Our next WVARA meeting will be held in-person on Wednesday, November 13, in Meeting Room 3 at the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, 2731 N. First Street at Plumeria Drive (southwest corner) in San Jose. Social time begins around 6:45pm, with the meeting commencing at 7pm. If you haven’t been to the Red Cross in a while, “talk-in” is usually available on the Association’s repeaters. Best choice would be 2m/220.
This month’s presenter will be WVARA member Bert Henderson, W6MSD. There are plenty of commercially-made HF antennas that you can buy. But why not save some dollars and build your own? Bert will talk about DIY wire antennas that you can make yourself with an emphasis on end-fed and off-center fed antennas. He will present on the transformers and antennas he’s designed and made, some basics on how they work, a summary of other available info. He will also bring some of his home-built hardware to show, as well as his nanoVNA to demonstrate a measurement or two.
Bert retired last year after a career developing microwave components and subsystems. He’s an innovator with six patents and a leader in frequency conversion, signal generation, and control technologies. His ham radio interests include antenna design, CW, and (of course) Field Day.
BTW, several of us meet nearby for dinner prior to the meeting at 5:30pm at Disn-N-Dash (2551 N. 1st St. San Jose): https://dishdash.com. Feel free to join us.
Three things to remember:
• Since the west side entrance to the Red Cross Building is always locked, we recommend entering the Red Cross Building through the main entrance situated on the north side of the building.
• The Red Cross locks the main entrance at 7pm sharp, so please come early in order to get access to the building.
• Since Meeting Room 3 is about 100 feet from any entrance, any late comers who knock on an outside door won’t be heard from our meeting room. So please try to arrive early! If you need help getting in the door, you can call Tim’s cellphone: 408-929-9311 or mine: 408-636-6172.
Jim, K6EI
WVARA Vice President