The
Marinette and Menominee Amateur Radio Club
GROUND WAVE
Repeater
Frequencies 147.00 MHZ & 444.075 Mhz
Club Net: Sunday 7PM 147.00 MHz
Simplex DX Spotting and Ragchew Frequency 146.55
Web Page: http://w8pif.com
Officers
President: Dave Cunningham, NS9R
Vice President: Dwight Bosselman, W9YQ
Treasurer: Tom Rynish N8LHB
Secretary: Jim Callow K8IR
The MMARC Newsletter January 2004
The
January meeting of the M&M Amateur Radio Club will be held on Thursday
January 8th at 7pm in the meeting room at the Spies Public Library in
Menominee. A presentation on
Traffic Handling will be given. We
hope you will be able to attend.
Now is a great time to reflect on the past, enjoy the
present and plan for the future. Past M&M ARC meetings have primarily been
focused on conducting club business, planning fish fries and talking about the
repeater (repeatedlyJ).
In my opinion the fun and excitement amateur radio has to offer wasn’t in
abundance. I decided to run for president and put my efforts into changing what
I perceived as missing from the club. The purpose of our club is stated in our
by-law’s:
“The
objects of this club are the promotion of interest in amateur radio
communication and experimentation, the relaying of messages by radio without
charge, the furtherance of the public welfare, the advancement of the radio art,
the representation of the radio amateur in legislative affairs, the maintenance
of fraternalism and a high standard of conduct among its members, and the
promotion of such other activities as are allied thereto.“
I will keep this vision in mind as we move into 2004.
Beginning at the January 8th meeting our club will have a
presentation on an aspect of amateur radio of interest to members of our club.
Our January meeting will focus on traffic handling and upcoming months will
feature: computer antenna modeling, APRS, repeater systems, DX’ing,
contesting, proper station grounding, soldering techniques, antenna
construction, Echo-Link demonstration, new digital modes, emergency power
backup, computer logging, etc. the list goes on and on. Each month a different
component of amateur radio will be featured provided club members participate
and share their knowledge. I encourage the home brewer segment of our group to
bring in their creations to share with the rest of the club. There will be time
at the end of the evening’s presentation for “show and tell” on your
project. We have talented club members we can all learn from.
Have a happy and safe new year and I hope to
see you at our January meeting.
73
and HNY
de
ns9r
ABRAMS-WAUSAUKEE LINK SYSTEM NOW UP…
The
146.835-146.880 linked system became operational on January 30th.
Some modifications still need to be completed, but the moment finally
arrived and the link became a reality, with satisfactory results.
Stations
ranging from the northern part of Marinette county to Manitowoc were heard
with good signals.
Thanks
to Bill, WA8WG and Earl, KB9DSV for their long hours in setting up the system,
and personal commitments in seeing it through to completion.
For reference, the frequencies are:
146.835 Abrams (pl of 107.2) encode/decode.
146.880 Wausaukee (pl of 136.5) encode/decode
ARES/RACES NET SUMMARY FOR 2003…
This
past year saw the formation of an ARES/Races group within Marinette and Oconto
Counties, along with several members from Menominee County (MI) and
Kewaunee County The first weekly readiness net was held on June 2 with KE9S as
net control. Nets have been held weekly over the 146.835 Abrams repeater,
with calls on the 147.000 and 145.470 repeaters, to allow those who do not have
reliable access to the 146.835, an opportunity to participate. Since
early November, the 145.470 repeater has been dropped and replaced by the
146.880 Wausaukee repeater. With the linked Abrams-Wausaukee system
operational, the entire net will take place on that system.
Response
has been very good since the inception of the net.....an average weekly count of
13 check-ins, with a high of 18 and no check in count of less than 9.
It appears the ARES/RACES program has good support , and can be counted on in
event of any area-wide situation requiring our communications assistance.
Net
control responsibilities have been shared by a number of members....among them:
KE9S, NS9R, K8IR, KG8CX, KB9DSV, KG9AD, KG9GH, KA9WAR.
Jeff,
KE9S, is the ARES/RACES coordinator for Marinette and Oconto counties.
HAM CLASSES CONTINUE…
The
weekly classes sponsored by our club are now in their final month. Seven
students are participating in their attempt to become Technician class
operators. Classes are held on the second floor of the Stephenson Public
Library in Marinette each Sat. morning from 10am to noon.
Instructors involved in various sessions of the class include: WC9E, K8IR, WA8WG, W9YQ, AA9GZ, KG8CX, and K8RJ. WC9E serves as coordinator of Instruction. Instructor nets are held on Mondays preceding each class at 7:30pm, on the 146.880 Wausaukee repeater. AA9GZ and W9YQ are serving as CW instructors on an alternate basis.
Our January 3rd session covered repeaters, station layout, SWR, and feedlines.
Future
sessions include:
January
10th: Shack visit at WC9E, including an antenna field trip and HF contacts.
Then, coffee and donuts, while discussing practical antennas and chapter
3: Propagation
January
17th: Chapter 1: FCC Rules
January
24th: Chapter 10: Electrical and RF
Safety
VE
testing is tentatively scheduled for Saturday January 31st at the library.
You do not have to be a
member of the class to test at this session, but pre-registration is requested.
Pictures
of some sessions can be viewed on the club website http://w8pif.com
All
are welcome to stop by and observe.
