The Dallas Marathon is coming up one week from today, on Sunday, Dec. 15th. Most positions have probably been filled, but if you haven’t signed up, please head over to https://sites.google.com/site/dallasmarathoncomms/volunteering/sign-up and register.

I didn’t get a chance to try this, so for everyone’s benefit I’ll repeat this one: If you’d like to try something really different, you could get on the air using FT-8 on 2 meters! The North Texas Microwave Society is holding informal FT-8 nets on 144.174 USB each Monday at 19:30 local. Any antenna you have will be better than nothing, but a horizontal antenna is preferred.

Nothing really stands out on the contest calendar this weekend. The ARRL 160-meter contest is taking place today and tomorrow morning, and, surprisingly, the ARRL 10-meter contest will be taking place next weekend. Good luck!

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If you’d like to try something really different, you could get on the air using FT-8 on 2 meters! The North Texas Microwave Society is holding informal FT-8 nets on 144.174 USB each Monday at 19:30 local. Any antenna you have will be better than nothing, but a horizontal antenna is preferred. If you have a coat hanger to spare, you can make a 2-meter dipole suitable for this net. I’m going to give it a try.

The Dallas Marathon is coming up on Sunday, December 15th, and the event needs help. If you haven’t signed up, please head over to https://sites.google.com/site/dallasmarathoncomms/volunteering/sign-up and register. The Marathon is a great event to participate in if you’ve just gained some experience at the Turkey Trot.

UPDATE from N5BB: if you’re hunting RFI like I am, you might want to follow Bill’s suggestion and listen to the sample collection provided by the ARRL.

ANOTHER UPDATE: recordings of my interference can be found here: 30 Hz, and here: 120 Hz. Careful listening and lining up the audio files in Audacity suggests to me that the interference is really always at 120 Hz, but that I was fooled by every fourth pulse being stronger than than others during some conditions. Of the ARRL samples, the light dimmer sounds most like what I’ve got.

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Turkey Trot is THIS THURSDAY! Some of us have already had an early Thanksgiving dinner, so it might be easy to forget…but don’t. Set your alarm early, and bring a friend if you want to. Randy, KE5JIT, has reported that he has enough hams to fulfill the requests from the YMCA, but that walk-ins are welcome and will be put to work.

The Dallas Marathon is coming up on Sunday, December 15th, and the event needs your help. If you haven’t signed up, please head over to https://sites.google.com/site/dallasmarathoncomms/volunteering/sign-up and register. The Marathon is a great event to participate in if you’ve just gained some experience at the Turkey Trot.

Tom, KE5ICX, is looking for a new net control for SKYNET. If you’d like to give it a try, please contact the club.

And finally, don’t forget that there is no Lecture and Lab for November, December, or January. If you weren’t there today, you didn’t miss it.

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I say this every week, so here I go: the DARC is looking for volunteers to help out at the 2019 Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot! Please don’t forget to sign up—and remember that beginners are welcome.

The Dallas Marathon needs your help, too! They’ve asked that people not link directly to their information site, but if you paste this link into your address bar, it will take you right there: sites.google.com/site/dallasmarathoncomms/

The marathon staff are still short of communicators and are asking area hams to help spread the word.

The contest calendar is busy this weekend, with one big event—the ARRL Sweepstakes SSB weekend—one out-of-this-world event, and one very quirky event, among many others. If you have a vacuum tube transmitter that was designed back in the roaring 20s, the AWA Bruce Kelly Memorial QSO Party is the event for you.

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The clock is ticking, and the DARC is looking for volunteers to help out at the 2019 Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot! Please don’t forget to sign up—and remember that beginners are welcome.

The Dallas Marathon needs your help, too! They’ve asked that people not link directly to their information site, but if you paste this address into your address bar, it will take you right there. sites.google.com/site/dallasmarathoncomms/

And you’re almost out of time on this one your ballot for our West Gulf Division director must be received not later than November 15th, 2019. If you’re an ARRL member, check a box, use a stamp.

The contest calendar features a number of small events this weekend, including the 10-10 International Fall Digital Contest, and, for fans of PSK31, the PODXS 070 club contest.

