It must be reported that the officers elected at the December meeting resigned their positions at the March 2000 business meeting. Now that we have your attention, let’s explain what happened.

The resignations were part of the election that filled the slate of officers for the year 2000. Burt, W7IIT, resigned from his position as club secretary and was subsequently elected president.

Malcolm, KA6DSX, resigned from his position as director, and was elected as vice president. Last but not least, Bob, N7KTP, resigned from his position as director to be elected as secretary. John, KC4LZN; Mike, KA7SQD; and Susan, AB7MD, were elected to fill the vacant board positions.

The North Kitsap Amateur Radio Club Volunteer Examining Team will be holding a special session on April 15th between the hours of 9am and Noon in order to process upgrade paperwork only. This special session will be held in the clubhouse at the Viking Mobile Home Park on 1754 Mesford St., Poulsbo. We will be monitoring 146.440 simplex freq. for anyone who needs information or directions. This special session is for upgrade paperwork processing only, we will not be giving any license exams at this session. Please bring the following - your original license for your current class, a photocopy of that license, all of your current CSCE credits and a copy of each, driver’s license or other photo ID, $6.65 in cash or check (payable to ARRL/VEC) and a pen. We will provide the 605 forms. If there are any questions please give Susan Johnson, AB7MD, a call at 360-697-9379. Thanks you. –

Susan, AB7MD.

• VE testing – April 22nd - Olympic College, Room T-114, Lincoln Avenue, Bremerton, WA at 9:00 AM. All exams, Novice through Extra, are given. Remember, the Morse Code element is now 5 words per minute for all classes of license. Contact Sue,AB7MD, at 360-697-9379.

In February, a copy of the NKARC Constitution and By-Laws was mailed to every member on the roster on December 31, 1999 and any new members who joined after January 1, 2000 for review and comment. The documents were sent by mail to insure that everybody has a hard copy. The comments are solicited in order to change the club constitution and by-laws to reflect the desires of the current membership.

Please review the documents and submit recommended changes to the Board of Directors. The recommended procedure is to submit the proposed changes in writing, but the club will consider any changes brought from the floor at a regular meeting. First discussions will be held at the meeting on 26 April, 2000.

Why have Constitution and By-laws? The operations and procedures of the North Kitsap Amateur Radio are set down in the Constitution and By-Laws. As a non-profit organization, state statutes require that the club have these documents and that they be on file in the state capitol. The state office monitoring non-profit organizations recommends that these documents be reviewed and revised periodically to reflect the organization’s changing requirements and operating procedures. The club’s constitution and by-laws were last revised and took effect on 1 November 1991.

Once the revised documents are made final, the by-laws require that they be submitted to the membership at least thirty days before the vote is taken at a regular meeting of the organization. Absentee ballots will be available, but the member’s presence at the meeting is preferred. Please review the documents; think of the changes you would like to see; submit them to the Board for consideration; attend the meetings for discussion; and vote on the final documents.

The Constitution and By-Laws are your voice to the Board. Participate…Review the documents thoroughly; consider the changes you want; submit them for consideration.

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Need help to upgrade? Come to the club meeting and meet someone who may be able to help. A characteristic of a good amateur radio operator is his/her willingness to share the knowledge they possess with others. There is plenty of talent available-Come in and make use of it.

The new year is in its fourth month and it’s time to renew your dues if you have not done so. If your address label has the number 99 in the right hand corner, your membership needs to be renewed. Remember, you must be a paid member for 2000 to vote on the changes in the constitution and by-laws. An application has been included as part of the newsletter. If you do not renew your membership, this will be the last copy of the newsletter you will receive. Your name will be dropped from the newsletter mailing list

It’s easy to make out the form on the back of the address page; include the form and your check in an envelope and send it to the address on the form. Better yet, bring it with you to the next meeting.

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As an incentive to come to the next meeting (April 12th) the club is offering free coax. Some local cable TV workers were replacing coax (probably with fiber optics) and thought it would be a great idea if the scrap 50 to 100 ft. cable lengths they had laying around, would just go away. The cable is about the size of RG-8 and is probably low loss 75ohm. Foam dielectric. It has a 1/8 inch steel support wire molded adjacent to the actual coax. (Free guy wire?) The stuff has a very tough jacket and this makes it rather stiff. But given the price, an enterprising ham should be able to put this to good use. About 5 lengths available. Ron, N7EM

If you fill a pen with invisible ink, how do you know when the ink runs out?

Why is it when you dial a wrong number, it is never busy?

The show and tell session at the March 8^th presentation meeting brought out some interesting items showing the creative capabilities of the club members.

