VOX. From Your Publisher. Table of Contents VOX. February 2014

Transcription

1 February 2014 Monthly Newsletter of the Huntsville Amateur Radio Club Maybe this month we ll thaw out. With an unseasonably cold January, there s nothing like warming the shack by transmitting. All the better with an older tube rig glowing brightly. And there s plenty to do on the radio the W1AW/x state by state activation is in full swing with pile-ups attesting to its popularity. Several DXpeditions are underway activating some rare countries. And there are state level ARES meetings on HF just about every evening. Sometimes it s nice to listen & check-in with adjacent states just to gauge your station s capabilities. From Your Publisher Club wise, planning is going forward for the Club s special event activation in July at the Huntsville Space & Rocket Center commemorating the Apollo 11 mission and landing on the Moon. There s an ARES/RACES deployment exercise planned in March for Madison County and local hams would be welcomed into the test. There s more info later in the issue. Field Day packets became available few days ago (download from the ARRL website). Like the seed catalogs that arrive with snow on the ground, it s a warming thought that in a few months we ll be out there trying to stay hydrated. The Club is pleased to announce that Art Gribensk KG4EYG volunteered and has been appointed Secretary to fill the vacant office. Art is also working with MD WA4DXP to update the HARC website. 73, Mark N4BCD Table of Contents Meeting Minutes 2-3 For Sale 4 Club Calendar 5 ARES / RACES Meeting Minutes 6 License & Exam Info 7 Deployment Exercise March 8 8 NARA Annual Meeting Highlights 9 Letters 10,12 Local Net Schedule 11

2 Page 2 Meeting Minutes Tom Duncan KG4CUY > Art Gribensk KG4EYG The January 10th HARC meeting was called to order at 7:30 pm by president Paul Paelian, WB4UEE with 29 in attendance. Announcements: Art Gribensk, KG4EYG has started an American Legion Amateur Radio Club phone net. Here are some details: THE AMERICAN LEGION AMATEUR RADIO CLUB NEW HF NET SCHEDULE BEGINNING SATURDAY, JAN METERS, EVERY SATURDAY, 3919 KHz, 1800 CST (0000 UTC) with Art, KG4EYG Down in Huntsville, Alabama, Art, KG4EYG, has begun a 75 meter phone net on Saturdays KHz at 1800 CST (0000 UTC). Art chose the frequency as a tribute to the Legion's March, 1919 founding when members of the American Expeditionary Force convened in Paris for the first American Legion caucus. Big kudos to Art. Outstanding! Please join him and his friends CST (0000 UTC), Saturdays on 3919 KHz. Incidentally, Art retired not long ago after 26 years in Army Aviation. He was an Apache Helicopter Maintenance Test Pilot. Also outstanding! Jim Spikes, N4KH reminded us that the North American QSO Party CW contest would be held tomorrow beginning at noon and ending midnight local time. Mark Brown, N4BCD reminded us that the W1AW Centennial celebration special event stations have been operating since the beginning of the year. A schedule is published in the Vox. Mark also related how lobes on his 40m antenna were not favorable to working W1AW/7, so a hasty reconfiguration was necessary to get the job done. William Martin, KK4FDF and MD Smith, The Huntsville Amateur Radio Club Club Officers & Info Paul Paelian WB4UEE President wb4uee@hotmail.com Tim Williams K4AEE Vice President k4aee@tpwilliams.us Art Gribensk KG4EYG Secretary KG4EYG@aol.com Heath Thorson KC4HRX Treasurer hthorson@mediacombb.net Johnny Winter KR4F Officer at-large jcw@hiwaay.net Jack Hemby W5WQQ Officer at-large JHemby@knology.net Bill Bathgate KD8IGK Officer at-large w.bathgate@yahoo.com Meeting location: Red Cross Building, 1101 Washington St. Huntsville, AL Meeting time: Every Friday, 7:30 PM (except on major holidays) Mailing address: HARC, PO Box 423, Huntsville, AL Visitors welcome at all meetings. Club callsign: K4BFT ( Website: Mail reflector signup: follow the link below the HARC logo on the home page

