The Minuteman Repeater Association (MMRA) will hold its membership meeting on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 at New England Sci-Tech in Natick from 7:30—9:30 pm. Larry Banks, W1DYJ, will present “A 10m FM Antenna to fit into my Attic.”
This is a hybrid meeting:
Members: log into your account on MMRA.ORG to obtain the ZOOM info.
Non-members: send an email to contact@mmra.org to request the ZOOM info.
“In my role as the MMRA TIaOS Net Manager, I should be able to monitor all of our repeaters. I didn’t have 10m FM capability.
“I have a homebrew 6m FM ground plane in my attic to monitor the MMRA 6m repeater. I decided to put a 10m FM antenna in my attic without adding another coax run. The attic height is ~5’ and a 10m ground plane is at least 8’ tall with ~16’ diameter radials, so I had to shorten both the height and the length of the radials.
“And how do I feed it in parallel with the 6m GP? This gave me an opportunity to learn about using coax as a matching network. This is the story.”
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Larry was licensed in 1962 as novice KN1VFX and became W1DYJ in 1966. From 1969 to 1985 he was an engineer and project manager for Hewlett-Packard Medical R&D in Waltham and Andover MA, involved in developing diagnostic cardiac equipment. In 1985 he was asked to organized the cardiac R&D lab’s CAD environment and the SW Testing and Quality group, along with managing the Printed Circuit Layout group, the technical library, ongoing technical education, and ISO9001 as the R&D Section Manager for “R&D Process Improvement.” In 1993 he moved to HP Medical Education to be responsible for technical and project management training. When Agilent split out of HP in 1995, he became AgilenTechnology’s global program manager for their Learning Management System. He “retired” in 2005 and then consulted for Avago Technologies (now Broadcom) on eLearning technologies through 2012.
Larry holds three degrees in EE from MIT. He spends his time chasing DX and contesting in Woburn, traveling with his wife Maren and attending as many jazz and classical concerts as they can. He is the net manager and newsletter editor for the MMRA, publications editor for HamXposition, a member of the YCCC, and a member of the Merrymeeting ARA in mid-coast Maine where they used to have a second home in Harpswell.