
areas
The TLARC Volunteer Examiner (VE) had a successful
test session on Saturday April 25 at the Toqua Pavilion in
Tellico Village.
-
Our very own Greg Wilde
KO4CYX passed his General AND Extra exams in a
single session. Greg passed his Technician exam just two
weeks ago.
-
Jacob Lindsey KN4YAV
passed his General exam. Kayla Lindsey passed
the Tech exam and is now
KO4DEG. They are
members of Smoky
Mountain Amateur Radio Club in Maryville.
-
Stanley Swanson, W4SSF,
passed his General. Stanley lives in Lenoir City.
Here's the note we received today April 25, 2020
from the newest ham in TLARC - Greg KO4CYX:
"I had to share I passed my General and
Amateur Extra tests today. David, Alan, Brad, Joyce,
and Larry (sorry if Larry isn't the right name, I am
horrible with names) thank you all so so much. I am
looking forward to meeting everyone eventually and truly
start learning.
"If anyone is interested here are my study sources. I
used 4 sources for study and wanted to share in case you
have anyone that this might help. HAM College is
excellent if you or someone you know is struggling.
1. ARRL study guides --
Hand-delivered to my house by David Andrews, lol
2. Ham Radio Prep https://hamradioprep.com/ --
This is great to get into the course but not really
necessary if you do the HAM College. It is more about
teaching you to pass the test.
3. Ham College on youtube.com --They have
courses for Technician, General and Amateur Extra. I
did not know about them for my Technician.This is a
fantastic course. They don't just teach you to pass
the test. They have handouts, study tips, exact steps
to process formulas on a calculator, formula sheets,
sources for the many avenues with HAM, etc. The Extra
course expires at the end of June so if someone wants
to do it, START NOW. There are about 30 hours of
video just for the Extra ... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3DKjqB4OLY2UXm2KqDpwQ
4. Finally HamStudy.org for practice tests. They
have great apps for phones, tablets and a website. It
tracks every question and shows your weaknesses. When
you take a test you can immediately study the question
pool where you were week. Each question has a detailed
explanation you can open with hints. Invaluable in my
opinion. https://hamstudy.org/"
Congratulations
on all our new hams! Please join us in welcoming
these folks when you hear them on the repeater, see them on
Zoom, or actually meet face-to-face at a club meeting or
event.
Updated
Prediction of Solar Cycle 25
Early this month SWPC published their official updated
prediction of Solar Cycle 25 in a new user-interactive graph
format. Their updated prediction is based on the results of
NOAA's Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel.
ISES
Solar Cycle Sunspot Number Progression

See the fully-interactive
graphs
SWPC forecasts a solar maximum between 105 and 125 with the
peak occurring between November 2024 and March 2026. There
is broad consensus that Solar Minimum is ongoing this year
-- or may have already occurred -- and that Cycle 25 will
have no major change in the level of solar activity compared
to Cycle 24.
For many years SWPC's solar cycle predictions have used the
Royal Observatory of Belgium's International Sunspot Number.
SWPC's official solar cycle prediction now uses the SWPC
sunspot number. The International Sunspot Number is
typically about one third lower than the SWPC sunspot
number.
While this is SWPC's official Cycle 25 prediction, its
important to notethere is still divergence among various
forecasting methods and members of the space weather
forecasting community. Most forecasts and forecasters agree
that the Cycle
25 is likely to be within plus or minus 20 percent of
Cycle 24 and is likely to occur between 2024 and 2027.
< Thanks to Juan AA6ZM for contributing this news item
>
In
World War I, British Biplanes Had Wireless Phones in the
Cockpit.
Pilots
on reconnaissance missions could immediately call in
their findings.
As soon as the first humans went
up in hot air balloons in the late 1700s, military
strategists saw the tantalizing possibilities of aerial
reconnaissance. Imagine being able to spot enemy
movements and artillery from on high—even better if you
could instantly communicate those findings to colleagues
on the ground. But the technology of the day didn’t
offer an elegant way to do that.
[More
...]

Courtesy:
IEEE Spectrum
International Space Station (ISS)
sightings in Loudon County -- Interest
has peaked in viewing the daily ISS orbits, as reminded by
Mike KK6OKU by his occasional postings of times and
directions to observe. On the evening of April 5 an
number of TLARCers saw the Space Station streak across the
dark and near-cloudless skies on a NW-to-SE vector in less
than 6 seconds! David KF4DKW snapped this shot
below as its path was near a brilliant full moon and added
some data. Ben AD4BE collected some interesting
background on the ISS in his attached
PDF. Our next goal will be to QSO with the
astronauts on the ISS. One can easily determine when the
next pass is coming at Spot
The Station. Lots of additional ISS information can
be found by searching on "International Space Station".
My favorite go-to site is at N2YO.
(Click on the images below
for a larger view.)