3 Page 3 Meeting Minutes Tom Duncan KG4CUY > Art Gribensk KG4EYG WA4DXP reported on Freeze Fest, saying it was generally pretty good, and noted that a rather large contingent of CBers in the flea market had been relegated to the less-desirable spaces. Old Business: Bill Bathgate, KD8IGK met with his attorney last week and gave him the club s 501(c)3 application. These are being reviewed, and Bill will hear from him again in two weeks. New Business: Gary Suckow KK4WGE presented an application for HARC membership, and was accepted into membership by acclamation. The meeting adjourned at 7:53 pm and was followed by a presentation by KD8IGK on remote station operation. - The January 17, 2014 HARC/NARA Joint Membership meeting was called to order at 7:10 pm by NARA president Ron Shafer, W4VM, with 50 in attendance. Announcements: Darryl Holder, K4KIA is interested in developing a 2.4 GHz ham WIFI network as described in the January 2013 issue of QST. Those interested may attend a meeting to be held at the Madison County Public Library in the 2nd floor meeting room, at 6:30 pm on January 30th. Old Business: None New Business: The remainder of the meeting concerned NARA business. W4VM officiated. Key items covered were: NARA treasury report presented by treasurer Stan Sims, N4PMF. Election of 2014 officers. The slate presented was approved by acclamation, and is: President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Ron Shafer, W4VM Chase Renegar, KK4FCY Doug Mathes, N4CZ Stan Sims, N4PMF Technical status of NARA repeaters. (covered in a separate Article from Doug N4CZ) - The February 7th HARC meeting was called to order at 7:30 pm by president Paul Paelian, WB4UEE with 22 in attendance. Announcements: None Old Business: None New Business: None The meeting adjourned at 7:50 pm and was followed by a program to solicit ideas for programs for the upcoming year. 1. Fox Hunt 2. Old Timer s Night 3. Station/Tower Grounding 4. Satellite Radio 5. Non-traditional and home brew antennas 6. Contesting Basics 7. JT-65 Operations 8. Digital modes 9. DXing 10. Solar Cycles 11. Noise suppression in mobile operations 12. RF Grounding 13. Vertical antennas, loading coils 14. Meteor scatter 15. DXpediton operations 16. Stealth antennas for restricted areas 17. Field day prep and idea swap 18. Surrounding area club invite

4 Page 4 For Sale For Sale 1 - Nice, clean FT-920 includes MH31 hand mic, fused power cord, Int'l Radio 400 Hz CW filter, YF-116A AM fllter, FM-1 FM unit, TCXO-7 High Stability Oscillator, manual,non smoker...$ SteppIR 3 el yagi with 40/30 element...includes 225 ft of control cable/ manuals...on the ground now...$750. If seriously interested, me - k4na at juno.com and then we can talk on phone. 73 > K4NA Unassembled Knight Kit- RF Signal Gen -$45 Yaesu FT-51R hand held vhf/uhf (needs battery) - $35 ICOM IC-U82 handheld uhf (new, won at Hamfest) -$50 Tektronix/Sony 3 scope -$35 AM/FM Radio kit unassembled -$10 Astron RS-35M (NEW) $65 DTMF MH-59A8J microphone -$10 Jack McCreary KK4DXR (C) (H) jack.mccreary@comcast.net

5 Page 5 Club Calendar 2-Feb 3-Feb 4-Feb 5-Feb 6-Feb 7-Feb 8-Feb Program Wishlist Roundtable - KJ4RAQ ARES / RACES 2m Simplex Deployment 9-Feb 10-Feb 11-Feb 12-Feb 13-Feb 14-Feb 15-Feb DX Club Meeting ARES / RACES Meeting Antenna Modeling KJ4RAQ 16-Feb 17-Feb 18-Feb 19-Feb 20-Feb 21-Feb 22-Feb Technician Class 1 23-Feb 24-Feb 25-Feb 26-Feb 27-Feb 28-Feb 1-Mar Technician Class 2 License Red Cross 2-Mar 3-Mar 4-Mar 5-Mar 6-Mar 7-Mar 8-Mar Storm Spotter Class 6-8 PM, Columbia High School (Auditorium) 300 Explorer Blvd. Huntsville, AL Technician Class 3 Madison County ARES/RACES Deployment Exercise 9-Mar 10-Mar 11-Mar 12-Mar 13-Mar 14-Mar 15-Mar DX Club Meeting ARES / RACES Meeting Technician Class 4 16-Mar 17-Mar 18-Mar 19-Mar 20-Mar 21-Mar 22-Mar Technician Class 5 Fox Hunt Equipment 23-Mar 24-Mar 25-Mar 26-Mar 27-Mar 28-Mar 29-Mar Technician Class 6 30-Mar 31-Mar 1-Apr 2-Apr 3-Apr 4-Apr 5-Apr Technician Class 7 License Red Cross

