CLARA Current September 2026

Welcome to the September edition of the CLARA Current. We have a club meeting next Tuesday the 8th, the Colorado QSO party on the 12th and then a Fox Hunt on the 26th so mark your calendars and keep an eye on Groups.io for more details!

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Electronic Circuits Visualized: How to Use Circuit Simulation Software and an Oscilloscope by Marty Glapa, WTØZ and Bill Sample, NØIET

Our speakers for our September meeting will be Marty Glapa, WTØZ and Bill Sample, NØIET.

Marty will demonstrate EveryCircuit, an interactive electronic circuit simulator that allows users to design, test, and animate analog and digital circuits. A user creates a circuit using components within the tool and then runs simulations which show how the circuit is working by animating current flows, voltage changes and component charging dynamics. A user can change component values in real-time to see the impact of those changes – including sometimes blowing up a circuit!

Bill will demonstrate the use of an oscilloscope, a test instrument used to observe waveforms in hardware circuitry.

Marty has a BS in Electronics Engineering and an MS in Computer Science. Marty spent 42 years at Bell Labs in various R&D roles, most recently as head of R&D for Bell Labs Consulting and as CTO for one of the company’s business units. He received the Bell Labs Fellow award for pioneering work in VOIP, video streaming and network evolution in 2008. Marty retired in 2019. He has been an amateur for six years and has an Amateur Extra license.

Bill has a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Engineering Management. Bill, retired now, worked on the design of safety critical electronics for aircraft and space vehicles for 38 years at Bendix/King (now Honeywell). Bill is a 7,000+ hour pilot with Air Transport and Flight Instructor licenses. Bill has been an amateur since the early 1980s and holds an Amateur Extra license.

You’re invited to our September 8th meeting!  Social hour starts at 6:00 PM, meeting is at 7:00 PM.  Light refreshments will be served.

To join our meeting by Zoom, click  HERE!  The passcode is 7373

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Restoration was delayed  due to the scale of destruction–field crews had to clear heavy tree debris, clear access roads, and re-string collapsed conductors in extreme winter weather. According to Colorado’s ARES state section leader the weather event outage caused repeater failures due to battery depletion. While the scenario is fictional, a similar weather event occurred two years ago in the front range and in Chaffee, Lake, Fremont and Custer ten years ago. What would you do with no power and cell service…The following is part of a draft protocol for such an incident:

Personal Safety. As with any emergency situation, your personal safety is the first priority prior to initiating any response. Ensure your personal safety as well as members of your family and immediate neighbors (situationally dependent—proximity and relationship). In addition to ensuring your personal safety, establish situational awareness such that you are not caught off-guard by some aspect of the incident (think advancing wildfire).

Call 911 for Emergencies. Call 9-1-1 for any perceived emergency—call the normal emergency number, e.g. 9-1-1.  The purpose of the CLARA Net is to gather information and to assist in “neighbor helping neighbor” process. It is NOT a substitute for calling 9-1-1 and  notifying response agencies of an emergency.

Activation Level (self-activating). Self-activating the CLARA net is NOT self-dispatching. Self-activation is at your home or possibly at a mobile location depending on the circumstances.

Any CLARA licensed operator can start this net on the primary CLARA repeater (W0LSD) without waiting for authorization, using a short, scripted check-in outlined below (“is there an active net / does anyone have information on X“) and a snapshot of the situation from CLARA (and others with information). Log this information on an ICS-309, an electronic document (MS Word, Google document, etc.) or blank piece of paper.

R2D1 CLARA Net — Activation Level (Information Gathering) Net Control Script

Purpose: Get a damage/impact snapshot from around Chaffee and Lake Counties (aspirational at this point) in the first minutes after an event, before any official activation has happened. Any licensed operator can run this — you don’t need to be county staff or wait for authorization. A recent example: the Chaffee County power outage in which Brian KF0WCW, Sean W0XC and Mike KE0PWR used the W0LSD repeater to exchange information.

• Primary repeater: W0LSD 146.74500 -0.6MHz  Tone: 100.0
• Alternate: If the W0LSD repeater is off-line our alternate option is CTAC 01 our first simplex 2 meter channel:
• Contingency: [HF/NVIS] Log on: ICS-309, 3.810Mhz SSB
• Emergency: TBD, possibly mesh technology

Before you key up

• Listen for 15–20 seconds. Is a net already running?
• Yes → check in, ask the NCO if the event has already been reported, and follow their lead.
• No → continue below.

Step 1 — Check for information

• “This is [your callsign], calling on the CLARA net. Is there anyone on this repeater with information regarding [event]?”
• No response → prepare to act as Net Control (Step 2).

Step 2 — Self-activate as Net Control

• “This is [your callsign], acting as Net Control. I am activating the CLARA Net, Activation Level, to gather a snapshot of conditions related to the [fire / power outage/ winter storm / other] affecting Chaffee and Lake Counties. I’m ready to receive brief situation reports from any station with current, firsthand information. Observations from your current location only. Give your call sign and location first, then your report.”
• Repeat this announcement every 5–10 minutes so late check-ins know the net is active.

Step 3 — Set expectations immediately

• “This net is for gathering information only — I cannot dispatch help. If you or someone near you need immediate assistance, call 9-1-1. Please give your call sign, your location, and brief first-hand description of the incident impact.”