New
ham in the village: Greg Wilde KO4CYX -- Yes,
it's true, our newest TLARC member GREG WILDE passed the
Technician license exam administered by our VE team on
Saturday April 4 and we officially have a new ham in the
world!
Sasquatch
Stomp 2020 -- Results to be reported soon for
this fun QRP CW event on the evening of April 3. Jim K0RGI,
George N2APB and Juan AC6ZM participated along with maybe
100 other QRPers around the country. [And George was
designated a 'Yeti', which gave a huge number of bonus
points to those contacting him!]

Mobile Operation: An Experiment
by Juan AC6ZM
-- Juan recently
tried operating "on the road" mobile on a trip driving from
TN to OH. He says "results were great and much better than
expected" ... Read all about it here
in his presentation documenting those results!

March Meeting Recap
-- We
tried something new this time by virtually conducting
our meeting on the club repeater by having members check in
at the normal meeting time. David N1ESK conducted some
normal TLARC business, and the mic was then given over to
Sam
Howard KV4XY
who expertly walked us through his
slide
deck
telling us all about WSPR (pronounced "whisper"), the
"Weak Signal Propagation Reporter". This digital
communications protocol was designed and first implemented
by Nobel laureate Joe Taylor, K1JT for weak-signal radio
communication between amateur radio operators and for
sending and receiving low-power transmissions to test
propagation paths on the MF and HF bands.

February Meeting Recap
-- If you
missed the February TLARC meeting, you missed a good one.
Goals for 2020 were presented, and a grant of $2500 was
received. Click to view the Meeting
Minutes and the presentation: TLARC
Vision 2020. You will see that we’re looking for
several volunteers to help with the efforts. Specifically,
we need a few people to step forward to assist with:
-
Creating a club flyer, to be
mailed to area hams who aren’t yet members of TLARC;
-
Designing a club logo for
T-shirts, hats, etc; and
-
Reviewing the current
Constitution and By-Laws for proposed updates and for
compliance with IRS rules.
If
interested, please contact me (David
N1ESK). Time moves fast, so we need to get started on
these projects ASAP.

Hooray to TLARC's CQ World-Wide
160-meter Contest Team! --
Randy KG9M reports that the TLARC "Team 160" (KF4DKW,
KK6OKU, KV4XY, KE4OTZ, KG9M) had record results this
year: Contacts 333, Score ~49,980. (Last year: ~23,688)
... Quite the improvement, and they had lots of fun doing
it at our club's remote site: God's Cozy Acres. Randy and
David did a few things at the end of the contest to make
setup easier next time. (The contest was held over the
weekend of Jan 24-26.)
Operating Time: 34 Hours!
Total op time: 19:02
Total op time: 19:34
Avg Qs/Hr:: 17.5
Solar
Wind Animation -- I found this and thought it
was pretty cool ... n2apb

A
NASA animation of the solar wind and the Earth's
magnetosphere, and how the solar wind can reach Earth's
atmosphere near the poles. [NASA/CILab/Josh Masters]
Tribander Trap Experimentation --
Juan AC6ZM has been doing some trap work and came across
this excellent presentation that may also be of interest to
others ,,, All
You Need To Know About Tribander Antennas and Traps
...

December 2019 Meeting is History!
... The 2020 Officers slate
was voted on and approved! President DavidS KN4LMM, VP
Sam KV4XY, Secretary David N1ESK, and Treasurer Brad
KM4OJK. 'Thank you' guys for stepping up to lead TLARC in
the coming year! TLARC Team RunLoCo recognized (see item
below). Great presentation by Randy WK9M on keeping
*really* good accurate time using the Network Time
Protocol (NTP) and his Raspberry Pi-based GPS hardware. Randy's
NTP presentation file and all meeting details coming
shortly. Thanks to members for attending, and especially
to those who paid their 2020 dues.

