January The Prez Says! Bruce AC8KD

Transcription

1 P a g e 1 January 2017 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Norm KB8EXV...2 VE Exams... 2 General Classes...3 Amateur Radio Parity Act...4 Crossword Puzzle... 5 Ham Swaps Field Day... 6 February Club Auction... 7 The Motor City Radio Club Two Meter Net is every Tuesday at 9pm on The Wyandotte Repeater with a 100 Hz PL. If you are traveling you can still check into the net via Echolink. Look for us at the bottom of the 8 section at WY8DOT-R Hi Everyone! The Prez Says! Bruce AC8KD Happy New Year and welcome to January's meeting will be all about planning for the future. I would like to have some discussions about what is important to the club members. Amongst the topics to think about for the coming year: Field Day. What is important to you? A competitive score in the contest? A chance to operate HF? A chance to show the general public what Amateur radio is all about? A fun social outing? Something else? Jim KD8HFX has volunteered to take on the task of planning and running Field Day Thank you Jim. Let's help him plan an event that we will all enjoy. I hope to see everyone at the January meeting and working with everyone to plan a fun, interesting, exciting and rewarding year of Amateur Radio activities. 73's Bruce AC8KD You do not need to be a member of the Motor City Radio Club to check into the net. All licensed radio amateurs are welcome.

2 P a g e 2 The Motor City Radio Club lost a good member and friend in December. Norm KB8EXV passed away while on vacation in Hawaii. Norm was always active in the club. He loved fox hunting, Field Day, lending a hand with all club events. Norman served in the U.S. Navy from June, 1959 to June, He was employed with Northwest Airlines for 33 years from January 9, 1964 until his retirement. He is survived by his wife Cathie, two daughters, 3 grandchildren, and many good friends. 73 Norm. CW Freak is a software developed by Satoshi Imaizumi JI0VWL dedicated to listening amateur radio calls. The interface of the program is very simple and intuitive, and this feature makes CW freak a versatile program to use in any free moment of the day. It s a free program that runs on just about any version of Windows that you might have, and will help you copy callsigns better. It sends at speeds from 15 wpm to more than 100 wpm. Visit for more info.

3 P a g e 3 Be a part of the next Technician Question Pool. The National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC) Question Pool Committee (QPC) is reviewing the Technician question pool for revisions and updates. The QPC will accept comments and suggestions from the Amateur Radio community via through March 31, The address is qpcinput@ncvec.org The NCVEC QPC will take all comments and suggestions into consideration as it updates the Technician question pool for Input from the Amateur Radio community may include suggestions for new questions, changes to the topic areas, or changes to existing questions in any of the current Amateur Radio examination question pools. The Hamfester s guide to Staying Safe Online in 2017 Keep your software up to date. It's easy to put off updates for months because you don t want to waste an extra few minutes to restart. However, updates often patch security holes that researchers have discovered. Even if it seems like an update didn t do anything, it may provide an essential fix for a problem that would have otherwise left your computer open to attackers. Learn to recognize phishing attempts. Attackers are crafty, so it s hard to combat phishing, but the simplest way to protect yourself is to check that the address of the page matches what you expect before you enter your password into anything. Treat your passwords like you would your social security number always think twice before entering them into a website. Secure your first. For an attacker, your account can act as a master key to all your other accounts. Most websites that you have an account with will give you the option to send an to yourself containing a link that you can use to reset your password. If an attacker compromises your account, the first thing they will do is try to reset your password with any site you might have an account on, then use the password reset links to take complete control of those accounts. Use an ad blocker (but know how to turn it off). Many of us know that the majority of websites rely on advertisements for revenue. Unfortunately, the website owner usually has little to no control over these advertisements, which makes them the number one way malware finds its way into otherwise legitimate websites. Ad Blockers prevent this and typically help pages load faster. However, they can t be used everywhere. Many of the more popular sites (especially video streaming and new sites) will ask users to disable their ad blocker before allowing them to view any content. While this can be inconvenient, security experts generally agree that it s better to use an ad blocker and disable it selectively than to go without one entirely. Use a password manager. Having one strong password isn t enough. It s much more important to use unique passwords for different websites than it is to have one strong password used for all of them. A password manager stores all of your passwords in well-secured database, and lets you protect them behind a master password. When you want to log into a website, you use the master password to retrieve the password for that website from your password manager, and the password manager remembers it for you. This means that you only have to remember one strong master password, while still having strong and unique passwords for all of your accounts on other sites. - courtesy Hamfesters Radio Club

4 Amateur Radio Parity Act Passes in the US House of Representatives! P a g e 4 The bill is passed without objection. With those words, Amateur Radio history was made on September 12, when the US House of Representatives approved the Amateur Radio Parity Act, H.R on a voice vote under a suspension of the rules. The focus of the campaign to enact the legislation into law now shifts to the US Senate. The measure calls on the FCC to amend its Part 97 rules to prohibit the application to amateur stations of certain private land-use restrictions, and for other purposes. While similar bills in past years gained some traction on Capitol Hill, it was not until the overwhelming grassroots support from the Amateur Radio community for H.R shepherded by ARRL that a bill made it this far. The legislation faces significant obstacles to passage in the US Senate, however. This is huge step to enact legislation that will allow radio amateurs who live in deed-restricted communities the ability to construct an effective outdoor antenna, ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR, said. Thanks to everyone for their help in this effort thus far. Now we must turn our full attention to getting the bill passed in the Senate. ARRL Hudson Division Director Mike Lisenco, N2YBB, says We are only halfway there. The focus now shifts to our effort in the Senate. We are beginning a massive campaign in which we need every member to write their two Senators using our simplified process. Go to arrl.rallycongress.net. Using your ZIP code, s will be generated much like our recent letter campaign. You fill in your name and address and press Enter. The s will be sent directly to your Senators without you having to search through their websites. As the amended bill provides, Community associations should fairly administer private land-use regulations in the interest of their communities, while nevertheless permitting the installation and maintenance of effective outdoor Amateur Radio antennas. There exist antenna designs and installations that can be consistent with the aesthetics and physical characteristics of land and structures in community associations while accommodating communications in the Amateur Radio services. During this week s limited debate, House bill sponsor, Rep Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), pointed out to his colleagues that Amateur Radio antennas are prohibited outright in some areas. "Those that use their Amateur Radio license for life-saving emergency communications a dangerous situation can be created by limiting their ability to establish effective communication for those in need. Kinzinger said that in emergencies, hams can provide a vital and life-saving function when conventional communication systems are down.

