Category Archives: Articles / Keyer

Tag for articles that would normally have gone into the Keyer

ZACHARY (Zak) Cohen, N6PK — A Heartfelt Farewell

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On January 27, 2026, surrounded by family, we lost Zak Cohen, N6PK — a quiet giant in our Amateur Radio family. Born in January 1942 and licensed in 1961 during his Navy service, Zak didn’t just operate a radio; he built trust, confidence, and community with every kind word and steady hand. He mentored countless new hams with endless patience — never rushing, always encouraging, always following up. In emergencies, his calm voice brought reassurance to the net. In everyday life, he reached out to families of Silent Keys, offered wisdom to the overwhelmed, and friendship to anyone who needed it. He was a member of K6MEP and was happy to provide county updates during our meetings. Zak’s legacy lives in the operators he steadied, the nets he strengthened, and the people who are better hams and better humans because he took the time to care. We miss you deeply,… Continue reading →

The HP 3420B Differential Voltmeter Ratiometer by Clement Alberts KM6OKZ

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A little over a year ago I started hunting for the title of this article.   It is as its name implies it is a DC voltmeter good down to about 20ppm.  I’ll talk about it some after giving you some of the backstory.  I’d been looking one to acquire for well over a year.  A few months ago, I found one, bought it and promptly found out I got scammed.   Got my money back though.  A second stroke of better luck in November proved more productive.  I located a 58-year-old example in Berlin Germany (viz a viz the Max Planck Institute) for a reasonable price.  That’s not to say there were no hurdles.  The seller didn’t want to ship to the USA.  Bribing the man made him agree to shipping it.  Once shipped it had to tediously wend its way through Germany, endure a flight to New York, languish for… Continue reading →

VP Says – December 2025

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Hello Ventura County Hams, I can’t believe it’s December and another year of fun radio activities is coming to an end. “Where did the time go?” I say to myself every year at this time. The club had a great 2025: lots of fantastic weekends at our portable operation sessions, entertaining speakers at our monthly meetings, Field Day was a blast as always, and we welcomed many new hams to our ranks through our VE testing sessions. From my perspective, this has been an incredibly fruitful year for our club! As Dave AI6VX mentioned in his Pres Says message, the club needs members to step up and help out next year. We are still looking for a club President, Vice President, and Secretary. I wish I could commit to a full year of service to the club in one of these positions, but I will continue to help out when… Continue reading →

Pres Says December 2025

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Welcome to December! Today is December 5th.  Thanksgiving was just last week, and next week Friday December 12th is our Club’s Decemberfest celebration.  The weekend after that is the last weekend before Christmas, and 1 week later is Jan 1st, 2026 !  Crazy how time flies, but this is how it goes for me every year.  Does time go too fast for you too?  I’ve read that our brains mark the passage of time based on new things we do or encounter.  Change nothing and do the same thing over and over again, and time will whiz on by.  Change things up, do new stuff, experience new things – when you look back, it will feel like time didn’t go by so fast.  Based on my current perception of time, I need to change things up. Something new I am building is the same portable vertical antenna that Ben K6QV… Continue reading →

The HP 6209B Power Supply

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By Clement Alberts KM6OKZ I recently wrote a little article about my adventures with the Tek 577 curve tracer that Robert Shank KM6RSS was kind enough to sell me.  Recall for a moment that the 577 was designed to be used with semiconductor devices.  In my case, I wanted to look at the four 7838 pentode power output tubes on the Fisher 400 stereo amplifier my father gave me back in 1968 (that being an entire project in itself).  The 577 is capable of supplying control sufficient grid and plate voltages to power the 7868-vacuum tube.   It cannot however supply a separate voltage to power either the screen grid or the filaments.  The filaments were simply powered by DC supply.  The screen grid required my obtaining a HP 6515A power supply. This adjustable little joker can output almost 2KV.   The screen grid only required 350V.  The only thing I didn’t… Continue reading →