TLARC
Team RunLoCo Recognized at December Meeting ...
Seven TLARC members were recognized for their
gracious and capable communications support during the
RunLoCo Marathon on December 7. Coordinator Tim KE4OTZ
formally thanked team members: Brad KM4OJK, Mike K4MJF,
David KF4DKW, Jim K0RGI, Randy WK9M and Alan A1AT.
(Missing from photo: Brent K4BNN and Tom W8MKL.) Thank
you guys!

Secret TLARC Workshop Project
Unveiled ... The
Phaser ... A
single-board, 4-watt Digital Mode SSB Transceiver for 80,
40, 30 or 20 Meters. Specifically designed for using digital
modes with computers running WSJT-X and FLDIGI applications.
All information and kit ordering info is at the Phaser
website.

Solar Storm Forecast: October 24 ... A
Coronal Hole in the Strike Zone & A Meteor Explodes
Over Wisconsin
(This
is a regular installment also found on www.QRZ.com.
Let me know if you enjoy this accessing this on our
TLARC website ... de n2apb)

2nd TLARC Workshop: The Secret
Project
... 8 club members
participated in
our club's 2nd workshop held at chez
N1ESK
- this time building a secret digital mode transceiver
project of N2APB. The kitbuilding skillsets ranged from
novice-to-medium, and construction was straightforward
while following a good assembly guide and some personal
guidance. We had reserved two afternoons this past
weekend to complete the kits, and by the end of the second
session five hams had successfully completed and tested
their boards and immediately got on-the-air getting to
achieve their first digital mode contacts! The others needed some extra time to finish
their assemblies, but plan to be on the air
soon. Soldering skills were honed and everyone came away
with newfound talents for winding toroids!

October 2019 Meeting
-- Huge success! This is just one man's opinion, but this
was the BEST meeting we've had since I came down here 18
months ago. The "project show 'n tell" was of such great
great interest and I was intently listening and taking
notes throughout the entire meeting. AND when coupled
with it being a PIZZA MEETING, well ... giddyup!!
Detailed notes and project photos are at our Show
n' Tell web page.

On
Being an ARRL-Affiliated Club ... If you
have attended recent club meetings, you no doubt have heard
discussions about us becoming an ARRL-Affiliated Club.
Here's some more information
and several documents describing the process and
benefits. We'll be making a decision on this shortly.
Please consider the topic and information, and let me know
your thoughts or concerns ...
David N1ESK
TLARC Happenings
... Fall
is here, and with it comes the start of contesting and
general club activities again after the long hot Summer.
Our TLARC leadership team highlighted a number of
contests (and
other club activities) for each month of
2019 that best reflects the interests of its membership ...
whether it be taking to the field with QRP, hiking up a
mountain to do some QRO work, working from a homebrew or
boatanchor station, or just operating from a nice and comfy
position there in your own shack!
==> Take a look at
the ones listed on our Fall
Happenings page and circle your calendar. Maybe
plan to get together with another like-minded ham for a
combined or instructive "adventure" of using CW, phone, or
even the newest cool digital mode: FT8.
Smoky Mountain ARC
...
Info on our neighboring club, as reported recently by Mike
K4MJF and Sam KV4XY ...
- Club repeater: 146.655, -600 offset, PL tone: 100
- Location: Maryville, TN
- Website: http://w4olb.org/home
- Daily net: 9am (excluding Fridays)
- Tech Lunch on Thursdays: Midland Restaurant
- Friday breakfasts: 9am, TC's Grill
- Club meetings: Last Monday of the month, 7pm, basement
of Union Steel Workers of America Hall
** Note: Monday, Sept. 24, meeting will start at 6:00 pm
with a swap meet followed by a BBQ dinner!
September
Meeting was a Winner!
... Discussion of new antenna rules, the DXCC convention
in Pigeon Forge this coming weekend. and various website
additions: For Sale pages, Solar Storm Forecasts and
Propagation curves for September. Oh yeah, and watch your
glucose readings too ;) Take a look at the Meeting
Minutes.
Tennessee
QSO Party
... Our
participation results from this Sept 1st event are
coming shortly. .

W4DXCC ... "Hello
from W4DXCC 15
DX and Contest Convention.
We are mere
days days away from the Best DX and Contest
Convention in the South East. We have the best equipment
manufacturers at the convention ready to speak with you.
For the latest News Go Here W4DXCC."