5 Crossword answers on page 3. P a g e 5

6 Upcoming Hamfests: The Hazel Park Club has moved their upcoming swap to a new venue. If you went to the USECA or Lans'e Cruise swaps in 2016, it's the same place. January 29th, 8am until Noon. UFCW Union Hall. 878 Horace Brown Drive Madison Heights MI The Livonia Club is having their swap February 19th at the Livonia Civic Park Senior Center Farmington Road in Livonia. The swap runs from 8am to Noon. The Toledo Club is having their swap March 17th at Owens Community College. This one runs from 8am to 2pm Oregon Road in Perrysburg Ohio. The "F2" layer acts like a mirror to a 10 meter radio signal. The "F2" reflects the signal back to earth, thousands of kilometers beyond your antenna. When that happens, radio signals can be exchanged between ham radio stations located on opposite sides of the earth! The sun's cycle 24 activity is slowly subsiding. Yet, it will still throw enough energy toward earth to maintain the "F layer" in good enough shape, at least sometimes, to continue reflecting 10 meter radio signals until about Even during years of low sunspot activity, 10 meters can sometimes offer "DX openings". The best way to take advantage of them is to have a good 10 meter ham antenna system and an excellent receiver. - from For Field Day 2017 we are looking to plan our operations slightly different than we have in the past. As of right now we will operate two one-alpha stations. W8MRM will operate as our "contesting station". Operators will be selected by the station chairperson based on a combination of their prior years field day operations and the operators experience with contesting. W8GTZ call will be used as our "casual/experimental station". This station is a great place for new operators to get a feel for HF and HF contesting. It will also give us the opportunity to try out other contesting modes like RTTY and PSK31. Member of the public or other unlicensed persons will be able to operate this station in a GOTA like fashion. Our hope is this format will allow the members of the club who are excited about earning point and placing high in the rankings to be successful. It also allows us to use the second station to train the next group of contesting operators and get members who are new to HF on the air in a "no pressure" environment. The elimination of the dedicated GOTA station also allows us to spend more of our resources on getting good performing antennas in the air for both stations. As well as the possibility of doing some kind of six-meter and or VHF/UHF operation. This is a year where we are going to try new things. If you have a great new idea that you would like to try at field day, consider joining the FD committee to help with the planning. Please share your thoughts here on the forum or me direct if you feel more comfortable. -73 KD8HFX 2017 Field Chair Field Day 2017 P a g e 6

7 P a g e 7 The February 10, 2017 Club Meeting will be a member auction and sale. Here is a partial list of things to bid on: Item Micronta 3 Range SWR tester Static Model D104 Microphone w/ Solidstate power modulator Veritas Headphones V947 Starting Bid Condition 10 Untested 10 Untested 5 Untested How do you greet a ham radio operator? With a short wave. Did you hear about the two antennas that got married? The wedding was nothing to write home about, but the reception was fantastic. Jim and John were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking up and trying to figure out the best way to make a 20 meter stealth vertical out of it. Dale walked by and asked what they were doing. "We're supposed to find the height of the flagpole," said John, "but we don't have a ladder." Dale took a wrench, loosened a few bolts, and laid the flag pole down. Then he took a tape measure from her pocket, took a measurement, announced, "Eighteen feet, six inches," and walked away. Archer Antenna Matcher 5 Untested Allied Receiver Model A w/ Speaker Model A Untested Coyne Television & Radio Handbook 1 Table Item Heathkit Model HO-10 Monitor Scope Heathkit SA-2040 Antenna Tuner FTE Series Multi 4010 Band HF Antenna FTE Series Multi 8010 Band HF Antenna IC-M1V Marine Radio Astron RS-20M Astron RS35 Radio Shack Pro Scanner Yaesu FT901 Yaesu 901 Signal Scope Yaesu 901 Speaker 901 gear may be sold as a lot starting at $ Powers on 100 Excellent and clean 10 New 10 New Clean and working Clean and working Clean and working Untested and in some parts Powers on Untested 50 Works Everyone is encouraged to bring things to the auction to sell. Jim shook his head and laughed. "Ain't that just like Dale!" "We ask for the height and he gives us the length!"

8 P a g e 8 Coming Events January 13th is the next Club Meeting. Starts at 7pm at the Copeland Center at th Street in Wyandotte. Topic: Club Priorities and Goals. January 14th is a VE Exam at the Glenwood United Methodist Church at 2130 Ford Avenue (Northline) in Wyandotte. The exam starts at 9am. More details on Page 2 in this newsletter. January 19th is the Club Board Meeting at Leo's Coney Island 9845 Telegraph in Taylor, between Goddard and Wick. The meeting starts at 7:30. All are welcome to all board meetings. January 21st is the Club Breakfast. Always the 3rd Saturday of the month, 9am at the same place as the Board Meeting. Everyone welcome. January 29th is the Hazel Park Ham Swap. More details on Page 6 of this newsletter. Mark your calendar. The March 10th General Membership meeting is the yearly Skywarn Training.