Next NTMS club meeting: Cozby Library, Coppell Texas March 9, noon - 3 pm.

Please join us early at 11 am for BBQ at Dickey's located at 801 South Denton Tap Rd, Coppell TX 75019 (a short distance from the library where we meet)

Our agenda:
Acquiring a Hughes mmWave Power Meter and Power Sensors - Jim Hudson WA5JAT
Wavelab 24 GHz Measurements - Al Ward W5LUA
A subject of great interest to the microwave community - Kent Britain WA5VJB
Part 2 of Phase Frequency Analysis - Jim McMasters
Demo of homebrew variable az-el platform for sun noise measurements - Jim McMasters KM5PO


W5LUA Al Ward Presentation at Richardson Wireless Klub 9-11-23
By Al Ward W5LUA September 11, 2023



From Central States VHF Society Conference - July 28-29 2023

North Little Rock, Arkansas

902 MHz and 432 MHz Patch Feeds By Al Ward W5LUA July 28, 2023

Noise figure measurements made at CSVHFS Conference 2023
Testing by: W5LUA, K8ZR, N7GP
Equipment supplied by Keysite & W5LUA



Lee Fish, K5FF 02/26/1923 – 05/03/2023


Lee Fish passed away May 3, 2023, at the golden age of 100.

She was a noted ham radio operator with many WAS (worked all states)
and WAC (worked all continents).
Below, she is standing next to a 32 foot dish on polar mount
for EME (earth-moon-earth) on 144, 220, and 432 Mhz.



She was the XYL (wife) of Fred Fish, W5FF, whom the FFMA
award is named after. They lived in the Manzano mountains
of New Mexico near Albuquerque.

In addition, Lee received the Better Homes and Garden Award
for her 3-decker sandwich. She designed clothing for herself,
radio events, and square dancing.

During World War II, she was an arc welder.
In 2013, she signed the bomb-bay doors of a B-25,
and was asked if she was “Rosie the riveter”
and she replied “No, I’m Lee the arc welder”
and that is how she signed on the plane.



In her 50’s she was an avid swimmer, runner, skier, and tennis player.

She was also a cat lover. In the New Mexico mountains
she fed coyotes, fox, squirrels, birds and skunks.



She also acquired at age 65, a CDL for trucking.
In addition, she wrote articles for Trucker USA.
She was also published in the Reader’s Digest.

She met President George H.W. Bush and astronomer Carl Sagan

She is survived by her three children, daughter
Vada Jo Hollingsworth and husband Eugene of Colorado,
daughter Patricia Varner of Texas, and son Terry Stockdale
and wife Darlene of Texas; along with four grandchildren,
multiple great-grandchildren as well as multiple great-great grandchildren.

Hello all!

Activity Day
May 21st will be our spring microwave Activity Day in North Texas. Rovers will be active from a number of grids operating 10, 24 and for KM5PO 47 GHz.

We will use the NTMS Slack General channel for coordination. If you need access to the Slack channel please contact Brad WQ5S: southpaw1959 at gmail dot com.

See you soon on the air!

The May 6th meeting of the North Texas Microwave Society was held via Zoom with approximately 19 in attendance. Stories from Microwave Update 2023 held in Windsor, CT in April were related.

Presentations took place as follows and the PDFs are found by browsing to the "@ The Meetings" link on the left side of this home page.

Jim KM5PO - Wavelab 24 GHz optimization
Chris N0UK - Urban 10 GHz DXing
Gedas W8BYA - How to make rainscatter contacts
Bob N5BRG - Soldering techniques (and SMDs!)

In New Business Kent WA5VJB announced a donation to NTMS of a HP 8591E Spectrum Analyzer (from 9 KHz to 1.8 GHz) from an anonymous donor to be used by NTMS club members. If you would like to use this instrument (for a 1 month term) please contact Jim McMasters (817-897-6476) or Kent Britain (972-849-0235).

Also in New Business was the approved expenditure for a WA1MBA Quadrupler to be used in a 47 GHz NTMS beacon. Beacons are used to study and understand enhancement, azimuth setting, frequency setting, receiver checkouts. It is the intent of the NTMS to increase frequency participation and usage on all microwave allocations. The FCC has announced specific bands & auction processes and one of the bands is 47.2 to 48.2 which is adjacent to our 47.00 to 47.20 GHz band. Please be sure that you log all activity pertaining to contacts made, signals received and even testing you perform on microwave bands. This is evidence of using the frequency.

Sun Noise Measurements

Here is a dish antenna beam width calculator courtesy of Eric Johnston, Satellite Signals Ltd. Enter the diameter of your dish and the operating frequency to see the gain of a dish.

Dish Antenna Beam Width Calculator

 

Weekly Net

NTMS hosts a weekly Sunday night NTMS NET at 8PM local DFW time on 144.260 MHz. Since the ARRL suggests this frequency as a US coordination frequency during contest events such as the ARRL 10 GHz and above contest, it makes sense to use this frequency for daily microwave related chit chat, sked coordination, NET operation and our operating events.

Thanks to K5ZSJ, N5PGH, and W5RLG for running the NTMS NET for several years.

Please aim your antennas towards the Plano, Texas EM13 area on Sunday nights to participate in the net.


 

 

 
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