New Jersey QRP Club

Photo Recap of the October 20, 2012 NJQRP Meeting

It was a small-attendance meeting, but was super informative as usual.

Clockwise from the left: Ray K2ULR, Joe KC2VGL, Jim K2SZ, Carl W2PTZ, Frank N2PUU, Joe N2CX, and your humble picture-taker George N2APB (who is rarely in any of the photos!).

Lots of GREAT topics for discussion and show 'n tell. The main thread of the meeting was VHF antennas, and we had some wonderful examples.

- We had some excellent discussion of antennas for EME (moonbounce) operation, and KC2VGL pointed out some very good references on the subject and we discussed the gain & size of the antenna needed to overcome the path loss (-252dB!). The size of the required antenna changed dramatically after 2002, when the JT65 protocol was introduced by Joe Taylor. In fact Joe wrote this protocol with this idea of improving the EME with DSP and code gain and JT65 (and now JT65B) was the result. No more monster dishes or horn antennas needed after 2002 :-) The best EME overview is: http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/Hbk_2010_Ch30_EME.pdf. And the applied lower-power and antenna size advantages of JT65B: http://www.dxmaps.com/jt65bintro.html. QST EME Article - JT describes where the JT65 gain come from: http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/WA50_June05.pdf

- Equally interesting was our continued discussion (from meetings of yore) concerning how to have on-the-air meetings, or at least communications among NJQRP members. Packet Radio and RBBS's came up and we discussed this "ancient" mode at length, primarily refreshing N2APB's adelled mind on this technology from seemingly so long ago. All things considered, this just might do the trick, and some of us committed to brushing the dust off our TNCs and giving it a try on 2m.

- Joe N2CX brought along the 6m Moxon antenna he had construction. Look below for the photos of everyone gathered around the rectangular-ish antenna. Joe also pointed out the incredibly-useful electronics reference book from

- Ray K2ULR brought along a homebrew 2m yagi. Also see Ray holding up the November issue of Monitoring Times magazine, which featured the SDR Cube Transceiver on the front cover!

- Jim K2SZ brought along his homebrew Egg Beater antenna for VHF/UHF satellite work. Very nice construction job Jim! Jim also brought along boxes and boxes of parts (caps, resistors) and old modems for the taking. Whatta grab bag!

- Joe KC2VGL brought along a new find: an Energy Harvest Wireless Sensor Node. This is a reference design from the manufacturer (SiLabs) for about 50-bucks ... sure to be a useful thing in our shacks.

- Frank N2PUU took time away from his young family to share a fabulous construction job done on a center-loaded vertical. Hope the photos capture the very nice lathe job done on the PVC to cut tracks for winding the wire, as well as for the couplings he soldered in place on the copper tubing used for the vertical segments.

- George N2APB brought along a new handheld computer with VGA touchscreen, able to run Win XP ... for $60. The BENQ-S6 is available on eBay and we bet it'll make a fine companion for digital mode operation in the field. George also showed a nice TFT graphic display that is being designed into the GPS Cube accessory that N2CX and KC2VGL are assisting with.

Sure is nice to get together on the regular 3rd Saturday of the month, come rain or shine. Sure hope that others can join us along the way too.

73, George N2APB & Joe N2CX

PS: Click on any photo below for a full screen view!