TN Section
winner: ARRL DX CW 2019 ... Our
very own pres, Juan Lopez AC6ZM, teamed up with buddy
K4OWR at Bill's
QTH in Oakdale to operate a multi-single
station ... to take FIRST PLACE in the Tennessee
Section! Over a 16-hour period, they used a Zero5
full size vertical with 35 radials, and two 160 meter band
full size dipoles oriented east-west and north-south, and
ran 1500 watts from an Ameritron AL-82 using an ICOM 7600,
and N1MM+ logging software. Kudo's to Juan!!

East
Tennessee 2 Meter Nets and Repeaters Directory
... An amazing resource of
clubs and repeater frequencies within a 114 mile radius of
Knoxville!
==> Mission: "To facilitate Ham Radio licensees
getting full use and benefit of the 2 meter repeaters in
ETN and to inform non Ham licensees of the possibilities
with Ham Radio and motivate them to get their license."
==> Value And Purpose Of This Directory:
> To help people get active in ETN Ham Radio
> To Facilitate the finding of nets to listen to and
clubs to attend.
> Protect nets from interference.
> Help new Hams to get a quick start in understanding
and use of the 2 meter band.
> Help non Ham (listeners) to get interested in the Ham
Radio world by listening to nets. The hope is they will
get
interested enough to get their license.
==> Who? This is a work in progress (and will
always be) and we need a lot of help. This directory was
developed using Rtsystem radio programing software,
RepeaterBook and SERA. For questions, corrections, and
additions,
contact: Bob Hill at 
(Thank you Bob!! ... n2apb)
August 2019 Meeting: "Surge
Protection, Isolation, Grounding & Bonding (Whew!)",
as presented by Randy WK9M. See the cool and informative
presentation slides, photos and resources here!

TLARC For
Sale Page -- Check out our latest
website feature ... the new TLARC For Sale Page
... What a way to move your ham-related gear! Only
available for TLARC members to post items for sale (though
our webmaster) for up to 3 months. Sellers accept all
responsibilities for claims and ownership. Buyers purchase
independently from TLARC and assume all risks.
Minutes
from July 2019 Meeting
-- It was all about the wrap-up of our Field Day
adventures! The presentation made by Sam KV4XY will be
available here soon. And here are the Meeting
Minutes.

ARRL
Field Day 2019 ... with
TLARC! ... Success! Click
here to see all the details of our big event of
the year!

Minutes
from June 2019 Meeting
-- It was a good one at which we brushed up our plans for
the coming Field Day event. Read the Meeting Minutes here!

Waterproof logbooks for rugged
field ops adventures
We recently came
across a really handy collection of pocket logbooks that
are rugged and waterproof ... and just right for wet &
wild field operations. You
need to give these guys a looksee!

Recap: A QRP Field Ops Adventure
by K0RGI and N2APB on June 1, 2019 -- Jim
K0RGI and George N2APB took to the field on a fine and
sunny 83-deg, low-humidity day ... Why? Because we could,
and it was the most glorious spring day we've had yet this
year! We went to the TVA Park on Tellico Lake, located
near on the boat launch area one normally sees on the right
when you turn left onto the ramp heading to
Maryville. (See map below - click for larger view.)
Birds in-air, boats lazily en route to some swimming hole
and a mini-park with picnic benches, parties happening
under shelters and kids splashing in a roped-off area.
Click on the video below to get a flavor that only
scratches the surface of our outing. (Video will download,
then double-click the .mov file to play it.) We had our
usual antennas set up unobtrusively (Jim's PAC-12 mini
vertical and George's 4'-diameter magnetic loop) and
nobody bothered us. Not even bugs! Over the course of
about 2-3 hours we made a large handful of contacts,
ranging from PA to CA (and even an LA8 in
Czechoslovakia!), then we packed up to go home. A fine
outing it was indeed!


Minutes
from May 2019 Meeting
-- You didn't come? Well, read all about it here!

Membership Survey Results
-- Click here
to see the very interesting results of our first-ever
Membership Survey, presented at the April meeting by David
N1ESK, TLARC Secretary.

The Great Tower Drop of April 27,
2019 --
A
team of TLARC members went out to Oakdale TN (Morgan
County) to take down a huge tower and antenna array that
was generously donated to the club by Bill Radice K4OWR.
See
the photo essay within!

