By Richard Warner Historical and Preservation Society of Pottawattamie County
At the height of World War II, thousands of radio crystals were produced by World Radio Laboratories at Seventh and Broadway.
“High tech” wasn’t always synonymous with Silicon Valley. For many years, it was Council Bluffs that was home to one of the most innovative electronics companies in the country.
What was most recently known as World Radio, actually traces it’s origin back to one individual. Leo Meyerson began tinkering with electronics at the age of 9, turning oatmeal boxes and even toilet paper rolls into radio coils. Meyerson was born in Omaha, but the family moved to Council Bluffs when he was 8 after his father got a job with Peoples Department Store.
Depending on who you talk to, Google Assistant is either a tool capable of quickly and clearly answering audio queries in natural langauge, or a noisier and less useful version of Wolfram Alpha. [William Franzin] decided it would be particularly cool to make the service available over ham radio – and that’s exactly what he did.
The full final results have been published for the 2018 ARRL September VHF Contest.
I operated AE6GE Single Op High Power (SOHP) from the W6TV Contest Station located on Bear Mountain east of Fresno (DM06). Operating 6-meters through 1.2 GHz I accumulated a score of 17,697. Not my best score but OK for the amount of activity on the bands. The score was enough to take the Pacific Division in the SOHP category.
In addition 3rd place in 902 MHz and 4th place in 1.2 GHz QSOs overall.
It is sad to note, this was the last contest we would see Ron Hunt N6MTS (SK) operating his rover station. He did place fifth in the Top Ten Classic Rover category for completing 270 QSOs and covering 6 grid squares winning the Pacific Division in the Classic Rover (R) category with 21,586 points.
Tom N6MQG will be presenting the use of “Go boxes” which will include boxes for emergency power and boxes having Ham radios mounted in them for emergency and portable activity deployment.
Date/Time
Friday January 4, 2019 @ 7:00pm
Location
Clovis Senior Activities Center Classroom
850 4th St
Clovis, CA 93612
The presentation for the next C.A.R.P. meeting focuses on the digital audio mode P25. Michael Moya (KF6FGL) and Rick Tyburski (W6KKO) will provide a general overview of this mode. They will also compare it to other digital audio modes, advise on equipment costs, as well as the availability of P25 repeaters in the area.
Date/Time
Friday January 4, 2019 @ 7:00pm
Location
Clovis Senior Activities Center Classroom
850 4th St
Clovis, CA 93612
Public Information Statement National Weather Service HANFORD CA 310 PM PST Sat Dec 29 2018
...WXL-89 WILL REMAIN OUT OF SERVICE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE...
NOAA weather radio station WXL-89 which transmits at Shirley Peak at 162.550 MHz is currently off the air. Techs will attempt to make repairs on Monday, December 31.
[UPDATED: 2018-12-04 @ 1320 UTC] SpaceX has announced that the SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission carrying AMSAT’s Fox-1Cliff CubeSat has been deployed into orbit. A SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle carried Fox-1Cliff and several other satellites into space on December 3 at approximately 1334 UTC from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, following a 1-day launch delay. (See the launch on YouTube.) According to AMSAT, at approximately 0030 UTC on December 4, several stations in Brazil — including PS8MT, PT9BM, and PT2AP — reported hearing the voice beacon “Fox-1Cliff Safe Mode,” confirming that the satellite was alive.
“Just before 0040 UTC, AMSAT Fox-1 Team Member Burns Fisher, WB1FJ, was the first to submit and upload telemetry to the AMSAT servers,” AMSAT reportedon its website. “Initial telemetry values show the satellite to be in good health. Thanks to the 29 stations that contributed telemetry during Fox-1Cliff’s initial orbits.”
“November-Alpha-One-Sierra-Sierra, this is Kilo-Six-Whiskey-Alpha-Oscar.”
That call could be the start of a conversation between a licensed amateur radio operator on the ground and an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.
But the contact would only be possible for up to 10 minutes of the station’s orbit as it whizzed 250 miles overhead at 17,500 mph.
Memorial Services for Ron Hunt will be at 11am. Please note the time change.
Date/Time
Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 11:00am
Location
St. Mary’s Catholic Church 828 O Street Sanger, CA (N/E corner of O and 9th streets) (Parking is located on two sides of the church and surrounding neighborhood streets)
Amateur Radio in Fresno County and the Central Valley of California