6 Page 6 ARES / RACES Meeting Minutes 2/13/2014 by Steve KM4CJ The meeting was conducted in the Huntsville-Madison County EMA s EOC. The sign-in log indicates 21 in attendance. Business meeting started at 18:00 central time. Tim KK5H opened the meeting by welcoming everybody. Announced that Doug, N4CZ, was stepping down as an Assistant Emergency Coordinator. Doug was a real asset to the team and if you see Doug around, thank him for his service! Reminded everyone that the Deployment Exercise is scheduled for March 8th. Thanked Rick, KE4IOH for keeping folks informed of conditions via the repeater during the snow event. Announced the NARA repeater, , has recently been upgraded and provides great coverage for the SE Huntsville area. Steve KM4CJ gave an overview of the simplex Deployment Exercise (DEX) The purpose of the exercise is pass traffic among the deployed stations, either direct or via relay. Data will be gathered and analysed to facilitate the planning of simplex operations during actual emergency situations. The exercise will utilize the VHF and UHF bands. Each deployed stations will be issued a VHF/UHF simplex pair of frequencies. Non- deployed stations are encouraged to participate by documenting the deployed stations they can receive and to provide for relay when needed. The exercise will begin at 9:00am and run for a couple of hours. Coordination will be done on the repeater. More details will be forth coming. Reports: CERT Tom KI4VFV The next CERT class is forming for March and there is still room for a few more. Contract Tom for details. CERT is planning a pancake breakfast at the Madison Applebee s (Hughes Road/Old Madison Pike) on April 26th. Tickets are $5. EMA Christ KF4MMF Announced the next NWS Storm Spotter Spring Class is scheduled for March 4th at Columbia High School. VOAD Robert KI4GUZ Reported the Medical Personnel transport operation fielded 16 calls between ARES and Rocket City Rock Crawlers resulting in 11 people transported during the recent snow event. Announcements: Mike KF4BOG announced the next Weathering the Storm class is scheduled for Sept 5th from noon to 2 pm at the Madison County Public Library in the main auditorium. Contact Mike for more information. Program: Wayne - K4TTZ presented an informative program on Cross-Band Repeating. The program included an explanation of the different modes, operation, and an awareness of the negative impacts of improper setup and use. Meeting Adjourned at 19:04. Respectfully Submitted, Steve KM4CJ

7 Page 7 CAVEC License & Exam Info If you re interested in becoming a licensed amateur radio operator, study guides are available online or in bookstores. You re welcome to come to any Friday club meeting to ask questions. You don t need to know Morse Code to attain a license! License exams are at 9AM the first Saturday of every month at the Red Cross Building, 1101 Washington St, Huntsville, AL The fee is $15 (cash) and you must bring some form of picture ID. Until further notice, there will be no testing sessions held in Athens due to lack of both VECs and low numbers of testers. Monthly Exam Stats On February 1, twelve individuals decided to put their Super Bowl preparations on hold for a couple of hours to attend this month's amateur license exam session. At the end of the session, the Tennessee Valley now has four new Technicians, four upgrades to General, and two upgrades to Amateur Extra. Congratulations to these ten! The next Huntsville exam session will be on Saturday, March 1, 2014 at 9:00 AM at the Huntsville Red Cross building. Hope to see you there. 73, -Bruce Chandler WE4AU 73, Joe Henderson N4CB CAVEC,VEC cavec@bellsouth.net Club Program & Project Managers Madison County Emergency Coordinator Field Day Chairman Public Information Officer Fundraising Coordinator K4BFT Club Station Trustee Picnic/Food Coordinator Training/Education Coordinator Publisher Website Designer Tim Holland, KK5H Tim Williams, K4AEE David Stephenson, KJ4OKJ Tim Williams, K4AEE Tom Duncan, KG4CUY Peggy Bell, K4EGB Jack Hemby, W5WQQ Mark Brown, N4BCD Jason Henriksen, KE4ROR