Step 4 — Take reports

• Call for incident reports log every check-in on ICS-309: call sign, location, time, incident impact, brief note. If a station is weak or unreadable, ask other stations on the net for a relay before giving up on them.

The above represents the draft of only the first 4 steps in the CLARA self-activation protocol. After these steps, inputs from the office of Emergency Management will drive the direction and nature of the CLARA response. Expect to see more information and follow-on steps on the protocol in the coming months.
Mike KE0PWR

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Running inside coax is a challenge faced by many hams, including me. The design and construction of my home (one level southwestern style on a concrete slab) make it difficult to get coax where I want it. My home was built wired with 75 ohm 3 GHz Commscope quad-shield RG6 coax, with one to four coax outlets in every room. A cross-connect panel enables connecting coax in rooms with various inputs such as cable TV, satellite, etc. So, I thought, why not give RG6 a try for HF? My hypothesis was: It will work but it’s going to be lossy.

Off to Ace Hardware to pick up F connectors and a crimping tool, then on Amazon to order F-connector to PL-259 connector adapters. I ran 75 ft. of RG8-x (50 ohm) from my EFHW to an existing outside RG6 jack with an F connector-PL-259 adapter, installed F-connectors at the cross-connect panel, connected the RG6 coax from the outside connector to RG6 coax into my room of choice (about 115 ft of RG6) with a barrel connector, and used an F-connector to PL-259 adapter at the coax jack in that room to run 15 ft. of RG8-x to a RigExpert 55 (and later my ICOM 7300).

Total RG8-x and RG6 coax length is about 205 ft. This configuration of 50 and 75 ohm coax automatically results in an SWR of 1.5:1. A sketch of the configuration follows:

I took cable loss measurements with the RigExpert and made power calculations (assuming 100W out of the ICOM 7300) and plotted results:

I then took SWR measurements and made corresponding additional power loss calculations (due to SWR) and plotted results:

Finally, I graphed the combined power losses due to cable loss and SWR as shown:

After testing I connected the ICOM 7300, fired it up on SSB, and worked a bunch of contacts!!!

There are a total of 19 connectors (barrel, F, F-PL-259) between the radio and the antenna, not counting the SO-239s on the radio and antenna. I was able to rerun the tests described here on the same coax run but closer to the cross connect panel, thereby reducing the number of connectors to 13. There was almost no difference in the power loss tests with results being up to 0.2 dB higher (that was interesting) or 0.2 dB lower on some bands. I’m thinking this means the connectors used do not impact HF very much. SWR tests were up to 0.25 higher and 0.7 lower on some bands.

In conclusion:

• Using RG6 inside my home works “ok”.

• It’s lossy, up to ½ power lost on some bands with up to 3 dB losses, most like due to:

1) 5 interconnection points

2) 19 connectors (F, PL-259, F to PL-259, barrel)

3) Approximately 205 ft. of mixed coax types

• By comparison, LMR 400 cable loss at 200 ft. is about 0.93 dB at 14 MHz, vs. 2.31 dB on the coax run I tested.

• A balun would help with SWR (but the ICOM tuner corrects it) but not help with cable loss (discussed with Palomar Engineers regarding using their 75 ohm-50 ohm balun).

• I’ll likely use it for some SSB but maybe more so for FT4/8

• The next step is to get a meter at the antenna and compare its readings to my calculations.

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The board voted unanimously to reimburse Brian for 2 projector bulbs costing $113.98. Bob reported that we had no members responding to the offer to buy the club’s ICOM 7300. He indicated that he would send out one more email reminder (Editor’s note: Tom W9TR is purchasing the Icom IC-7300).

The next discussion was about the Mesh Zoom meeting. Several club members attended the meeting. The consensus was that we would create a Mesh working group headed by Brian W1CAT. Next, Mike gave an Emcomm report saying that there would be a 80 meter test in October. Marty gave an update on 4-H activities. Two kids in his group won blue ribbons at the county fair and would be going the state fair.

We are having some trouble scheduling people to repair the Monarch repeater. We will try to get it working properly before ski season. We then had a discussion about having a team study linking club repeaters. That could happen after we get all of the club repeaters working properly.

Bob gave a short report about the group SOTA activation of Monarch Crest. He had reported that in the last newsletter. He said that he would be out of town for the September club meeting. Rich will conduct that meeting in his absence. Rich reported that Marty and Bill will give a presentation on circuit simulation at the club meeting.

Upcoming events include the Colorado QSO party on September 12 and a Fox Hunt on September 26.

The board had a discussion about elections and clarifying the procedure. Bob, Brian and Doug will work on that.

Bob adjourned the meeting at 8:15.

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You can still pay your 2026 dues! The suggested amount is $20. You can pay at a meeting or breakfast, by mail (Jim Willut; 18133 Ponderosa Ln; BV 81211) or by PayPal on our website. If you use PayPal, please be sure to note the payment is for dues and please pay the transaction fee. You don’t need to pay dues to be a member, but in order to vote on board members or check out gear you need to have paid your annual dues. Thanks!

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Thanks to everyone for being a part of CLARA and for supporting ham radio in the valley and beyond. A very special thanks to Marty WT0Z and Bill N0IET for engaging youth in our community, and to Mike KE0PWR for taking on the role of ARES Emergency Coordinator for R2D1! We are continuing to make 2026 a year of outreach and growth for CLARA, so thanks for telling a friend about ham radio! 73 everyone, KF5WCW out.