Club activates Martin Creek Lake Park

TSPOTA Certificate

Join the Rusk County Amateur Radio Club on April 5th as we activate the Martin Creek Lake State Park for the Texas State Parks On The Air contest.

We will meet  just before 9:00 a.m. at the park to set up. The contest will run from 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. (local time). Spouses, children and friends are all invited to attend! If this sounds like something you would like to participate in, let me know and we'll start making plans. 

According to the contest's organizers, the TSPOTA contest was conceived with three main goals in mind: to promote public awareness of ham radio and Texas' beautiful state parks system; to contribute to the recognition that Texas has a very diverse and wonderful ecology; and to promote camaraderie within the ranks of Texas Amateur Radio operators. It is with your participation that we believe those goals will be achieved.

For more details: http://tspota.com/. For directions to the Park, click here: Martin Creek Lake Park Map

Longview turns on D-Star Repeater

The Lonview East Texas Amateur Radio Club has turned on thier D-Star repeater system which covers a large part of East Texas. The range covers most of Tyler, Longview and Marshall and connects through the Internet to repeaters in Dallas, Austin and across the country.

For more information on the local D-Star repeater, visit the Longview club's page here.

Rusk County Hams get connecting

Jerry Ritchie gave a very interesting talk on various RF Connectors and their impedance characteristics. Surprisingly the very common PL-259 connector is not even rated for impedance, but is used extensively in the Amateur Radio Service.

The BNC and N connectors can be purchased for use in 50 Ohm feed line circuits. Fortunately the PL-259 can provide acceptable service in the HF
bands but is reaching its upper limits in the 2 meter band and can really degrade an antenna system in the 70 CM band.