Our next WVARA meeting will be held in-person on Wednesday, April 10, 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.  

At this month’s meeting, Ralph Simpson will tell us about secret radio communications during WW2 and the cracking of Enigma.  WW1 had been the first war to use radio, which was an enormous advantage on the battlefield. But the weakness of existing ciphers meant every country now had their secret messages broken by the enemy! This vulnerability was the driving force for the invention of more advanced machine ciphers and was the beginning of crypto warfare. The Enigma machine was invented during this time and was the first cipher device to use electricity. So, radio was directly responsible for the resulting explosion of crypto warfare, which continues to this day.

The Nazis used the Enigma in WW2 and had the utmost confidence in the secrecy of their messages, despite evidence of enemy codebreaking. The story of Allied codebreaking during WW2 is a story of innovation, intrigue, and deception. The success of cracking the Enigma was kept secret for 41 years, until 1974, despite tens of thousands of people working on the effort in the UK and US. This secrecy is especially incredible for us living in the age of the internet, WikiLeaks, and Edward Snowden. Over 35,000 Enigma machines were manufactured, but only 400 exist today.

Ralph Simpson worked in the computer industry for 32 years, working for IBM and Cisco Systems. He started as a systems engineer for large mainframe computers and held a variety of technical and management roles. He retired as Senior Director for Service Strategy at Cisco Systems.  Ralph is now retired and volunteers at History San Jose and the Computer History Museum. He wrote a book on cipher history called, Crypto Wars: 2000 Years of Cipher Evolution. He is also an avid collector of cipher machines, which you can see on his website, CipherHistory.com. 

BTW, several of us meet nearbyfor 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 my cellphone:  408-636-6172.

Jim, K6EI
WVARA Vice President

Our next WVARA meeting will be held in-person on Wednesday, March 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. 

Field Day this year will be June 21-23.  Once again, we plan to operate from Mora Hill in the Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve.  

At our March meeting, we will discuss what worked in 2023 and a few changes that are in-store for 2024.  This meeting will also be a brainstorm session, so be thinking about what you liked the most about our last June’s Field Day and ways our event could be improved to make it more fun, more inviting to visitors, and an even better event.  

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.   

Several of us meet nearbyfor 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!  

Jim, K6EI
WVARA Vice President

This month’s WVARA meeting will be held in-person  on Wednesday, November 8, 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 beginning 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.  

Ed Fong, WB6IQN, will bring us up to speed on a central part of all modern radios — the phase-lock loop (PLL).  PLLs are used everywhere.  Not only in our transceivers, but cell phones, televisions, computers, etc.   We could not live without them. PLL’s where not practical until the invention of the modern day integrated circuit which allowed thousands of transistors on a single chip.  Prior to the PLL, we used single crystals for VHF FM.  This was very expensive and most of us could only afford a few channels.    

Ed will explain how PLL’s work in a non mathematical presentation.  He will explain where phase noise originates and techniques engineers have used minimize it.  Ed will bring his HP 8591 spectrum analyzer and compare the phase noise of various HT’s to a crystal control radio.  Bring your HT and see how yours performs against a crystal control radio.  Ed is an enthusiastic speaker and is guaranteed to both enlighten and enliven with his presentation.

Ed Fong was first licensed in 1968 as WN6IQN.  He later upgraded to Extra Class (when 20 WPM was required ) with his present call of WB6IQN.  He obtained the BSEE and MSEE degrees from the Univ. of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. from the Univ. of San Francisco.  A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, he has 12 patents and over 40  published papers and books in the area of communications and integrated circuit design.  Presently, he is employed by the University of California,  Santa Cruz (previously with Berkeley from 1997-2010) as an instructor teaching graduate classes in Antenna Design,  RF design and high speed interface.  In his 35 year career, he has done work for Stanford University, National Semiconductor, Advanced Micro Devices, numerous startup companies in the Silicon Valley.
Please note:
• 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.  
• We will be in Meeting Room 3 — about 100 feet from any entrance.  As a result, late comers who knock on an outside door won’t be heard from our meeting room.  If you need help getting in the door, you can my cellphone:  408-636-6172.
• The meeting will be in-person only and not streamed via Zoom.

By the way, several of us meet nearby for dinner prior to the meeting at 5:30pm at Dish-N-Dash (2551 N. 1st St. San Jose):  https://dishdash.com .   Feel free to join us.

73s,
Jim, K6EI
WVARA Vice President