Left to right: David KF4DKW, Bill K4OWR, Tim KE4OTZ,
Randy WK9M, Emily KB1NXN, David N1ESK
TLARC
Field Nuts did it again on April 20
-- Saturday, April 20, 2019 marked the traditional
first major QRP field event of the year - QRP To The Field.
This year's theme was "Any Ole Park" and the TLARC Field
Nuts set up our KN4DUA club station at the Tellico Family
Park pavilion on Tugaloo Dr. Recap to come soon!
72, Juan AC6ZM and Randy WK9M

SOTA Gang I Stumbled Into On My
Last Vacation To Roan Mountain TN On The AT
-- from David KF4DKW. If
you haven't heard about Summits On The Air field ops,
you're in for a treat. "Grassy Ridge
Bald shares the same trail head as Roan High Knob.
Getting to the Grassy Ridge Bald trail head is a two hour
drive from my house to Carvers Gap. I left my house at
6:45 AM and went to the old law office of Scott, in
Asheville (about halfway) to meet and carpool up to
Carvers Gap. We arrived at Carvers Gap about 9 AM. We
got out of the car and the wind was a steady 25mph or so
with higher gusts." ... Read
the entire blog.

GPS
Clock Workshop -- Wow, what a time we had on
Saturday, April 6. Some 14 members gathered at
N2APB's home and assembled their GPS Clock Kits in the
first-ever TLARC Workshop! Eight of us got the kit built
and working without a flaw, while 3 others had some
repairable issues, and 3 others had time-crunch issues in
completing theirs. See
more pics inside.
Adventures of the TLARC Fantastic Five in Episode 4:
The Great
Tower Retrieval

(Click on image)
Hello?
Hello? Anybody out there? --
A
February without sunspots :( See details at https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html.
Thanks to Mike Henry KM4H for the find. The good news is
that propagation is all uphill from here for the next 11
years!

Images Credit & Copyright: Alan Friedman (Averted
Imagination)
TLARC February 2019 Meeting
--
Sumptuous dinner beforehand (at
Lorenzo's) and a great meeting right after, with a
presentation from David N1ESK covering his recent trip to
2019 HamCation the week before in Orlando ... slides below
and meeting minutes coming shortly!

Download and view: as PDF
... or as PowerPoint
slides with embedded video on slides 18 &
46)
KN4DUA
now a bonefide QRP member of NAQCC -- It's
official, we are now a member of this very cool-and-fun
national QRP group that sponsors a month-long "contest" ...
every month! The NAQCC events (called "challenges")
throughout the year are based on using the letters in the
stations contacted to fill out a "bingo card-like" grid to
construct a set of words related by the monthly theme. See
the RULES
paragraph to learn how these wacky challenges work! (The
bingo card worksheet is a way to track progress, as shown in
the tutorial.)

CQ
RTTY WPX Contest ... our biggest score so far! -
We activated KN4DUA with a big Team effort on Feb 9-10 and
recorded the BIGGEST score of our recorded history! All the
member activity in the events leading up to this point are
sure paying off, with team members this time including David
KF4DKW, Mike KK6OKU, Brad KM4OJK, Sam KV4XY, Randy WK9M and
Juan AC6ZM racking up the sweet score. Full details and
photos coming soon ... including those about the portabella
mushroom & cheese steakburgers on the grill. (Those
who participate are learning that partying, eating and
drinking are wonderful side benefits of on-the-air
activities with TLARC :)

Stealth Antennas
...
New section for our website, exploring and discussing "stealthy
ways" for TLARC members to get on the bands in
HOA-sensitive communities. For now just click on the
desired antenna type below to learn more about that
one. Soon, we'll have a dedicated Stealth
Antennas page full of additional
tried-and-true antennas, references and guidance to
enable us all to be on the air from 160m-70cm!


KN4DUA
activated for FBYO Winter 2019 QRP Sprint
... It
was rather short notice, but it was SO nice outside on
Saturday Feb 2 that we activated the TLARC club call for
the annual FYBO
("Freeze Your Butt Off") QRP Winter Field Day event!
This event occurs each year on the first Saturday of
February, which is usually a cold winter day .. but we
got a wonderful gift that day with a break from our cold
temperatures so we grabbed our field antenna and headed
for the hills! George N2APB was located up at the Ft.
Loudon Dam Overlook "grassy knoll" by the power station,
and made enough contacts to (hopefully) get a
certificate.

George N2APB working
the "KN4DUA Station" with a W4OP
Loop antenna and an FT-817
on his belly.
CQ World
Wide 160-Meter Contest (CW)
... KN4DUA
scores big at host WK9M QTH !!! Operators this time
included: WK9M, AC6ZM, N2APB, KF4DKW and KK6OKU.
Click on any of the pics: (L-R) "Master Juan",
"Sustenance", KK6OKU aka "The Man!", N2APB, and "The
Score!"