Les, KO3G, brought the milliwatt single side band transmitter he created on a scrap piece of PC board. The rig used a batch of junk box parts including a crystal lattice filter built from pieces taken out of a junked TV set. Les claims that it had about 750 milliwatts output and he made contact with a station in W3 land using his beam antenna. If any of you ever were at his QTH, you would see that there was nothing in his way in Kitsap County to get the signal out. It might be a good idea to have Les document his creation and it could become a great club project to further the interests of QRP.

Burt, W7IIT, displayed the colinear antenna he constructed using copper tubing, fittings, mechanical hardware, and the coax cable. He copied the design from an article in the February 2000 issue of QST magazine. It is a beautiful piece of work and Burt is to be congratulated in the workmanship. He said that he tried it out on 2 meters and was very satisfied with its performance.

The ARRL Wouff-Hougg made its annual appearance. The relic comes from the ARRL convention held in Chicago in 1938. It was owned by Tom, W9NXP (SK), who passed it on to Bob, N7KTP. Bob claims that he nearly had his head taken off when Tom found him using it as a door stop in Bremerton.

Now is the time to plan for the mystery show time to held sometime next year. Like the event, the next date is still a mystery.

The wave of the future in logging your QSOs is with a PC and logging software. There are many different programs out there ranging from freeware on the various Internet bulletin boards to expensive and elaborate costing more money than we would care to guess. Some software will record the QSO data and then generate a number of reports including such things as WAS and DXCC. The most significant application is logging during a contest.

Tom Sanders, W6QJI, will be at the April 26^th presentation meeting to discuss logging software and give some ideas on the benefits to be gained from using it during contests. Tom has much experience in amateur radio and contesting, so we look forward to an interesting presentation.

The Field Day is the one major planned event where the club members get together on the last weekend in June and participates with other clubs and Hams around the country setting up stations under simulated emergency conditions to conduct a contact marathon for 24 hours.

The 2000 ARRL Field Day scheduled for the last weekend in June, the 24th and 25th.. Now it the time to plan for this event. In fact, we are late in getting started, and the sooner we get started, the smoother the event runs. Effective operation requires preparation now for antenna construction, setups for operating without interference to other modes etc...

In the past the spirit has been to enjoy the event, practice operating under emergency conditions, and to further public relations. Last year, we strove for a higher score than the previous year and we got it. Last year, we were in the upper one-third of the category entered. We should strive to do better this year and to get more experience in working as a coordinated group and to learn better communication techniques. All club members should participate, not matter what class of license they hold. There is enough variation in tasks and operating to accommodate everybody willing to be there.

Gene, AB7LH, volunteered to call about reserving the same site we had last year at Vinland School here in Poulsbo. Bruce, N7OJ, has volunteered to put together a band operating plan suggesting best times to operate on the bands available to us.

The club trailer and portable station will be set up at the site. The antenna structures used last year were very satisfactory and will be used this year. We will be going for as many of the bonus points we can in order to increase out score.

The sunspot numbers are higher this year than they have been in a number of years. We expect that the bands will be hot barring an unforeseen solar storm. The competition is expected to be heavy, so we will have to establish as competent an operating plan as we can for this year’s event.

One thing we cannot overlook is that the club has one of the best stew cooks in Kitsap County amateur radio and we will prevail upon him to provide us with some of the best chow that can be found at a field day.

This is a chance to learn about one of the most interesting events in Ham Radio. Participate in some way in this event.

Bob Tomas, N7KTP

Apr 12th – Presentation meeting at 7:30 PM –Viking Park Clubhouse – Contest logging on the PC—Toms Sanders, W6QJI

Apr 22nd -- VE testing – VE testing - Olympic College, Room T-114, Lincoln Avenue, Bremerton, WA at 9:30 AM. All exams, Novice through Extra, are given. Contact Sue,AB7MD, at 360-697-9379.

Apr 26th – Business meeting at 7:30 PM – Viking Park Clubhouse, Poulsbo Major agenda item: Constitution and By-Laws changes.

May 10th – Presentation meeting at 7:30 PM – Viking Park Clubhouse – To be announced

May 24th – Regular meeting at 7:30 PM – Viking Park Clubhouse, Poulsbo Major agenda item: Constitution and By-Laws changes.

May 27th – VE testing – VE testing - Olympic College, Room T-114, Lincoln Avenue, Bremerton, WA at 9:30 AM. All exams, Novice through Extra, are given. Contact Sue,AB7MD, at 360-697-9379.

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NKARC Web Page..

Visit the NKARC Web Page at the URL: http://www.silverlink.net/nkarc.  There is a wealth of information and capabilities to anybody that checks in. After you get connected, you can get the latest copy of the club newsletter -- "SOLID COPY"..

Click on the handi-talkie graphic and you’ll get a list of links to other web pages giving you an opportunity to connect to the ARRL, FCC, Packet Radio Home Page, AMSAT and many others. Need the QTH of the station you just had a contact with? The QRZ call sign look-up form is available. The links also give the link to the information on the Evergreen Intertie.