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The DARC is looking for volunteers to help out at the 2019 Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot! Please don’t forget to sign up—and remember that beginners are welcome.

I’ll mention here, for the second-last time, that your ballot for our West Gulf Division director must be received not later than November 15th, 2019. If you’re an ARRL member, check a box, use a stamp.

At our next DARC meeting, Tuesday, November 5th, Steve Lott, KG5VK, our ARRL NTX section manager, will give an update on the progress and programs going on in our section this year. Your public service officer Randy Patterson, KE5JIT, will also speak about Turkey Trot, answer any questions you might have, and sign up volunteers.

Just like last week’s, the contest calendar for this weekend has got one big event on it: the ARRL Sweepstakes CW weekend. Don’t forget that the SSB weekend will be coming up on the 16th of this month.

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The DARC is looking for volunteers to help out at the 2019 Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot! Please don’t forget to sign up—and remember that beginners are welcome.

Remember that your ballot for our West Gulf Division director, our representative on the ARRL’s board, must be received not later than November 15th, 2019. If you’re an ARRL member, please make your choice and send your ballot in.

At our next DARC meeting, Tuesday, November 5th, Steve Lott, KG5VK, our ARRL NTX section manager, will give an update on the progress and programs going on in our section this year. Your public service officer Randy Patterson, KE5JIT, will also speak about Turkey Trot, answer any questions you might have, and sign up volunteers.

The contest calendar this weekend is almost empty…because all the little fish have gotten out of the way for one whale of a contest! The CQ World-Wide DX contest SSB weekend is going on right now. Get on the air and give it a try, and you’ll be glad you did.

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Are you with us up on the hill? Our annual Tech Net on the Hill event is going on today—if you’re hearing this on the air, it’s going on now. We’re at the Flag Pole Hill pavilion, 8100 Doran Cir, Dallas, TX 75201. We’ll have great presentations and first-rate amateur radio fun and fellowship. Show off your projects, take a class, and enjoy the hot dogs (first-come, first-served of course). Experts will be on hand to test your radio or antenna and let you know what’s wrong.

Don’t forget: your ballot for our West Gulf Division director, our representative on the ARRL’s board, should have already arrived in your mailbox. Don’t forget to vote! Ballots must be received not later than November 15th, 2019.

If you have to miss the TNOH event, there are still some operating events you can take part in from home. The 50 MHz through L-band part of the ARRL’s EME contest is going on now. I think EME is probably the most difficult of our amateur modes…but I still hope to try it some day. We’ve also got the New York QSO party,  the Illinois QSO party, one of the “small” Stew Perry Topband Challenge weekends, and the oddly-named Telephone Pioneers QSO party. The most popular DX event this weekend is the Worked All Germany contest…but it’s not the biggest radio event this weekend.

And our next club Lecture and Lab will be next Saturday morning, October 26th at 10:00 AM. Bring $25.00 and your soldering tools to the 3rd-floor community room of the Dallas Medical Center and you can build an Arduino-controlled, solar-powered remote weather station. You DO NOT need to have attended last month’s lab. You do need to bring the laptop of your choice.

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Tech Net on the Hill is coming up next weekend! On Saturday, October 19th, from 2pm to 9pm, we’ll be up on the hill—the Flag Pole Hill pavilion, 8015 Doran Cir, Dallas, TX 75201. We’ll have great presentations and first-rate amateur radio fun and fellowship. Show off your projects, take a class, and enjoy the hot dogs (first-come, first-served of course).

Our DARC EmCom 101 net will continue this coming Monday at 19:00 local on 146.88 MHz with a discussion of the DHS SAFECOM website.

And don’t forget: your ballot for our West Gulf Division director, our representative on the ARRL’s board, should be arriving in your mailbox soon. Don’t forget to vote! Ballots must be received not later than November 15th, 2019.

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Don’t forget: Lifewalk is tomorrow morning! Charge your HTs, pack your snacks and chairs, and set your alarm clocks.

If you’re looking for something to do on the air, there are a few contests and operating events going on: The Italian QRP Club’s Quarterly Marathon is in progress, and the California QSO Party and Straight Key Century Club QSO Party are both available.

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