CTARC Report on September Meeting of 26 Sep '15

On Saturday 26 September 2015 at 14h00 the CTARC held its September meeting, which was reasonably well attended in spite of rather cold and windy weather.

The afternoon began with our chairman, Rob / ZS1SA, calling us to order. He gave us a report on the recent committee meeting of 21 September, and the various forthcoming events with our club will be involved:

• The club has disposed of its old trailer by selling it to one of our members. The trailer had been sitting unused for several years and was accumulating fines for unpaid vehicle registration fees;

• On the weekend of 17/18 October, the CTARC will run a JOTA station for the Bergvliet Scouts and Guides. Noel / ZS1FW is driving this project;
  
  
• Our Saturday 24 October monthly meeting will be the screening of the video of a DX-pedition to Chatham Island, kind courtesy of Barry / ZS1FJ via Paul / ZS1S;
• We also plan to operate ZS1CT during the forthcoming Field Day exercise;
• Our final monthly meeting of the year will be on Saturday 28 November, which will be the CTARC End-of-Year function;
   
• Next year, the CTARC celebrates its 70th anniversary. We eagerly await members' input and suggestions on how to commemorate this auspicious milestone.

Further details on the above forthcoming activities will be published on this blogspot and announced in the regular CTARC Sunday morning bulletins.

In addition to this, Rob mentioned our club had recently been featured in an article in the Southern Suburbs Tatler newspaper. (See that article here)

We then proceeded with the main event of the afternoon. John / ZS1AGH gave us a fascinating lecture on Decibels - what they are, and how they apply to amateur radio. His talk was illustrated with a PowerPoint lecture, which may be downloaded here.

Those CTARC members with grey hair had to scratch our heads (and watch what hair we have left turn even greyer) at the complexity of it all, having last had exposure to such mental calisthenics when at technical college or university (many years ago...)! At the time, John made it all appear so clear and simple!

John also showed us the tools of the pre-calculator epoch - logarithm tables and a slide rule. They may appear cumbersome to us now, but in experienced and adept hands they were tools of great productivity before cheap digital calculators became widely available.

Hans-Jurgen / ZS1HJH brought along a very useful card published by the German Funkamateur club, of a comparison between decibel values, Voltage and Power levels, and S-Units. He very kindly allowed us to make it available, so you can download it as a PDF file here.

Afterwards we broke for the usual natter over coffee and biscuits. All in all, another great CTARC meeting. We look forward to the forthcoming JOTA field station and October meeting.

Rob / ZS1SA opens the meeting and discusses forthcoming events

John / ZS1AGH begins his lecture

A series of calculations on a loooong sheet of paper!

John's lecture was ably illustrated by a Powerpoint show

The meeting was reasonably well attended, in spite of cold weather

Hans-Jurgen and Paul in discussion

Tea and biscuits and chewing the rag after the meeting

CTARC Green Point Lighthouse 1925 - Sep '15

This photo of the (unadorned) Green Point Lighthouse (where the CTARC participates in the annual International Lighthouse / Lightship weekend), was taken some time in 1925, and supplied by John / ZS1AGH. Grateful thanks for same!

You may note there have been several structural changes in the building since then...

CTARC Where Are Our Filters??? - 22 Sep '15

Since we assembled our Lighthouse Weekend Field Station, four bandpass filter boxes that we used in the previous (2014) event have gone AWOL. They were all kept in a clear plastic bag in our ham shack, and we are sure they were returned to the clubhouse after the previous event.

If anyone can help shed light on the location or fate of these needed bits of equipment, we would be most grateful. They are small rectangular silver boxes, each about 75 x75 x 50 mm in size and with two SO-239 coax sockets on them.

Please contact the secretary [here] if you can help.

UPDATE: We found our filters at last!

CTARC Forthcoming JOTA Event - 16/18 Oct '15

This year, the Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre will set up a JOTA (Jamboree On The Air) station for the Bergvliet area boy scouts and girl guides, to enable them to participate in this international radio amateur event.

The 2015 JOTA runs on 16, 17 & 18 October, and promises to be a very rewarding couple of days for all involved. Noel / ZS1FW is driving this particular initiative,

The plan is to prepare the equipment and antennas on Thursday 15 October, transport it to the Bergvliet venue of Friday 16 and operate on 16, 17 and 18 October. We expect to be inundated with keen scouts and guides who have expressed keen anticipation for our involvment!

We will then dismantle the station and returning the equipment back to the clubhouse on the afternoon of the last day of JOTA.

Radio amateurs who would like to be involved in this very worthwhile event are kindly requested to e-mail Noel via the club secretary [here]

Further details and arrangements will be announced closer to the time.

CTARC Forthcoming September Meeting - 26 Sep '15

The Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre will hold its September meeting at the clubhouse, as always,  on the fourth Saturday of the month, which this month will be 26 September, at 14h00.

At this meeting, John /ZS1AGH will present a very interesting talk on Decibels and how they apply to Amateur Radio.

We are all requested to bring our calculators to this meeting, as John will be asking us to do some calculations!

Further details of this meeting will be announced here and on the Sunday Morning CTARC Bulletins on 145.750 MHz at 08h30 (or a few minutes afterwards, when the preceding SARL Bulletin has concluded)