Pres Says – November 2025

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Welcome to November! Hopefully by now everyone has changed their clocks back 1 hour.  I sure enjoyed the extra hour of sleep Sunday.  Weather is trending cooler, thankfully.  The heat wave we had last week was amazing.  It was 80 degrees outside at my house at 11pm!  Ham radio wise, we had a few contests last month – CA QSO Party early in October and CQ World Wide SSB late in the month.  I hope everyone got a chance to participate in at least one of them, if not both.  You’ve heard me say it before, it’s a great way for folks with ‘mic fright’ to make contact with folks without needing to think of what to say.  The exchange is short, formal, and you don’t even need to worry about uploading your logs if you don’t want to.  You also don’t need to call out CQ – just cruise… Continue reading →

JOTA – Jamboree On The Air this weekend!

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From Seth NY6Z Dates: Some of our Scouts will be camping out all weekend beginning Friday, October 17, but the main JOTA activities will take place on Saturday, October 18. Scouts will be most active between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM. Attendance:We are expecting about 25 Scouts and 10 adults from across Ventura County to participate on Saturday. In addition, we have invited several city leaders to attend, including the mayor, members of the city council, and representatives from the police and fire departments. Stations and Modes:We will have three radio stations set up for the Scouts to operate and observe:• HF SSB station• HF digital (FT8)• VHF/UHF FM station We received permission from Paul Strauss (WD6EBY) to use his repeater on  449.660 (-) (88.5)  throughout Saturday. We will also be active on simplex at 147.540 MHz and 446.000 MHz depending on conditions.  (Note from Dave: Seth says they will have… Continue reading →

Pres Says Oct 2025

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Making Things Last We bought our refrigerator around 28 years ago, a no frills, top freezer, mechanical thermostat Admiral.  A simple fridge, with no ice maker or water dispenser, it did its job well, day after day without complaint.  Spacious inside, no matter how much we stuffed it, it was rare that the door wouldn’t close. We liked our fridge.  But in the past few years some issues were showing up – it seemed to run a lot, ice would build up on the ceiling in the fridge and then melt and drip on items, and the freezer temperature control was stuck.  Fixing it would require accessing the evaporator section, and that was a big job.  Was it time to replace it?  Thanks to the internet, I’ve known for many years that modern/new refrigerators do not last very long.  5-10 years is about all they’re good for if you’re lucky. … Continue reading →

VP Says – Sept 2025

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Hello Ventura County Hams, I really don’t want to risk angering the propagation gods, but… are HF conditions starting toslowly get better? This weekend the MUF over North America was above 30 MHz for asubstantial amount of time, and I actually made a handful of CW contacts on 10m! It really feltlike foreign territory after so many months of not venturing up that high. My signal was gettinginto Europe on 20m multiple times during the day and night, and 15m seemed strong too. I’mkeeping my fingers and toes crossed that this is a sustained trend and not a one-off. This month’s club presentation is by Cory Gibson, W3JL, on near vertical incidence skywave(NVIS) propagation. NVIS is important for short-distance HF communications, which is vital forARES/ACS operations during potential emergencies. Which reminds me: there is a new SantaBarbara Section net on 80m every Tuesday night at 20:00 local time (3.987 MHz… Continue reading →

Pres Says – Sept 2025

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Is it hot enough for you?  I’m ready for cooler temps, but based on the forecast, the first week of September is going to be warm. The current weather at my QTH can always be found here:  http://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KCAVENTU59 Situated in E. Ventura, my weather is more like Camarillo vs the coast of Ventura. My weather station has been pushing data to Weather Underground for many years now.  For as mild as our weather is, it still does surprising things now and again.  Check out this temperature plot from last week.  Temps peaked at 97 degrees, then the winds picked up and temps fell 20 degrees in 1 hour!  Crazy! Last week I took a trip with Margaret up to Seattle to visit family.  We spent a week there, staying in a nice hotel downtown that was within walking distance to many sights.  “Dave, did you bring a radio?”  Glad you… Continue reading →