8 Page 8 Deployment Exercise on March 8, 2014 by Tim Holland KK5H Madison County EC On Saturday, March 8, the Madison Co. ARES/ RACES team will conduct a Deployment Exercise (Dex), using simplex vhf/uhf, phone and digital, across our county. We are asking stations to deploy with a self-contained, independentally-powered station to areas close to their neighborhoods. For this exercise, we request that working from a car or HTs not be the deployed station. We desire tabletopped based radios, that can be interfaced with laptops. Working digital (mt63/2000l) will also be tested. Locations can vary greatly. This can be a city\county park, fire hall, church, or the like. In this exercise, we are not providing communications for served agencies, but please obtain permission if you will be using someone s property. You can simulate being at a neighborhood area, while staying in your back yard, but once you set up, you should have everything in place (to see if you are really ready to go!) If using your back yard, you must use your deployable antenna system. We will be using prescribed simplex frequencies for both vhf and uhf, with coordination on the repeater. Stations that will not be deploying will be needed to check into their regional simplex net, so their status can be relayed. Stations on Monte Sano (that have an unfair advantage! jealous here) will be used to relay info from one side of the county to the other. We will have an exchange ready and scores will be given, to make this a bit more fun. Mountain-top stations will receive scoring based on their ability to relay accurately, and to serve as NCS for the entire county. The goal of the exercise will be to set up neighborhood-based stations that can operate during an emergency or recovery, without the need for repeater infrastructure. More information will be given out at the Feb ARES/ RACES meeting on Feb 13, at 6pm at the EOC. Show up at 5:30 and bring a few bucks for some pizza as well! We will also be putting out more information from the mailing list from ARES/RACES. If you have not joined the hmcraces.org website, I strongly encourage you to do so! It is the quickest way for us to get infomation out to the masses. Go to hmcraces.org and sign up using your CALL SIGN as your user name. Please put in the best for contact. BTW, we have been getting some bounce-back messages from the mail server. Please check your SPAM folders to make sure that it is not blocking our messages. Your AECs and I have been working hard to provide opportunities for training. Please avail yourself to these, so you will be prepared in times of crisis. Tim Holland, KK5H EC Reminder, HARC has a Mail List by Mark N4BCD Did you know HARC has an reflector? The mail list was set up for members to share info, list items for sale, or ask questions. PARTICIPATION IS VOLUNTARY. YOU WILL NOT BE SIGNED UP AUTOMATICALLY BY JOINING THE CLUB OR RENEWING YOUR MEMBERSHIP. Members interested in joining the list, simply visit the website ( ) and click on the Sign Up Now envelope in the left column of the main page.

9 Page 9 The joint HARC/NARA membership drive was held Jan. 17 at the American Red Cross, with standing room only after all stored chairs were put into service. Highlights from the report given by Ron Shaffer, NARA President: The repeater (- 600 khz offset, 100 Hz tone) has been revamped and is located on Green Mountain with good coverage. The repeater (- 1 MHz offset, 100 Hz tone) has also been revamped, is located on Monte Sano, and is working well. All hams are welcome to use these and investigate their coverage! Highlights of the North Alabama Repeater Association Annual Meeting by Doug N4CZ NARA members are welcome to use the IRLP on the repeater (+600 khz offset, 100 Hz tone) located on Brindlee Mountain. IRLP links repeaters using the internet. As of this writing, there are 1,656 active IRLP nodes in 34 countries and 31 reflectors (groups of linked repeaters). NARA members are welcome to use the multi-band remote base on the repeater (+5 MHz offset, Hz tone) located on Monte Sano. The remote base offers FM on 10m, 2m, 1.25m, and 70 cm. The repeater (-600 Hz offset, 100 Hz tone) located on Monte Sano is the flagship NARA machine and is used for Huntsville/Madison County ARES nets and public service nets, e.g. Rocket City Marathon, Cotton Row Run, bicycle rides, etc. Any ham wishing to support the maintenance of these repeaters or to use their special features is invited to join NARA. Dues are $18 per year and may be mailed to NARA, P.O. Box 18941, Huntsville AL Please include your name, callsign, address (for NARA newsletter and repeater command sheet), address and phone number. Dues may also be paid online at (but note the dues amount above).

