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News for Amateur Radio Operators In and Around Hillsdale County Gatherings The
next club meeting will be
Thursday, July 17 at 7pm at the Hillsdale
Municipal Airport, 3998 State Rd in Hillsdale (map).
Airport Manager James Scheibner will present the program. Field Day Review Field
Day was held on June 28 & 29 at Sprow Tax & Accounting.
We ran 3 stations plus a Get On The Air (GOTA) station.
We had 23 attendees. Not
including the GOTA station, preliminary results show that we made 273
contacts across 44 states and 3 Canadian provinces.
There were 126 phone contacts and 147 digital, mostly on 20 and 40
meters. Andy Sprow KB9YJH made
171 contacts. Thanks to
everyone that participated and especially to Brenda and Dan KC8RYF Sprow for
hosting the event. Final
results will be sent to the ARRL within 30 days. Membership Report Club
membership stands at 16 as of June 30.
Two renewals since May 31. Membership
application is available here
(print 2-sided). Website Problems We’ve
been having some problems with our website the past few weeks.
The domain name www.hcarc.com expired and we have been unable to
renew it. We currently have
registered an additional domain name of www.hcarc.club
and you should be able to access most of the content on the website using
this URL. We continue to work
to get the original domain re-registered.
New Technician Question Pool Goes Into Effect The new
2014-2018 Technician Class question pool (Element 2) went into effect on
July 1 and remains valid until June 30, 2018.
The previous
Technician question pool, released in 2010, is no longer valid.
FCC OKs Changes to Amateur Radio Rules The
FCC has revised the Amateur Service Part 97 rules to grant credit for
written examination elements 3 (General) and 4 (Amateur Extra) to holders of
expired licenses that required passage of those elements. The FCC will require former licensees, those falling outside
the 2-year grace period, to pass Element 2 (Technician) in order to be
re-licensed. The Commission
declined to give examination credit to the holder of an expired Certificate
of Successful Completion of Examination (CSCE) or to extend its validity to
the holder’s lifetime. The
FCC embraced the use of remote testing methods, although it pulled back from
its own proposal to reduce from three to two the minimum number of volunteer
examiners required to proctor an Amateur Radio examination session.
The FCC has adopted an ARRL proposal to authorize certain Time
Division Multiple Access (TDMA) emissions in the Amateur Service.
(ARRL
story) The new rules go into effect on July 21. (ARRL
story) (VA3XPR
story on TDMA) Pot Growers Disrupt HF Bands The
ARRL has complained to the FCC that grow light ballasts can generate severe
interference on the HF bands. A
few years ago retired electrical engineer Tom Thompson W0IVJ noticed it was
getting harder and harder to hear his friends across the country talking to
him on their ham radio sets. So
Thompson built a portable antenna system he could use to walk his
neighborhood and track down whatever was interfering with his radio
transmission. The culprit? Marijuana
grow operations, where powerful grow lights can emit interference blocking
radio broadcasts on the ham and AM spectrums.
(Coloradoan
story) (ARRL
story) Navajo Code Talker Chester Nez Dies at 93 The
last of the 29 Navajo Americans who developed a code with their native
language to encrypt military messages in World War 2 has died. Chester Nez, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, had told US media he
was "very proud" of his part developing the cipher the Japanese
never broke. Code talkers used
the cipher to relay messages sent from field telephones and radios
throughout the Pacific. (BBC
story) American Profile Runs Article About Amateur Radio American
Profile magazine ran a nice article about amateur radio in its April
27 edition. The magazine is included as a weekly insert in the Hillsdale
Daily News. (read
article) Juan Carlos EA0JC Abdicates Spanish Thrown King
of Spain Juan Carlos EA0JC announced June 2 that he would abdicate his
throne after 39 years in favor of his son, Crown Prince Felipe.
The king turned 76 in January, and his reign has been troubled by a
series of recent scandals that have harmed his popularity and put pressure
upon him to abdicate. (ARRL
story) Felipe VI assumed
the throne on June 19. (story) FCC Terminates Procedure Involving 33 Centimeter Band The
FCC has terminated a longstanding proceeding involving the 902-928 MHz (33
centimeter) band. In 2006, the
FCC proposed rule changes to encourage development of the Multilateration
Location Monitoring Service (M-LMS), a terrestrial service for location of
objects and tracking. Amateur
Radio is secondary in the band to federal radiolocation systems, industrial,
scientific and medical devices, federal fixed and mobile systems, and the M-LMS.
