As a reminder – There is NO monthly DARC Lab And Lecture meeting for Nov 2019, and in fact the next regular meeting will be in Feb 2020. Enjoy the holidays and will see you next year.
lecture
Lab And Lecture May 2019
Anderson Power Pole Workshop

Join the DARC for Lab and Lecture May 25, 2019 from 10am until 3pm at the Dallas Medical Center. This will be an Anderson Power Pole Workshop – This Workshop will give you a complete overview of Anderson Power Poles and how they are used in HAM Radio. Participants will have a choice of five different Power Pole accessories to purchase and build.
Continue readingLecture and Lab Presentation 08-26-2018: Measuring Return Loss with the RTL-SDR
Several club members and guests have asked if I can share my presentation…so here it is!
Some links you might find helpful include:
The scanning and comparison software that we installed and practiced using, RTLSDR-Scanner: https://eartoearoak.com/software/rtlsdr-scanner
The “runner up” software that can, sometimes, display spectrum graphs in real time, Spektrum: https://github.com/pavels/spektrum/releases (be sure to use version 1.2)
Lecture and Lab 08-25-2018: What to Bring
This Saturday’s Lecture and Lab should be a fun one: we’re going to learn about different ways to turn our RTL-SDR USB dongles into antenna analyzers. Bring yourself and your curiosity. Bring $45.00! Bring your RTL-SDR dongle. Bring your favorite ideas about what to do with the RTL-SDR. We’ll have time to talk about them. Besides all those things, you should bring:
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- A laptop computer. A Raspberry Pi might not have the horsepower, but if you’re stubborn, you can try.
- You’ll save time if you download and install the software we’ll be using. We’ll start by doing things the easy way, with the RTLSDR-Scanner. The installation is very easy for Windows, but a little more involved for Mac or Ubuntu. If you have a Windows or Linux laptop, you can also install version 1.2 of Spektrum, which we’ll discuss and experiment with.
- Bring your RTL-SDR Dongle! We will not have any for sale. If you’d like to support the club, your could order a dongle or a dongle with small dipoles through smile.amazon.com.
- A 12-14V power DC power supply for your noise source. It helps if it has a variety of barrel connectors so that you can be sure of having the right one. It can be very low power; only 0.2 amps are needed.
- Bring an antenna to measure. You can even bring more than one. (You can bring a lawn chair to analyze! Have Fun! —KE5ICX) We’re going to have plenty of time to measure antennas, experiment with the scanning software, and share our favorite tips and tricks for the RTL-SDR.
Lab And Lecture Mar 2018
All are welcome to join the DARC crew at the March 2018 Lab and Lecture. Topic is “HotSpots, Radios and Code Plugs” Will be at the DARC meeting spot – at the Dallas Medical Center Meeting starts at 10am.
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Lecture and Lab at Flag Pole Hill, 3PM-4PM, Sat. Oct. 22nd 2016
Lecture and Lab will be a Flag Pole Hill on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2016 From 3:00PM to 4:00PM. We will be building the Anderson Power Pole Expansion Board Kit.
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DARC Lecture and Lab, Sat Sep 24, 2016 10A-3P
Due to delays in the CW transceiver (the 13 kits are due to arrive on Saturday – during our “Lecture and Lab”) – I was able to locate a fun little kit at Tanners!