QST…QST…QST…The November meeting date has changed. We’ll be meeting on November 14th and at the top of the agenda is club officer elections. Please come out to the meeting and support the officers who give so much of their time and effort to make TARC active and success-ful!!! Thanks!
Can you believe it !!!
This year is almost gone and then we’re into 2024! On January 1st we can officially celebrate the Tulsa Amateur Radio Club’s 100-year anni-versary!!! We have documentation that dates back to 1924. See the at-tached photo from the Affiliated Clubs section of the May 1924 QST. (I’m assuming this is the start of the Tulsa Amateur Radio Club!) (Next page).
Here’s clip from the 1939 QST Issue 12 Field Day… (Next page).
…and the Spring 1940 Callbook. (Next page).I’m not sure why 1000 S Main St was used as an address. I checked Google Maps and couldn’t find anything definite. This should be the ad-dress, but I don’t know for sure what was here back in the1930’s. Does someone out there know? (Editor: This was the location of RADIO INC. The club had their monthly meetings there, and was referred to as the DOWNTOWN CLUB. RADIO INC closed sometime in the late 70’s).
We have a team of club members that are doing the event planning and I’m sure that they’ll come up with some great ways to celebrate! How about monthly Special Event Stations, a banquet dinner, a Special EventQSL card, and certificates…what else ya got? Let us know.
In case you missed the last TARC meeting…
There were 39 at the last TARC meeting on October 17th and it was a meeting packed with lots of good stuff! Tommy WD5AGO was our guest speaker. He gave an interesting presentation on the care and feed-ing of Lithium chemistry batteries. Tommy does drag racing with an electric bike. He knows how to dump 40kW of battery energy into a motor for ten seconds, dematerialize at one end of the track and almost in-stantaneously materialize at the other end of the track.
Some highlights and learnings from Tommy’s presentation…
1…Users of Lithium batteries need to know what they are doing and understand the voltages and various chemical compositions involved with Lithium batter-ies.
2…Lithium battery fires generate the oxygen that sus-tains combustion.
3…Lithium battery fires generate toxic smoke and liq-uid, principally Hydrogen fluoride that is highly cor-rosive to flesh and bone. See the attached picture from the Wikipedia article to get an idea of what could happen: https://tinyurl.com/52nzanf9
4…Lithium batteries are sensitive to mechanical shock and high or low temperatures that can cause piercing of the dielectric membrane coupled with rapid dis-charge and thermal runaway.
5…Lithium battery fires are usually quenched by flooding with water. Fire services are more aware of the problem given the rising numbers of electric vehi-cles on the road.
6…Don’t float-charge a Lithium battery.
7…Don’t store Lithium batteries at 100% State Of Charge (SOC)
8…Store partially discharged and then bring up to full charge before use. Most battery packs are shipped at 50% state of charge.
9…Use chargers designed to work with Lithium batteries.
10..Battery packs usually have a built-in Battery Management System to adjust the charge on the internal cells and provide some monitoring for safety purposes, but they can’t be fully relied up-on depending on the manufacturing source.
11..Bottom line for most of us casual users: Buy good quality packs from reputable, well-recognized manufacturers and follow the manu-facturer’s instructions assiduously.
12..Don’t be an accident waiting to happen. Bet-ter to be safe than sorry.
And a wise word from WA5MA…get yourself a good fire extinguisher that’s appropriate for the materials and chemicals in your shack and keep it within arms’ reach.
Tommy is still alive having survived a youth of high-power RF experimentation with high-power vacuum tubes giving off X-radiation and RF ener-gy, and his middle years as a drag racer on Lithi-um battery-powered drag bikes.
We wrapped up Route 66 on the Air. There were 10 operators working the event throughout the week and at Cyrus Avery Park on Saturday, September 16th. The total number of contacts made was 1,823 from many different countries including Austria, Germany, Brazil, Cuba, Cana-da, France, Ireland, and a Maritime Mobile sta-tion from a cargo ship south of Newfoundland on their way to Baltimore, Maryland. Nice catch Remell! David K5TZS has been busy answering W6L QSL card requests! Thanks, David!
Here’s a few pics…
In other news…
I had heard several reports from some users of the Su-perlink system that they had been told not to use it. That is a huge misunderstanding. I’ve always encour-aged everyone within the Superlink repeater system to use it. This ensures that it remains functional and is working when we need it in an emergency. However, if you are having a conversation with another ham in the Tulsa or OKC metro areas, and have established contact on the Superlink, if you are within range of a local repeater or simplex frequency then change fre-quency and free up the Superlink for others to use; this is particularly true in areas where we have several repeaters for local communications. Bottom line: Use the Superlink!
Looking for a club T-shirt or other apparel with the club logo? Robert KI5WDD is now taking orders and will soon make ordering a shirt, jacket, hat, etc. much easier. We’re also looking at dif-ferent types of 100-year anniversary clothing. Stay tuned.
Dave W5PPA presented info regarding the Scout-ing Jamboree On The Air (JOTA). David distrib-uted a JOTA flyer, a copy of which you can download via this URL:
https://tinyurl.com/22sbfyyh
David said that he has been involved with the Scout-ing program for a very long time, but only recently became a licensed ham radio operator. He is the or-ganizer of JOTA 2023 which will happen on Satur-day, 21 October 2023 at the Jack Graves Scout Reser-vation from 0900 hrs until 1500 hrs in Broken Up-date…the Jamboree on the Air was a success. We’ll get a wrap-up at the November club meeting.