10 Page 10 Letters Follow-up from Rob s Winlink2000 program night in January... There is a new public access (licensed amateur operators), Winlink2000 radio gateway station up in Huntsville which is open for business 24/7/365. Station ID is N4WGY-10 and operates on MHz FM, 1200 baud packet mode. The station is located on Redstone Arsenal and has an excellent 7 dbi omni antenna installation at a high altitude coupled to a 45w continious duty rated transmitter. The facility in which the station is located does not rely on any civilian transport internet infrastructure and is extremely hardened, as is the facility back up power generation system. During the severe storm events of April 2011 this facility never lost power or internet connectivity. In the unlikely event of a temporary internet outage the gateway controller has a robust "store & forward" relay utility which, if active, will warn the client station that message delivery may be delayed. Dust off your TNC's and practice the use of this valuable community asset which will prove to be a very capable tool in passing messages during a time of crisis. There is a presentation available in pdf format at the HARC website which overviews the Winlink2000 radio system and client station setup. For further information contact n4wgy.ham@gmail.com. Rob Conklin N4WGY - Overcoming the Pitfalls of Packet Steve Conklin AI4QR Recently, I decided to set up packet radio capability for my station. This is primarily in order to be able to reach the local Winlink Radio Message Server (RMS) gateway and have access when power and/or internet are down, as has happened in the past after massive tornado damage in the area. I learned some interesting things while doing this, so I thought I d share. I ll include links and explanations of some of the radio-related terms, so I hope this is accessible to everyone. I have a good station with excellent backup power sources, and I serve as an Official Emergency Station for Amateur Radio Emergency Services, (ARES). Adding Winlink capability seemed like a good thing to do. The RMS gateway station is in a facility a few miles from me, with redundant power and internet backup, and operates on the amateur radio two meter band. Since the gateway is close to me and shouldn t take much transmit power to access, I decided to try to put together a small package combining a handheld transceiver and interface which could serve me at my home location, or be portable if needed. For the interface, I chose a TinyTrak4 (TT4). While this device is commonly used as an APRS position reporter, it also functions as a Terminal Node Controller (TNC) which has a KISS Mode interface that can be used by the Winlink software. I decided to try using one of the incredibly inexpensive Chinese handheld radios as the transceiver, and bought a Baofeng UV-3R for $30 on Amazon. It s not hard to connect this to the TT4 the radio has a four-wire plug and jack that connects the audio output, Mic input, and Push to Talk (PTT) signals. For the completion of Steve s article & photos, please visit: baofeng-packet-radio-adventures/ - Please mail your submissions for future newsletters to mark.n4bcd@yahoo.com

11 Page 11 Local Net Schedule Day Time Name Freq PL Notes: Sun 8:30AM Alabama Traffic Net Mike alternate Sun 8PM AL Simplex Net none Sun 9PM NE AL 6m Net none Ragchew Mon 6:30PM Lincoln Co ARES Training Mon 7:30PM AL Emergency Net Z Dekalb Co Mon 8PM AL Emergency Net Whiskey Mon 8PM MTEARS ? Mon 8PM Old Codger's Net none Mon 9PM NE AL 6m Net none Ragchew Tue 8PM Eva ARES Training, Morgan Co none & Tue 8PM Info Net none Tue 9PM NE AL 6m Net none Ragchew Tue 9PM Multi-County Ham Jam (ragchew) (minus) WB4GNA Calhoun County Amateur Radio Assoc. W4YXA SHORT MOUNTAIN RE- PEATER CLUB W4YXA SHORT MOUNTAIN RE- PEATER CLUB Shelbyville Wed 9PM NE AL 6m Net none Ragchew Thur 7PM Limestone Co Training none Thur 7PM Digital Net (Madison Co) Thur 7:30PM Madison Co ARES Training Thur 7:45PM Lawrence Co Training Thur 8PM North AL, S Mid-TN Skywarn Training Thur 8PM Trader's Net none Thur 9PM NE AL 6m Net none Ragchew Modes: MT63 w/2khz BW and EZ- PAL for pics. linked w/ Moulton & Section W4YXA SHORT MOUNTAIN RE- PEATER CLUB Thur 9PM Drake State Technical College Net Simplex Fri 9PM NE AL 6m Net none Ragchew Sat 9PM NE AL 6m Net none Ragchew Sat 9PM Drake State Technical College Net Simplex HF Nets weekdays 10AM Alabama Day Net alternate weekdays 6:30PM Alabama Traffic Net Mike weekdays 6:30PM Tennessee Phone Net weekdays 6:00PM Mississippi Phone Net weekdays 5PM Georgia Phone Net 3.975

12 Page 12 Letters continued If you haven t recently, please visit the HARC Facebook page. You have to search for the full name, Huntsville Amateur Radio Club. Please post any pictures related to our club or anything that promotes Amateur Radio and the fellowship. Post your pictures of your shack, your antenna, or anything you want the amateur radio to see. Also, if anyone has any pictures of past club activities, please send them to me (KG4EYG@AOL>COM) AND please post them on the FB page. I will pull from the FB page and post on the website as well. Like to keep both sites current and interesting. Share the HARC site with your friends or other Amateur Radio pages you have either liked or are a part of. We have a lot to be proud of. Let s share with the rest of the ham community. Thanks! Art Art Gribensk KG4EYG