On November 2, 1920, Warren G. Harding was elected President of the United States. Millions read the election results in the newspapers the next day. In the Pittsburgh area, however, hundreds heard the election returns the moment they were wired in, thanks to Dr. Frank Conrad, a Westinghouse employee, who broadcast the results over 8XK, his amateur station. This station would evolve into KDKA, and the night of November 2, 1920, has been called the start of the multi-billion dollar broadcast industry. But was it? This month "The Wayback Machine" looks at the evolution of broadcasting, and the amateur's role in it.

The idea of broadcasting was first considered by Lee deForest in May, 1902, when he wrote that "Ultimately, wireless telephony will be possible." He urged the financial backers of the deForest Wireless Telegraph Company to develop and patent the concept. The stockholders, however, were more interested in immediate profits (through massive stock sales) rather than genuine development, and refused to finance the necessary research. Undaunted, deForest in 1907 formed the deForest Radio Telephone Company. In a statement that for 1907 must have appeared radical and even bizarre, but was amazingly prophetic, he wrote, "I look forward to the day when opera may be brought into every home. Some day the news and even advertising will be sent out over the wireless telephone."

Despite deForest's intense interest in this area, he was not the first to broadcast the human voice and music over the airwaves. That honor belongs to Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, a Canadian Professor. He was the first to recognize the inherent flaw in the concept of spark transmissions, and set out to find an alternative. His quest led him to Schenectady, New York, and the services of General Electric's most brilliant scientist, Charles Steinmetz. Fessenden explained his idea: an alternator capable of generating waves of 100,000 cycles per second (3000 meters). Steinmetz and his assistant, Ernst Alexanderson, worked for almost two years, and finally produced an alternator that met Fessenden's requirements. The Alexanderson Alternator, as it is now known, was delivered to Fessenden's station in the Fall of 1906. On the evening of December 24, 1906, ship and amateur operators heard something in their headphones they had never heard before: someone speaking! A woman singing! Someone reading a poem! Fessenden himself played the violin. (The Alexanderson Alternator would play a prominent role in early high power stations and will be fully covered in a column exploring Schenectady's contribution to the development of radio and television).

Not to be outdone, deForest continued his radio telephone experiments in the period 1907-1910, broadcasting from the Eiffel Tower and live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, where Enrico Caruso was singing. However, all of these transmissions had a major problem: without a pure, stable, direct current C.W. carrier to modulate, all the signals had a background whine and distortion. Real development in the area of modulated carriers would have to wait until Armstrong discovered the oscillating properties of a regenerative circuit.

By 1916, both Armstrong's circuit and the Audion were widely circulating in the radio world, and broadcasting surfaced again. Lee deForest resumed his transmissions, with programs of "good music, culture, and lectures." deForest can be credited with two "firsts" in 1916; the first advertisements (for his Audion and other products) and the broadcast of the Presidential election between Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes. (Unfortunately, deForest signed off before the California results were in, so he declared Hughes the winner over Wilson).

Also, in 1916, amateur station 2ZK broadcast one hour of music each night. David Sarnoff, who had manned his station during the Titanic disaster, also got into the act. He wrote a memo to his employers at American Marconi suggesting a "Radio Music Box," which would become a "household utility." He went on to describe his vision of radio broadcasting, and then turned to finances. He predicted an income of $75,000,000 or more each year from the sale of receivers. Marconi, still focusing on ship to shore telegraphy, took no action on the memo.

After amateurs had returned to the air in November 1919, hundreds of them began to explore the area of broadcasting. In May, 1920, amateur station 8XK joined many other hams in the transmission of music. Incidentally, it WAS LEGAL for amateurs to broadcast music, news, sports, lectures, advertisements, or indeed just about anything else they wanted. The Radio Act of 1912, still in effect, did not mention "amateurs," rather, one paragraph made a general reference to individual private or commercial stations. The only real restriction was the 1 kW power limit and the 200 meter wavelength. After that, the government didn't care. Thus, those amateurs who had built equipment to modulate their C.W. transmitters eventually played a phonograph record or two, sang (or tried to sing), or broadcast some form of entertainment.

With all of the above documented evidence, why is November 2, 1920, considered the start of broadcasting? The answer lies not at the transmitter, but at the receiver. Prior to that night, all broadcasts had, in effect, been from one amateur to another, or to a commercial station. The November broadcast, though, was designed and promoted by Westinghouse as a transmission to the general public. Starting in September, stores were selling basic receivers for $10.00 to receive 8XK. Westinghouse, in effect, had seized deForest's and Sarnoff's idea, and was marketing it to the general public. Thus, it was the makeup of the listening audience that defined the start of broadcasting.

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This article may not be reprinted without the express permission of the author -- Bill Continelli, W2XOY

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