We’re trying something new…
Introducing the Tulsa Amateur Radio Club YL Group!
There’s a part of this great hobby for everyone and one part that we’ve missed has been a YL Group. I’ve had conversations with a few club members and they think it’s a wonderful idea and so do I. The wheels are turning slowly, but planning for the YL Group is hap-pening. We would really like to get some ideas from the YLs in the club. What would you like to do with other YL’s? If you have any questions or concerns…or any ideas for the new YL Group please let me know and we hope to see you at the next club meet-ing. My e-mail is wa5ma.mark@gmail.com or call me at 918 845 7606
Something else that’s new…
TARC now has an HF Go Box and it’s really a nice setup. It was demo’d at the September and October meetings and it has already been checked out for use.
The Nervous Novice CW Net is going strong and growing…
The net is going well and we recently had a check -in from W5GUS in Dallas, and that is a boon for those wanting to get into operating on CW. W5AWS interjected that we’ve also had an op from Pacific, MO, check-in and that despite the noise, Andrew W5AWS was able to hear every-one on the net, all this with a QRP rig into a mag loop antenna inside a house.
We’d like to encourage anyone with even a mild interest in CW to join the Nervous Novice Net on Monday evenings at 1900 hrs on 7.037 MHz +/- QRM. Speed is 10 wpm but ops will adjust to accom-modate any speed around that number.
Do you like the new TARC badge? See Andrew W5AWS and bring $2.00.
During severe weather monitor the Superlink Re-peater System…
As we’ve seen earlier this year, storms and strong winds can be here year-round, so please monitor the Superlink System for the W5IAS Weather Watch when severe weather is forecast. Frequencies for the repeater in your area can be found at W5IAS.com, click on Repeaters and scroll down to TARC: Wide-Area Link System.
We’re still looking for Net Control Operators and Loggers for the Tuesday night TARC Net.
To save time we’re using NetLogger more now for check-ins so if you’d like to give it a try let us know and we’ll be happy to show you how easy it is and how you can help your club stay strong and active. Start small and when you feel comforta-ble, move on up to other duties. No pressure…just fun doing ham radio and this is a good step-ping stone and good practice for doing other net control duties for ARES, hospital nets, NTS traf-fic, etc. Thanks going out to those currently do-ing the logging and Net Control!
The Tuesday TARC Net is going strong…
We’re averaging 40 check-ins between NetLogger and over-the-air check-ins.
We give signal reports, answer ham-related ques-tions, give announcements of upcoming ham ra-dio events and activities and we even have time for some trivia! Both, Ian KC9THI and Grant KC1KCE are doing a great job as net control!
Speaking of the Tuesday Net…
Don’t forget about Club Spotlight! If you belong to a club and have an event coming up, you need operators for an event, you have a hamfest or just want to talk about your club or your station, you can have 5 – 10 minutes on the Tuesday net toreach anyone listening on the SuperLink Repeater System. Just let us know, it’s that simple.
Every month is a contest month…
Pick a Contest…any Contest! Go to ARRL.com, click Contest Calendar, scroll to Contest Corral, and click on the month you want to check. Try POTA or SOTA! Call CQ! Go to a local park, throw up a wire, and get on the air! Use the new TARC HF Go Box!!!
Upcoming events…
” We’re still working on a date and topics for the next Ham University. Stay tuned!
” Sand Springs Christmas Parade staging. Friday, December 2nd 4:30 to 7:00 PM We could use the help and we usually receive a goody bag for our service. ” If you’re looking to get your license or upgrade your license, the next TARC exam session is tenta-tively scheduled for January 20th at 10:00 AM. Tulsa University.
If you’ve read this far…
in the TARC Newsletter, thank you! I try to make it interesting reading and give lots of important club in-formation on past and future activities. Maybe you’ve seen a recurring theme in this newsletter about volun-teers and volunteering your time, experience, and knowledge to help others in the club who are just starting out or returning to the hobby after a long ab-
sence. Many things are new, and many things have changed over the years. We have over 175 members with different interests, and we need your help to keep that interest alive and the club growing! As was said earlier in the newsletter, all the club activity shows that there is a lot hap-pening with TARC and that the club depends on its members to exist and thrive. Send me an e-mail with your interest and how you’d like to help your fellow hams at wa5ma.mark@gmail.com, and have some fun yourself!
The next regular meeting…
The Tulsa Amateur Radio Club will be No-vember 14th 7 PM at TU’s Keplinger Hall Room 3140. The November meeting is election time for new officers. Last year we amended the rules slightly to allow the president to continue in office since there was nobody willing to take the job to replace me. I don’t mind continuing in the position of club president. If anyone wants to volunteer for any position, they can make it known by email, telephone, text message, or in person at the meeting. Please come out to the meeting and support the officers who give so much of their time and effort to make TARC ac-tive and successful!!! Thanks!
Be safe, Be a good friend, Get on the air!
Mark WA5MAJamboree On The Air
President – Tulsa Amateur Radio Club