This week, the FCC, with little fanfare, concluded that proceeding.
(ARRL
story) Baofeng Changes Brand Name to Pofung Radio
supplier Baofeng has changed its product distribution name to Pofung for all
sales outside China. In an
announcement on its website the company says that it feels it's time to
adapt its brand to the global stage. It
notes that the current name Baofeng is a literal translation of its Chinese
character name, and as such it may be difficult for a hobbyist elsewhere in
the world to pronounce. (QRZ.com
story) (company
announcement) PRB-1 Update HR 4969 has been introduced in the US House of Representatives that calls on the FCC to apply the “reasonable accommodation” three-part test of the PRB-1 federal pre-emption policy to private land-use restrictions. The “Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2014” was introduced on June 25 at the request of the ARRL, which worked with House staffers to draft the proposed legislation. (ARRL story)
“Ham Video”
Set for Installation, Commissioning http://www.arrl.org/news/ham-video-set-for-installation-commissioning FCC License Database Activity in Hillsdale County None
in June.
FCC Enforcement News The
FCC Enforcement Bureau has made public several warning notices issued over
the past few months to radio amateurs, including a Michigan ham for failure
to properly follow station identification rules.
(ARRL
story) The FCC has significantly reduced the fine it imposed earlier this year on an Oklahoma Amateur Extra class radio amateur licensee for operating his Citizens Band radio to interfere with other CBers’ transmissions. The ham had been facing a $12,000 fine. In a June 17 Forfeiture Order, the Commission dropped the fine to $1,750. (ARRL story) QSM The 16th annual Michigan
Section Family Outing will be held July 10-13 at
the Woodlands
Conference Center & Campgrounds in Hale (map).
This event is an opportunity to get together in a very relaxed
atmosphere for a day or two or three or four, depending on your interests
and time available. If you are
a camper or an RV’er or just like to get out into the woods, the Section
Outing is for you! For those that like the comfort of a hotel room,
those are available in West Branch just a short drive from the campground.
There will plenty of fun events along with learning experiences for
the whole family. Check the calendar
often as more activities and details are added as we get closer to the event
date. The
ARRL has posted a Centennial QSO Party leader board that participants
can use to determine how many points they have accumulated in the Centennial
QSO Party and in the W1AW WAS (Worked All States) operations.
Log in using your Logbook
of The World (LoTW) user name and password, and your position will
appear at the top of the leader boards.
Results are updated daily, based on contacts entered into LoTW. The ARRL has announced a Centennial Station Giveaway as part of its National Centennial Convention to be held in Hartford, Connecticut, July 17-19, 2014. Sponsored by the ARRL and R&L Electronics, the first-prize winner will receive a Grand Prize voucher worth up to $5000 of equipment, redeemable for products sold by R&L Electronics. (ARRL story) The ARRL
Centennial QSO Party kicked off January 1 for a year-long operating
event in which participants can accumulate points and win awards in
conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the ARRL.
During 2014 W1AW will be on
the air from every state (at least twice) and most US territories, and it
will be easy to work all states solely by contacting W1AW portable
operations. The event is open
to all, although only ARRL members and appointees, elected officials, HQ
staff and W1AW are worth points. (ARRL
story) Lots of addition
information about the centennial QSO party is available here. ARRL
membership certificates
commemorating the League’s 100th anniversary in 2014 now are available.
Members logged onto the League’s website can generate their own
certificates or cards online for printing.
(ARRL
story) Add back in December 2014 Volunteers are always needed to run the Monday Night
Ragchew Net. Check the Net
Control Schedule on the club website
for the schedule and results. And
don’t forget to check in every Monday at 7pm on the 147.06 MHz repeater. Upcoming
Events July
2 – Board Meeting July
10-13 –
Michigan
Section Summer Family Outing July
12 – Ham Breakfast at North Adams Coffee Shop July
17 – Club Meeting July
17-19 – ARRL
National Centennial Convention July
20 – Van
Wert Hamfest July
26 – CMARK
Trunk Sales (Lansing) August
9 – Ham Breakfast August
9 – Angola Hamfest
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