Central Mississippi Amateur Radio Association
It is finally happening! Central Mississippi Amateur Radio Association will be able to meet in person! Tuesday, June 8th CMSARA will begin meeting in person at the Rankin County Extension Service building, 601 Marquette Road in Brandon. This is where we were meeting before Covid-19 put a stop to everything. Masks are up to you.
Again, Central Mississippi Amateur Radio Association will meet in person on Tuesday, June 8th 7pm, 601 Marquette Road, Brandon, Mississippi!!
Had a fine turnout for today’s fox hunt! Congratulations to the winners and thank all who came out for the fun!
First place went to Rez, K1REZ.
Second place went to Jeremiah KG5UNF and his boys!
Third and fourth go to Erbie K5ERB and Jack K5FIT
Socially distant group photo!
The fox in its den.
Ok, looks like we have at least 3 brave adventurers, so I’ll confirm for Sat Jan 9th, at 1 pm. Hopefully, more will come! We’ll meet in Pelahatchie Shore Park (map below), and I’ll have the fox placed within 3 miles of the start location. We’ll be observing the usual COVID-19 social distancing protocols, so please forgive my rudeness as I’ll be masked, staying 6 feet away, not be shaking anyone’s hands, and just generally being germophobic.
You will receive the fox frequency when we officially start.
PRIZES!!! We have 3 ARRL books that the first TWO winners can choose from.
ARRL Handbook
Antenna book (24th ed.)
Storm Spotting (2nd ed.)
For those of you who are new to fox hunting, here’s a recorded presentation on Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF) at the ARRL learning network.
https://www.gotostage.com/channel/arrl-learning-network
If you are interested in making your own DF antenna, you can find plans and instructions for the venerable tape measure yagi at the following links.
http://theleggios.net/wb2hol/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm
Highly recommend you also make yourselves one of the following attenuators.
Passive attenuator
http://theleggios.net/wb2hol/projects/rdf/p_atten.htm
Active attenuator
http://theleggios.net/wb2hol/projects/rdf/a_atten.htm
Another active attenuator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v38vdbsEjg
Other interesting videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLiI8YCk2ng
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQSiTqH9Dzw
Digital Field Day Instructions Download
Please come join us for a zoom meeting where Eddie Pettis N5JGK & Carolyn Irons KC5DOC will be presenting about Digital Mode Operation on HF.
Topic: CMSARA July Meeting. Digital Mode Operation
Time: Jul 14, 2020 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82147531622?pwd=R1lqclVBWUVPOG9lS0twT1dGR1BIdz09
Meeting ID: 821 4753 1622
Password: 925504
One tap mobile
+13126266799,,82147531622#,,,,0#,,925504# US (Chicago)
+16465588656,,82147531622#,,,,0#,,925504# US (New York)
Dial by your location
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
Meeting ID: 821 4753 1622
Password: 925504
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kNu5JQVKg
The next meeting of CMSARA will be on June 9th at 7 pm on the 147.345 repeater. The repeater has a + offset and a .100 tone.
The discussion will be center on field day and how it will impact CMSARA members and the best way to go about participating. Everyone is invited to join in with questions.
Immediately following the net there will be a Zoom presentation about the N3FJP Software that will be good for use during field day. This is very easy to use and intuitive software.
Instructions on how to join the Zoom meeting will be given on the net. Hope to hear you on the net and see you on Zoom.
| Date | Speaker | Topic | Presence |
| January 14 | George Thomas W5JDX | DIY Projects using Arduino & Raspberry Pi | In-person |
| February 11 | Don Keith N4KC | Ham Radio Lingo | Skype |
| March 3 | Mike Duke K5XU | Six Meter Operation | In-person |
| April 14 | J.D. Toony K5HH | WSPR Operation | Online Facebook |
| May 12 | Mike McKay N5DU | APRS Operation in Central Mississippi | In-person |
| June 9 | Field Day | Field Day Planning | In-person |
| July 14 | Eddie Pettis N5JGK Carolyn Irons KC5DOC |
Digital Mode Operation on HF | In-person |
| August 10 | Tom Brown AE5I | Basic Test Equipment | In-person |
| September 8 | John Struemph K1JHS | Preparation for Contest Operation | In-person |
| October 13 | TBA | Shack Night! Shacks of CMSARA Members | In-person |
| November 10 | Rob Sherwood NC0B | How to Use My Tables | Skype |
| December 8 | Fellowship | Christmas Party | In-person |
As is probably obvious lately, we’ve had some … technical difficulties.
However, we have a brand new URL!
It’s going to take a little bit of time to get everything transferred and working properly, so pardon our dust as we finish the site.
Ok, y’all. I’m going to host a workshop for anyone interested in building a fox hunt antenna. We’re going to do it out of my garage this coming Saturday, Feb 2 (groundhog day) from 10am till about 2pm. I should have all the tools necessary including a solder iron. You supply your materials.
If you’re interested, email me at
CentralMSARA@gmail.com or direct message me on Facebook, and I’ll give you the address.
I’m going to use the following plans…
He’s got an attached youtube video on his build. Looks to be an effective and easy one to make.
His follow-up video is below.
Eugene Wallace (N5CMA) did a fantastic amount of research and found some addittional plans for y’all to choose from! One of which, I think he’s planning on building. Thanks Eugene!
So, feel free to join me this Saturday in my garage for a few hours to tinker with hand-held directional antennas.
What a great turn-out this year! There seemed to be quite a few more attendees this go-round. Maybe it’s because I actually knew some people this year!
CMSARA signed up 9 new members this weekend, and one of them, Kathleen Kable (K5KKD), was the winner of the Baofeng give-away! Congratulations Kathleen, and a warm welcome to all new members!
Eugene Wallace (N5CMA) grew a possum tree especially for the event and placed his coffee-can 2M antenna at the top of it. We were all quite surprised how well that antenna did inside the near faraday cage that we were sitting in.
I tried using my magnetic loop and go-box inside to hit the 40M band. Alas, no luck there. Coffee can wins on 2 meters.
Our booth-neighbors were the Vicksburg Amateur Radio Club folks, and it was great spending time chatting with them. What a great bunch they are! I, for one, can’t wait for field day with them this year.
Many thanks to all who came out and made this a very fun and successful hamfest for CMSARA!
Welcome back! We hope you had a fantastic holiday season. This month, we had a great presentation by Frank Howell K4FMH on RF Propagation: Ionization and Prediction. He scratched the surface on a complex and deep subject in a way that made me feel like a genius… until I got home and tried to contact Europe forgetting I had lowered my antenna earlier that week. Apparently, even a guy as smart as Frank can’t help my particular “RF” issues… You can find his slide presentation following and I highly recommend giving it a look through.
Some of the folks from the Vicksburg Amateur Radio Club came to invite us to their Field Day set up this year. It promises to be a great weekend with an even greater group of folks, and we can’t thank the VARC enough for the invite!
We have the Capital City Hamfest coming up on the 25th. CMSARA will have a booth there and could use some members to come man it. So, if you have the time, we’ll have a chair for you!
Or, just come anyway and say hello, the Hamfest is always an interesting event for hams each year.