HCARC Happenings
March 2013
News for Amateur Radio Operators In and Around Hillsdale County Club membership dues for 2013
are due. You must renew by
March 31 to maintain your membership status.
Rates are $15 for regular membership, $5 for household membership
(additional members in same household after first member pays regular rate)
and free for students. All
members are asked to fill out an updated membership
application as part of the renewal process.
Dues can be paid by cash or check at the monthly meeting or mailed to
club Treasurer Dan Sprow KC8RYF, 3671 Bankers Rd, Hillsdale, MI 49242.
Make checks payable to HCARC or Hillsdale County Amateur Radio Club.
We finished 2012 with 17 members.
Currently 11 have renewed and there are 2 new members.
Your club appreciates your support. Mark
your calendar for Field Day,
which is coming up on June 22-23. The
ARRL Field Day web page has been
updated with rules and information packets, along with the 2013
logo. The HCARC
Field Day page has also been updated to reflect this.
Anyone interested in participating in the planning process should
contact a member of club
leadership. Your
participation is appreciated. Don’t
know what Field Day is? Click
here for a Field
Day primer. Club
member Mark Seevers KC8QVX, who owns and operates the 147.06 repeater
system, hopes to install a receive site on the big tower just north of
Reading this spring. He has
equipment, but will incur fees to have a professional climber install it on
the tower. At the February club
meeting the membership approved a board recommendation to allocate up to
$200 from the club treasury for the cost of the climber, minus whatever we
can collect from area hams. We
all derive benefit from Mark’s repeater system, so please consider making
a donation of $5, $10 or more if you can.
We are not asking for money at this time, but just consider it as
springtime approaches. We’ll
let you know when we know the actual cost. Anyone
interested in being net control
operator for the Monday night net on either the first or forth Monday of
each month please contact Bill
Hicks WB8FFO. Logan Crook
KD8OMD has volunteered to be net control on the third Monday, and the second
Monday is the emergency test net. Net
control stations should send a report of net activity, including the number
of check-ins, number of NTS messages
handled, and net duration to ARES EC Dan Sprow KC8RYF with a copy to ARRL
Michigan Section Manager Larry Camp WB8R.
Don't forget to check into the net,
held weekly at 7pm on the 147.06 repeater. The
next Ham Breakfast will be Saturday, March 9 at 8am at the Reading
Inn, 137 S Main in Reading (map).
Please come join us, even if just for coffee and conversation. The
next club meeting will be Thursday, March 21 at 7pm at Hillsdale High
School (map) in room 131. Take
Bacon Street to Hornet Drive, then turn left at the top of the hill into the
parking lot that long ago was the tennis courts.
Use the north entrance by the generator. The program will feature Hillsdale County 911/Central
Dispatch and Emergency Management Director Doug Sanford N8WFB. Lots
of other news this month…so let’s get to it!!! The
Hillsdale Daily News recently ran an
ad titled “Tell us about your
hobbies”. The ad, which
ran February 15 on page 2, goes on to say “use photos to explain”.
This is a good opportunity to promote amateur radio and the club.
If you are interested, send your information to along with your
daytime phone number to Jamie.barrand@hillsdale.net
or mail/drop off to: Hillsdale Daily News, 33 McCullum Street, Hillsdale, MI
49242. Congratulations
to new county ham Thomas Crow KD8UCQ, who was granted a
technician license by the FCC on February 21. The
International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) is offering an electronic version of the
2012 International Radio Regulations
at no charge. These regulations
incorporate the decisions of recent World Radiocommunication Conferences,
including all Appendices, Resolutions, Recommendations and ITU-R
Recommendations incorporated by reference.
Article 25 of the regulations defines the Amateur Radio Service.
The free download is available through mid-2014.
(ARRL
story Download
page) The
Universal Postal Union has
introduced the newest model of the International
Reply Coupon (IRC): The Doha model will replace the Nairobi model.
Although the US Postal Service (USPS) no longer sells IRCs, they are
still available in other countries and post offices in the US are mandated
to redeem them. (ARRL
story) Hammond
Manufacturing of Cheektowaga, NY announced on February 22 that it will
take over the Peter W. Dahl line of
transformers from Harbach
Electronics. (ARRL
story) Earlier in the month
Harbach had announced that it would discontinue producing and selling the
transformers. (ARRL
story) Peter Dahl K0BIT
retired in 2007 and sold his company to Harbach.
According to both companies, finalization of the acquisition and
transfer of assets will take place over the next few weeks and be completed
by March 31. The
ABC comedy Last
Man Standing will air episode in mid-March that will prominently
feature scenes with cast members using Amateur Radio.
The show stars Michigan’s own Tim Allen as Mike Baxter KA0XTT. According
to show Producer John Amodeo NN6JA, the episode will feature several of the
regular cast members talking on the radios.
Amodeo told the ARRL, “this episode has the most significant use of
Amateur Radio in a TV comedy since Herman Munster W6XRL4 got his ham
license.” “In addition to
the original KA0XTT station in Mike Baxter’s work office, viewers will get
to see Mike’s ham shack in the basement of his home,” Amodeo explained.
