285 TechConnect Radio Club — NAØTC

The 285 TechConnect Radio Club meets on the 1st Saturday of most months at 10AM (coffee, donuts and socialization starting at 9:30). We kick off with a short business meeting at 10:00 followed by a one hour (ish) technical session. Exceptions are in July due to Field Day and the Independence Day holiday and December when we have a club holiday luncheon.

Our regular meetings are held at The Bridge Church at Bear Creek. The church has a very nice meeting room, with ample parking, and is conveniently located near Hwy. 285 and Kipling St. The address is 3101 S. Kipling St., in Lakewood.

Occasionally, due to conflicts, we need to move the meeting location. We will publish updates on the main page of this website as early as possible in the event the meeting has moved, and send an announcement to our mailing list. You can also tune in to the Tuesday night Technet for any club announcements.

Presentation materials for many of our older meetings dating as far back as 2007 are published in our Documents area.

• January 4:
  • Board of Directors election
  • SOSCOTA: Summits of Solar Cycles On The Air, with Rob Steenburgh - ADØIU – who has solar cycle 25 maximum and amateur radio experience. Rob works at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder.
  • Slides
  • Video recording
  • MUF resource: Univ of Mass Lowell GIRO
• February 1: Remote station operations, including a club remote station demo/hands on clinic
  • Presentation
  • Video recording
• March 1: Intro to DIY/kit/homebrew projects, presented by Larry Weinstein K0NA, Dave Feldman WB0KAZ and Mark Ehr K0EHR. Topics includes historical circuit board construction techniques, board design and manufacturing, modern board construction and assembly techniques, and a hand soldering and reflow “board cooking” demo.
  • Presentation
  • Video recording

• April 5: Digital radio that isn't WSJT-X. There are many, many ways to get involved in digital radio other than FT8/FT4 and derivatives. This includes Winlink (email), digital HF modes (RTTY, *PSK, Olivia, Packet, etc etc) plus DMR, System Fusion, D-Star, etc. This session will provide an overview of the bounty of available digital modes, demos of a few, and recommendations on how to get started.
  • Presentation
  • Video recording
  • OpenSpot 4 DMR Config Screen 1
  • OpenSpot 4 DMR Config Screen 2

* May 3: Club anniversary pizza party and show-and-tell / demo sessions

• June 7: TBD (suggestions welcome)
• Zoom link Meeting ID: 894 7027 5843 Passcode: 073515
• July: No meeting
• August 7: Club field trip (POTA)
• September 6: TBD
• October 4: TBD
• November 8: TechFest (note: this is the second Saturday of November)
• December 6: Club holiday luncheon (Rusty Bucket in Lakewood)

• December 7: Holiday Lunch at The Rusty Bucket
• November 2: TechFest
• October 5: KCØRPS - Jim will talk about amateur radio uses for high altitude ballooning.
  • Slides: Radio Operations for Balloons
  • Video: Radio Operations for Balloons (YouTube)
• September 7: Club field trip; Robert - NØCFM will conduct a fox hunt, at Bear Creek Greenbelt Park, 2900 S. Estes St. The park is on the East side of Estes St., S of Yale Ave, with parking available. Robert will hide 4 transmitters. The 1 Watt and 1/2 Watt will transmit a series of musical sounding tones followed by his call sign in Morse code (NØCFM). The other two will transmit his callsign continuously as Morse code.
• August 3: “Make & Take” Build Party
  • Larry - KØNA will talk about attenuators and surface mount components, with a demonstration of using a CNC mill to cut traces.
  • Corey - N5YCO will be doing a DIY 2M/70cm HT antenna
  • Members will be able to build either of these projects at the meeting
• July 6: No meeting
• June 1:
  • Larry Weinstein - KØNA, HF Propagation.  Basics of HF radio wave propagation using visual aids, NEC antenna modelling to illustrate angle of radiation vs height, and use of VOACAP to help identify the optimum time to work a station. Slides - HF Propagation
  • Jim - KCØRPS, Weather Balloons / Ham Radio in Space
• May 4: Club anniversary pizza party, Show'n'Tell, Open discussion – Bring your radio projects to share with the club!
• April 6: Jon Budoff - KFØABR and Art Bullock - NØAIU; Winlink Discussion with peer to peer demonstration.
  • Winlink Basics
  • NA0TC Technical Presentation: Winlink (YouTube)
• March 2: Allen Bishop - KØARK; Boulder County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (BCARES) VOIP. Presentation (YouTube)
• February 3: Tony Montoya - KØMCW; FT8 and Radio Propagation - The Rabbit Hole. FT8 -- Down the Rabbit Hole
• January 6:
  • Elections – it's time to elect club officers
  • Mark Ehr - KØEHR; Microcontrollers and Raspberry Pi for Amateur Radio. Slides: Microcontrollers and Amateur Radio