Newsletter - September 2007

September Fox Hunt: Three hunters, the regular attendees, showed to hunt down Mike, KF9NP, the fox.  He was hidden in the extreme southeastern part of the county at a church in Fort Ritner.  The initial signal was rather weak but audible enough to get an accurate bearing.  The three hunters were the Harris Team, Keith/Ann, N9KH/ K9NOT, Ray, KB9LGS, and Larry, WA9FFZ.  The Harris Team racked up another victory, the third in a row, by traveling only 18.4 miles, beating out Larry who logged 19.3 miles.  The difference was knowing where to get over to Highway 50 from the starting point so that the hunter could get to Sand Pit Road with the least miles traveled from the starting point.  Otherwise, Keith and Ann and Larry took identical routes to arrive at Fort Ritner.  Larry did pick up a tenth on the Harris Team in Fort Ritner but it wasn’t enough.  Ray logged 26.2 miles.  The Harris Team will be the fox October 20^th, starting time 4 PM.

Rick Davis, WD8JJA Profile: Rick Davis, WD8JJA started his radio “career” in the mid 1970’s.

Like a lot of others, he started off playing with 11 meters, or Children’s Band, since many of his teenage friends were starting to find out about CB.

This was shortly before the CB craze that took over, to the detriment of an otherwise fairly civil mode of operation.

There were only 23 channels then, the truckers had not gone on strike yet and were on channel 10, people were courteous, and you didn’t hear any vulgar language. 

We were at the solar sunspot minimum between cycles 20 and 21, so the bands were very quiet. You could ask for a “breaker” on a channel and someone 30 miles away would say go ahead, and you could actually talk to him.

Along about the summer of 1976, Rick was interested in a used Yaesu FT-101EX listed for sale in the paper.   The radio, matching speaker and desk microphone cost $550.  While that was a pretty fair price for a rig less than a year old, it was a fortune for a 16 year old kid, and not an insignificant amount for a grownup. His father agreed to loan him the money on the condition that he got a Ham license, to make it legal.

Well, the wheels were set in motion. The purchase was made, and Rick started finding out what it was going to take to get a Ham license. I wonder what he was doing with that radio in the meantime.

It turned out, that a friend of his dad’s, from church, who had been a radio operator when in the Navy, found out about a ham radio class at the local community college. The two of them took the class together and in the spring of 1977, Rick became WD8JJA, and his friend, John Bice was WD8JJE, Novice class licensees, extraordinaire. He had the Yaesu set up on the end table in the living room, and tuned a CB antenna with an el cheapo matchbox for 10 and 15 meters.

Rick was certainly not satisfied with being confined to CW, as he had already become accustomed to using a microphone on the other band. He studied the ARRL hand book and other materials, and by on the air operating and with the help of W1AW, got his code speed up to 13 - 15 wpm, and in September of the same year went to the Cleveland FCC field office to take his General exam.

He passed with flying colors, and one of the examiners asked if he wanted to take the Advanced Class test. Well, this was quite intimidating for Rick, who hadn’t even looked at any of the Advanced Class material, but when the examiner explained that there was no risk – that it wouldn’t cost anything, and if he failed, he would still be a General, Rick took the exam. Rick missed the maximum number of questions allowable for a passing grade and walked out of the FCC office as an Advanced Class Amateur Radio Operator.  He then moved the station to his bedroom and strung a 135 foot wire out to a pole in the back yard. John, WD8JJE had given him a box of coils and capacitors, and he fashioned a homemade transmatch to tune the antenna for 10 – 80 meters.  Around 1979 or 1980, he added the Yaesu FR-101D matching receiver to his station. It was half of the FL / FR-101 twins, but interfaced nicely to the FT-101 and gave a nice digital readout for the VFO.

In 1981, he got his first VHF transceiver, a Yaesu FT-207R, the first fully synthesized HT. While in college, Rick mentored a college buddy and lifelong friend who became KA8JCI, and the two of them flooded the local 2meter repeater with all manner of engineering type homework problems over the air. That HT was the size of a brick, put out 2 and a half watts on high power, weighed 680 grams (that’s about 1.5 pounds) and cost 300 dollars without a PL tone board, which back then, few repeaters used, anyway.  It did have touch tone, though, so one could use a repeater’s autopatch. Sometimes the synthesizer would lock up, but all one had to do was turn it off and turn off the backup "BU" back up power. The only thing about this procedure is that it would clear the memories and you would have to reprogram all 4 channels.

Rick went to Cleveland State University and became an Electronics Engineer, moving to Indianapolis in 1983, where he worked for Naval Avionics. While living in an apartment, he secretly strung a full size 40 meter dipole in the attic. After buying a house, the same 135 foot length of wire that was used when he lived at home was strung to  an outbuilding in the back yard, but during the sequence of job, new house, getting married, having a kid, etc, Rick was not on the air much during the late 80’s to mid 90’s. After being transferred to Crane and moving to the Bedford area, Rick has again returned to Amateur Radio and earned his Extra class in 2000.

Over the years, Rick has added to and accessorized his station with some new or modern items, and some that might be starting to be considered vintage, by now. He uses a Yaesu FT-857D for mobile HF, utilizing an ATAS-120 screwdriver antenna for 10-40 meters, with VHF/UHF covered by a dual band antenna. For base station operation, he still uses the same FT-101, but has upgraded it to FT-101E configuration by adding the speech processor and DC-DC converter.  It has also been modified to operate on the WARC bands 12, 17, and 30 meters. The FR-101D has all the shortwave crystals, 6m and 2m converters, and FM board. Both versions of the matching Yaesu external speaker are used, one with and one without the phone patch. There is the matching Yaesu YO-100 monitor scope, desk mic, FL-2100B amplifier and about a year ago, a pristine Yaesu QTR-24 World Clock was found at a nearby hamfest, which was offered in the 1970’s as a station accessory.  Last year, the FL-2100B was replaced by a 1980 model Dentron Clipperton L, which not only puts out more power, but also covers 160 meters.

This less than modern station has earned Rick more than 150 DX countries, the majority being in the last 2-3 years, and he received DXCC award in 2007.  Not bad for 30 year old equipment and a ground mounted vertical antenna.

Rick is active in the local radio club, being the Vice President this year and lends valuable technical support.  Rick is on VHF/UHF, but primarily operates HF, and mostly CW.  Ironic, since he started out not wanting to have anything to do with CW.

He has also dabbled with Slow Scan TV (SSTV), digital modes like PSK31 and RTTY, and satellite.

His bride, Marcie is KC9IAI, and is also active in the local club and on 2m. She also enjoys 6m and 10m when they are mobiling together. They have one harmonic, Ben, who may become licensed one day soon.

Secretary’s Note: Thanks to Rick for providing the info on his amateur radio history and station set-up.  The above write-up has very few editing changes.

2007 Club Hamfest: Details of this year’s hamfest can be found on the club website.  That is www.w9qyq.org.  Once there just click on the hamfest website and after that a flyer choice appears.  The weekend of October 6-7 is the hamfest.

Special Events Station K9P: At the Persimmon Festival in Mitchell once again this year the club will have set up the Special Events Station, K9P.  It will be on the air beginning September 24 through 28.  Operation will occur starting about 4:30 each evening.  Thanks to Tim Miller, K9US, and Hal Mandery, W8AIR, for their devotion to this event.  This effort generates interest in amateur radio, making it visible to the community, and visitors often express a desire for obtaining a license or upgrading their present license.