“A cast member will also be calling in from a portable HF radio
while hiking along the Amazon.”
(ARRL
story Mike’s
Facebook page Youtube
video of Herman Munster calling CQ) A
free app called mPING
(mobile Precipitation Identification
Near the Ground) was launched recently by the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National
Severe Storms Laboratory, in partnership with the University
of Oklahoma. The app lets
users anonymously report precipitation from their Apple or Android mobile
device. Amateur Radio operatior
and Principal Investigator Dr Kim Elmore N5OP, who helped develop the
application, said “mPING gives the public a unique opportunity to act as
citizen scientists, allowing them to report their observations of
precipitation, such as snow, rain, ice pellets or a mix, in real time”.
(ARRL
story) Amateur
Radio operators in New England and the Canadian Maritimes responded as a blizzard
swept across the region on February 9-10.
Some areas received upwards of 3 feet of snow as blizzard conditions
brought hurricane force winds that created power outages and significant
tree and power line damage. Read
the ARRL
story for an extensive report. In
a news
item posted on the ARRL website on August 1, 2012 and published in
October 2012 QST, as well as the August
3, 2012 issue of this newsletter, it was reported that Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dačić held the call sign
YU1YU. The ARRL has learned
that although Prime Minister Dačić was a radio club member and
passed the examination for an Amateur Radio operator license, and while
YU1YU was suggested to him as a call sign for which he could apply, he has
never applied for a personal call sign.
(ARRL
story) The
Doppler radar at NWS Northern Indiana
is back in service after undergoing an upgrade to incorporate a new
technology called dual-polarization.
The radar was down from February 11 to February 15.
Click here
for more information. The
Australian
Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has proposed changes to
spectrum usage in the 2300 to 2302
MHz band that will make it off limits to Australian amateurs.
The ACMA wants to re-allocate the spectrum to wireless data systems.
According to the Wireless Institute
of Australia, this secondary Amateur Radio allocation is the only viable
option for Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) contacts between Australia and Region II.
Responding to news of the ACMA proposal, ARRL Chief Executive Officer
David Sumner K1ZZ said, “Amateurs in the United States are in no immediate
danger of losing 2300-2305 MHz because the use of the 2300-2400 MHz band by
various radio services in this country is quite different from most of the
world. Unfortunately, our
colleagues in many other countries are facing the same challenge as in
Australia as the pressure grows for commercial mobile broadband services.”
(ARRL
story) American Red Cross
Emergency Communication Response Vehicles (ECRVs) will be phased out
and decommissioned due to changes in technology as well as a new satellite
system and other factors regarding the vehicle fleet. Radio amateurs who are concerned about how the
decommissioning of ECRVs will affect opportunities to serve the American Red
Cross can be assured that such opportunities still exist.
“This should not be seen as a setback for those radio amateurs who
are working with the American Red Cross,” said ARRL Emergency Preparedness
Manager Mike Corey KI1U. “In
disaster response, adaptability is critical and keeping up with new
technology is essential. This
all must be done with a mind toward an effective and efficient response.
Amateurs have played an important role in assisting the American Red
Cross with their mission and I know we will continue to do so in the
future.” (ARRL
story) FCC
Enforcement News:
The FCC upheld a June 2011 Forfeiture Order in the amount of $24,000 to a
California man, a licensee of a General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) station,
who was accused of repeatedly and intentionally jamming four land-mobile
frequencies assigned to a shopping center in 2009.
(ARRL
story) On February 25 the
FCC issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL) in the amount
of $10,000 to a Missouri man that the FCC said “apparently and willfully
violated Section 301 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by
operating an unlicensed radio transmitter on the frequency 14.312 MHz”.
The man, who does not currently hold an Amateur Radio license, was
operating in the phone portion of the 20 meter band that is assigned to the
Amateur Radio Service on a primary basis.
(ARRL
story) The
International
Telecommunication Union announced the adoption of the Varicode
alphabet that was developed by Peter Martinez G3PLX in the 1990s. Martinez was awarded the ARRL Technical Innovation Award for
the year 2000 for his development of PSK31,
which uses Varicode for transmission efficiency. (ARRL
story) The
FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking to revise the Part 15
rules governing unlicensed national information infrastructure devices in
the 5 GHz band. These devices presently operate in the frequency bands 5.15-
5.35 GHz and 5.47-5.825 GHz and use wideband digital modulation techniques
to provide a wide array of high data rate mobile and fixed communications.
The Amateur Radio Service has a secondary allocation at 5.65-5.925
GHz, including an Amateur Satellite Service uplink allocation of 5.65-5.67
GHz and a downlink allocation of 5.83-5.85 GHz.
(ARRL
story) Upcoming Events March 7 – Board Meeting March 9 – Ham Breakfast at Reading Inn March 16 – Marshall
Hamfest March 17 – Toledo
Hamfest March 21 – Club Meeting March 30 – Lowell
Hamfest April 4 – Board Meeting April 13 – Ham Breakfast at Sidekick Cafe April 18 – Club Meeting April 20 – Milford
Hamfest April 20 – Peru
Hamfest April 20-21 – Michigan QSO
Party |
Send us your comments and suggestions to K8HRC@arrl.net