Notice: Meeting location change! Notice: Meeting location change! Notice: Meeting location change! Notice: Meeting location change! Notice: Meeting location change! Notice: Meeting location change!

If you have been familiar with Short Mountain Repeater Club and our weekly nets for a while, you probably have been missing Jerry Elkin's N4LZY, personal touch. As you know, he called the Old Codger's Net for years made Monday nights a time to look forward to. If you haven't tuned into one of Jerry's nets, you now will have an opportunity to enjoy his work on Thursday night's Trader's Net. Jerry will be taking the reigns of the Trader's Net and making it his own starting April 17th so be there for the inaugural edition and help welcome Jerry back to the SMRC Net Control crew. 

Ever wondered what all the information on the solar data panels means? Many Ham sites place the solar data panes in the sidebars of their sites but they all have different information and most of us don't know how to interpret the numbers we see in them. The SMRC Solar Data Page has the key for interpreting these panels and also provides some other great indicators and widgets for determining propagation conditions as it relates to solar activity.

GETTING AN HF ANTENNA TO WORK WITH AN ANALYZER

The last article was on using a Noise Bridge where the antenna was not in a real convenient location.

Is there a way to measure the value of the antenna and coax together from the convenience of the radio room?

Yes, there is a variety of analyzers that will do this. These units are usually a little more expensive. However they do start at about $200.00.

As you know, I call the Traders' Net on Thursday nights at 8PM CST. As a part of our format, we discuss ham-related topics as well as facilitate the exchange of gear. Our recent topic has been the History and Forefathers of Ham Radio and I've been studying a very thorough article by Chris Codella W2PA to understand more about the subject.

In May of 1917, war with Germany was eminent and amateur radio operators, at that time the ARRL, received a mandate to stop all radio operations from the Department of Commerce. With the future of amateur radio unsure and in jeopardy, the editors of QST published the following article in their May issue:

Article taken off the Feed from ARRL:

03/21/2014

Average daily sunspot numbers decreased from 138.7 to 129 on March 13-19, compared to the previous seven days. Average daily solar flux went from 149.7 to 141.4.