285 TechConnect Radio Club — NAØTC

The 285 TechConnect Radio Club usually meets on the 1st Saturday of every month, at 10AM. Exceptions are in July due to Field Day and December for the club Holiday Luncheon. We have doughnuts & coffee at 9:30.

Our regular meetings are held at The Bridge Church at Bear Creek. The church has a very nice meeting room, with ample parking, and is conveniently located near Hwy. 285 and Kipling St. The address is 3101 S. Kipling St., in Lakewood.

Occasionally, due to conflicts, we need to move the meeting location. We will publish updates on the main page of this website as early as possible in the event the meeting has moved, and send an announcement to our mailing list. You can also tune in to the Tuesday night Technet for any club announcements.

Presentation materials, when available, will be published in our Documents area.

• January 6th:
  • Elections – it's time to elect club officers
  • Mark Ehr - KØEHR; Microcontrollers and Raspberry Pi for Amateur Radio. Slides: Microcontrollers and Amateur Radio
• February 3rd: Tony Montoya - KØMCW; FT8 and Radio Propagation - The Rabbit Hole. FT8 -- Down the Rabbit Hole
• March 2nd: Allen Bishop - KØARK; Boulder County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (BCARES) VOIP. Presentation (YouTube)
• April 6th: Jon Budoff - KFØABR and Art Bullock - NØAIU; Winlink Discussion with peer to peer demonstration.
  • Winlink Basics
  • NA0TC Technical Presentation: Winlink (YouTube)
• May 4th: Club anniversary pizza party, Show'n'Tell, Open discussion – Bring your radio projects to share with the club!
• June 1st:
  • Larry Weinstein - KØNA, HF Propagation.  Basics of HF radio wave propagation using visual aids, NEC antenna modelling to illustrate angle of radiation vs height, and use of VOACAP to help identify the optimum time to work a station. Slides - HF Propagation
  • Jim - KCØRPS, Weather Balloons / Ham Radio in Space
• July 6th: No meeting
• August 3rd: “Make & Take” Build Party
  • Larry - KØNA will talk about attenuators and surface mount components, with a demonstration of using a CNC mill to cut traces.
  • Corey - N5YCO will be doing a DIY 2M/70cm HT antenna
  • Members will be able to build either of these projects at the meeting
• September 7th: Club field trip; Robert - NØCFM will conduct a fox hunt, at Bear Creek Greenbelt Park, 2900 S. Estes St. The park is on the East side of Estes St., S of Yale Ave, with parking available. Robert will hide 4 transmitters. The 1 Watt and 1/2 Watt will transmit a series of musical sounding tones followed by his call sign in Morse code (NØCFM). The other two will transmit his callsign continuously as Morse code.
  • 146.445 MHz, 15 mW, 45 seconds on 10 seconds off
  • 146.565 MHz, 15 mW, 45 seconds on 5 seconds off
  • 146.400 MHz, 1/2W, 45 seconds on 3 seconds off
  • 146.490 MHz, 1 Watt, 50 seconds on 50 seconds off
• October 5th: KCØRPS - Jim will talk about amateur radio uses for high altitude ballooning. Slides: Radio Operations for Balloons
• November 2nd: TechFest
• December 7th: Holiday Lunch at The Rusty Bucket, 11AM, 3355 S. Wadsworth Blvd.
• 2025 – January 4th:
  • Elections
  • Solar Cycle 2025 Update with Rob Steenburgh - ADØIU. Rob works at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder.