The Premiere of NIGHT, the Movie

I got this in a ARRL Newsletter and that I would push my local hams and friend Mark N5HZR. Way to go guys. 

During this year's ARRL Field Day, a visitor from John D'Aquino's Young Actors Workshop arrived at the Edmond Amateur Radio Society's location. Marcus Sutliff, N5ZY, talked with them and found they wanted to make a short film with an amateur radio plot, and they needed some help. They were filming in Stillwater, OK, and needed someone with film/video experience and someone who could be a technical advisor. So, they got Kevin O'Dell, N0IRW, involved, and in no time, he had assembled radios, props, consulted on the script, and was ready for a long day of filming.

The purpose of this film is to give young aspiring actors a chance to hone their craft in a real movie environment. Thanks to the Oklahoma Film and Music Office, https://okfilmmusic.org/, they filmed three short movies in Oklahoma. So, when you watch the film, you can see the improvement in the youngsters as the movie progresses.

This week the movie premiered in September and is available on YouTube as a 34-minute short at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf1Q4tS32Ww

Kevin stars as the radio voice of Colonel and should be up for an Emmy for best supporting actor. Kevin says any requests for autographs should go through his agent, Wilma, W5WRO. Both Kevin and Marcus have their name in the credits, so make sure you stay through the ending!

Thanks, Kevin, for putting a great light on amateur radio!

Mark Kleine, N5HZR
ARRL Oklahoma Section Manager

The Premiere of NIGHT, the Movie

I got this in a ARRL Newsletter and that I would push my local hams and friend Mark N5HZR. Way to go guys. 

During this year's ARRL Field Day, a visitor from John D'Aquino's Young Actors Workshop arrived at the Edmond Amateur Radio Society's location. Marcus Sutliff, N5ZY, talked with them and found they wanted to make a short film with an amateur radio plot, and they needed some help. They were filming in Stillwater, OK, and needed someone with film/video experience and someone who could be a technical advisor. So, they got Kevin O'Dell, N0IRW, involved, and in no time, he had assembled radios, props, consulted on the script, and was ready for a long day of filming.

The purpose of this film is to give young aspiring actors a chance to hone their craft in a real movie environment. Thanks to the Oklahoma Film and Music Office, https://okfilmmusic.org/, they filmed three short movies in Oklahoma. So, when you watch the film, you can see the improvement in the youngsters as the movie progresses.

This week the movie premiered in September and is available on YouTube as a 34-minute short at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf1Q4tS32Ww

Kevin stars as the radio voice of Colonel and should be up for an Emmy for best supporting actor. Kevin says any requests for autographs should go through his agent, Wilma, W5WRO. Both Kevin and Marcus have their name in the credits, so make sure you stay through the ending!

Thanks, Kevin, for putting a great light on amateur radio!

Mark Kleine, N5HZR
ARRL Oklahoma Section Manager

2021 Veterans Day Parade

This morning I got to help out my club, the Mid-Del Amateur Radio Club (MDARC) help out with Midwest City's 2021 Veterans Day Parade. It was really good to help out especially since it had been several years since the last Veterans Day Parade. The last several have been cancelled by weather, COVID-19 etc.

I was in the position of the Spotter, which meant I was positioned about 1/4 mile from the grandstand and as a float go to my position I would radio another amateur radio operator that was at the grandstand and tell him what floats and in what order was coming up. Then he would take that information and give it to the announce who then announced the floats. We had about 50 floats this year when we usually have around 100 floats. 

The Mid-Del Amateur Radio Club has a great relationship with Midwest City, OK. We help the city out with the Veteran's Day Parade and the 4th of July celebration. We also help out during emergency conditions. Since we are in central Oklahoma we get tornadoes, wildfires, blizzards, ice and snow storms etc. In return, the city of Midwest City helps the club out for Field Day and Winter Field Day. The Midwest City Fire Department comes out to the park that we have Field Day at and they set up a really nice shelter.

 

This shelter comes with a really large generator and has AC. 

It was nice and chilly in the morning right up until the parade started and then the weather was just about perfect. 

It was a real good time to come out and show our gratitude to America's finest soldiers. Midwest City was built in the shadow of Tinker Air Force Base and every day we show our pride in America's armed forces. We owe everything to our soldiers. I live about 2 blocks west of the flight line so needless to say we hear planes coming in and taking off 24/7. To some the loud noise is annoying. To my family, the noise of a big military jet like the B1 Bomber, well that is just the sound of Freedom and is to be savored. 