Post-Holiday
Club Dinner 2019
... What a blast on Jan 19th at Classico's!
Great fellowship, great food and great fun ...

North
American SSB QSO Party (Jan 19)
--
Great results from the KN4DUA club station on Jan 19th,
operated at N2APB, with participating club members:
Randy
WK9M, Juan AC6ZM, George WB9TFR, David KN4LMM, David KF4DKW,
Mike KK6OKU, and Sam KV4XY. (Click on the photo!)

January
2019 TLARC Meeting
... Minutes
and the Program: "Online HF Prediction Tools,"
presented by Juan AC6ZM. Refer to the Voice of America
Coverage Analysis Program (VOACAP).
Another
"first" ... TLARC participated in the North American CW
QSO Party on Jan 12-13 ... as a distributed
team! Randy (WK9M), George (N2APB) and Juan
(AC6ZM) each operated from their own home stations under
the registered name of TLARC Gold, and their impressive
combined score have already been submitted. Look for
TLARC Gold in an upcoming issue of National Contest
Journal!
ARRL RTTY Round Up contest ...
We activated the KN4DUA club station from Juan's
QTH, from 6pm Saturday Jan 5 onward into the night and
during Sunday. Seven members
helped us get a score of 17,892 ... nearly triple of
what we did last year! Great Going TLARC Team!
(Operating time: 13 hrs 43 mins)

Results
now posted for last month's
160 Meter Contest
and KN4DUA
scored in the top of our operating category!

TLARC Club Station KN4DUA ... was activated for
ARRL
Straight Key Night
on Jan 1, 2019 ... (score coming shortly)

December
2018 Meeting Minutes
...
It was a good meeting! Read all about it here.
ARRL
160m CW Contest -- Some of our TLARC Field Nuts setup
shop at WK9M on Dec 1-2 to work the club station KN4DUA
in this annual Top Band contest! Read all about our adventure here:

Run
LoCo Marathon
-- TLARC
assisted with checkpoint communications in the recent
(Dec 1st) marathon
in Loudon County. It was a chilly and wet day,
but a good number of hearty members braved the elements
to provide rest stop runner status via the club
repeater. "Thank You" to those participating:
N4RPR, KF4DKW, KM4OJK, K4BNN, W8MKL, WK9M, KK6OKU,
KN4LMM, K4XZT, K4TYS, K4MJF+Karen, and especially to
communications organizer/director KE4OTZ. And BTW, the
Lenoir City's News-Herald reported "Marathon
runs without hitch!"
(Click images below for higher res views.)



November
2018 Club Meeting
--
What a blast! See
the presentations by clicking the image below ...

NEW
... Please enjoy "A Tail of Three Antennas" ...
It
was a cold-yet-sunny November 17th afternoon atop the
Overlook Park at Fort Loudon Dam. High tension power
lines abounded leading in/out of the power generation
facility, yet the airwaves were clear of that
characteristic buzzing and the noise floor was low. It
was destined to be a good Field Nut day.
[Read
more]

Feature
Presentation from our October meeting: Portable
Operations in the Field (N2APB)

What is Ham Radio?
-- Whether
you are new to Ham Radio, or an OT in need of a refresher ...
you'll find these resources very helpful in better
understanding our wonderful hobby!
HamClubOnline
- The online amateur
club management system. Active members of the club will
receive an email stating they have been successfully added
to the roster. You can log into the system for the first
time by following the directions in the email
.. de Juan AC6ZM
New
"TLARC Education Series" for October ... Learning
Morse Code! -- We're starting a new "Education
Series" here on our TLARC website, wherein we focus on
various specialties of our Ham hobby ... Emergency
Communications, Contesting, Digital Modes, SDR, and more!
We're kicking things off this month with Learning Morse
Code and will be providing lots of good resources for
just that ... whether you haven't tried using CW on the air,
or even if you have and want to improve your "fist". See
the first installment (video) below, and look forward to
more cool, easy and free resources to appear soon on
a separate page here in www.tlarc.org.
ENJOY ... and feel free to ask AC6ZM or N2APB
about "anything Morse"!

CQ
WW DX RTTY Contest -- TheTLARC RTTY CREW:

(left-to-right):
Dave
KF4DKW, Sam KV4XY, Brad KM4OJK, Juan
AC6ZM, Randy WK9M, George N2APB
(Not pictured:
Robert WW4WTF)
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