2021 Veterans Day Parade

This morning I got to help out my club, the Mid-Del Amateur Radio Club (MDARC) help out with Midwest City's 2021 Veterans Day Parade. It was really good to help out especially since it had been several years since the last Veterans Day Parade. The last several have been cancelled by weather, COVID-19 etc.

I was in the position of the Spotter, which meant I was positioned about 1/4 mile from the grandstand and as a float go to my position I would radio another amateur radio operator that was at the grandstand and tell him what floats and in what order was coming up. Then he would take that information and give it to the announce who then announced the floats. We had about 50 floats this year when we usually have around 100 floats. 

The Mid-Del Amateur Radio Club has a great relationship with Midwest City, OK. We help the city out with the Veteran's Day Parade and the 4th of July celebration. We also help out during emergency conditions. Since we are in central Oklahoma we get tornadoes, wildfires, blizzards, ice and snow storms etc. In return, the city of Midwest City helps the club out for Field Day and Winter Field Day. The Midwest City Fire Department comes out to the park that we have Field Day at and they set up a really nice shelter.

 

This shelter comes with a really large generator and has AC. 

It was nice and chilly in the morning right up until the parade started and then the weather was just about perfect. 

It was a real good time to come out and show our gratitude to America's finest soldiers. Midwest City was built in the shadow of Tinker Air Force Base and every day we show our pride in America's armed forces. We owe everything to our soldiers. I live about 2 blocks west of the flight line so needless to say we hear planes coming in and taking off 24/7. To some the loud noise is annoying. To my family, the noise of a big military jet like the B1 Bomber, well that is just the sound of Freedom and is to be savored. 

K3NG Arduino CW Keyer K5BCQ Board Build Part III

 Following along the build instructions from the K5BCQ website on page 5 it mentions that if you are going to build all of the modules for the K5BCQ then group components together starting with the smallest ones and build up from there. See I can read, so that means that I made it past 4th grade. Those were the best three years of my life I tell you. 

Since that is my plan I will start off with the resistors and go from there. Now I'm not going to show you every single resistor that I solder on the board. I will save you and myself a lot of time and just show you the K5BCQ board with all of the resistors soldered on. Just make sure that you are using all 1/4 watt resistors and keep them as close to the board as possible. It adds an additional step but I recommend that you check the value of each resistor with your handy dandy digital multi-meter. It is always wise to go slow and be correct. Once you have soldered both leads on, trim them close to the board so that they are kept nice and neat. 

I'm going to take a little bit of a break right here. I don't have some resistors so I had to take inventory and go on over to Digikey and place an order and now I wait for the resistors to come in. I also ordered C4 the 100uF electrolytic capacitor and that is on backorder so it could be a wait of a week or two before I get it.  

When I populate a PCB board one thing I like to do is to get a map of the PCB board and mark each and every component on the map as I install the components. Here is a picture of the map of components that I have installed on the PCB board. Since this is an electronic picture I'm just using a yellow line to mark what has been installed. 

I also have the headers for the Arduino Mega 2560 Pro Mini installed on the bottom side of the PCB board. 

Here is a picture of the actual PCB board so far. 

That is the progress so far. Feel free to contact me at Aaron@K5ATG.com

K3NG Arduino CW Keyer K5BCQ Board Build Part III

 Following along the build instructions from the K5BCQ website on page 5 it mentions that if you are going to build all of the modules for the K5BCQ then group components together starting with the smallest ones and build up from there. See I can read, so that means that I made it past 4th grade. Those were the best three years of my life I tell you. 

Since that is my plan I will start off with the resistors and go from there. Now I'm not going to show you every single resistor that I solder on the board. I will save you and myself a lot of time and just show you the K5BCQ board with all of the resistors soldered on. Just make sure that you are using all 1/4 watt resistors and keep them as close to the board as possible. It adds an additional step but I recommend that you check the value of each resistor with your handy dandy digital multi-meter. It is always wise to go slow and be correct. Once you have soldered both leads on, trim them close to the board so that they are kept nice and neat. 

I'm going to take a little bit of a break right here. I don't have some resistors so I had to take inventory and go on over to Digikey and place an order and now I wait for the resistors to come in. I also ordered C4 the 100uF electrolytic capacitor and that is on backorder so it could be a wait of a week or two before I get it.  

When I populate a PCB board one thing I like to do is to get a map of the PCB board and mark each and every component on the map as I install the components. Here is a picture of the map of components that I have installed on the PCB board. Since this is an electronic picture I'm just using a yellow line to mark what has been installed. 

I also have the headers for the Arduino Mega 2560 Pro Mini installed on the bottom side of the PCB board. 

Here is a picture of the actual PCB board so far. 

That is the progress so far. Feel free to contact me at Aaron@K5ATG.com