By
KG8CX and WC9E
ARLB071
FCC announces new Universal Licensing System interface
The FCC on December 14 unveiled a new on-line filing interface for its Universal
Licensing System (ULS), on the web at, http://wireless.fcc.gov/uls,
which includes the Amateur Service.
Among other features, the ULS's new look will include easier-to-read on-screen
forms that guide users through filing and simplify such routine tasks as
applying for license renewal, address change or vanity call sign. The FCC says
the introduction of its new system, called "ULS License Manager,"
concludes phase one of an ongoing ULS overhaul by the Wireless
Telecommunications Bureau.
ULS License Manager will be compatible with most major Web browsers and computer
platforms and no longer will require downloading Java and Java Script files. An
FCC staffer involved with implementing ULS
License Manager notes that all features may not be in place when the system
debuts.
The ULS will require all filers to log into the system using an FCC Registration
Number (FRN) and Commission Registration System (CORES) password. Taxpayer
Identification Numbers (TINs) no longer will be accepted for log-in purposes,
the FCC said.
Once the new system is up and running, all licenses and applications in the ULS
database will be converted to the new ULS License Manager filing environment.
There's also a new paper version of FCC Form 605, dated December 2003. One
change is that Form 605 no longer requests a date of birth and will only accept
an FRN and CORES password. There are no Amateur Service-related changes to any
Form 605 schedules. The FCC says Amateur Service applicants may continue to use
the March 2001 (or later) edition of Form 605, although it encourages use of the
newest version. The new FCC Form 605 now is available via the FCC Web site at, http://www.fcc.gov/Forms/Form605/605.html.
ULS licensing support and forms information is available weekdays (except
holidays) from 8 AM until 5:30 PM Eastern Time via e-mail at ulshelp@fcc.gov,
or telephone 888-CALLFCC (225-5322), Option 2 (users also may call
717-338-2888).
BPL UPDATE (EDITED FROM THE ARRL LETTER)…
Two
organizations have filed comments with the FCC that augment previously expressed
worries about potential interference from and to Broadband over Power Line (BPL)
systems. Picking up on the "grave concerns" the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) <http://www.fema.gov>
expressed over BPL December 4, the nonprofit Disaster Preparedness and Emergency
Response Association (DERA) <http://www.disasters.org>
called on the FCC to require impartial BPL field testing as well as additional
public comment and full and open public hearings.
"DERA concludes that serious interference to and disruption of critical
emergency communications systems in several licensed services throughout North
America would almost certainly result from BPL implementation as
currently proposed," DERA said.
Meanwhile,
the Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation (AMRAD) has filed
additional test data with the FCC to support preliminary findings suggesting
that BPL systems are susceptible to interference from even modest Amateur Radio
HF signals.
"At least an area out to a radius of 0.51 miles from the transmitting
station could have their Internet connection interrupted," AMRAD said.
"Closer-in homes would almost certainly have their Internet service
interrupted." For its RF susceptibility experiment, AMRAD used the
Potomac Electric Power Company system test site. It features a mid-1960s vintage
home with unshielded interior electrical wiring and overhead power lines.
AMRAD found that at a distance of just over one-half mile, data transfer ceased
in the face of a 100-W signal on 3980 kHz from a mobile transmitter. Adjacent to
the test property, AMRAD said data transfer ceased in all but one instance at a
transmitter power of just 4 W in the BPL operating band of from 4 to 21 MHz.
The ARRL hopes to complete an independent BPL engineering study early this year.
It will explore how BPL might affect HF and low-VHF amateur operation as well as
how Amateur Radio operation could affect BPL systems.
A
BPL TALE OF TWO CITIES (EDITED FROM THE ARRL LETTER)…
The city council in Lompoc, California, a community of some 42,000--opted
December 16 to go with a wireless and
fiber optic cable-based broadband network, rejecting BPL and other possible
options. ARRL Santa Barbara Section Technical Coordinator Paul Andreasen, K1JAN,
said he and other members of the local Amateur Radio
community lobbied hard to ensure that Lompoc would not pick BPL.
The report from the city’s consultants, McKibben Consulting noted the
"ongoing controversy" about BPL and cited a 2003 British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) study that, McKibben said, "made it clear that there is
very good reason to be concerned about RF interference." The consultant
concluded that BPL's advantages failed to outweigh its disadvantages.
The Washington, DC, suburb of Manassas, Virginia, meanwhile, indicates it will
go ahead this month with plans to inaugurate BPL service in four subdivisions--a
total of some 2100 homes. Manassas--with a population of
nearly 35,000--hopes to be the first community in the US to deploy BPL citywide.
Amateurs in the Manassas vicinity have pointed to FEMA's "grave
concerns" that BPL could interfere with HF communications systems critical
to national security and public safety.
City officials seem unimpressed. "Nobody has proven it's a problem,"
City Councilman Ulysses X. White told Potomac News.
"If it is a problem, then we re-evaluate it. There's no reason not
to go forward with it." The same article quotes City Utilities Director
Allen Todd, W4VUB, as saying that the city will monitor the system and rectify
any problems that crop up. No field testing for RF interference took place
during the system's pilot program.
Your
editor came across this timely greeting on the internet…
My
wishes to for all of you for 2004:
May the Morse always flow like music in your ears and be a tonic for your brain.
May all your QSO's be 599
May your antennas never freeze.
May you finally get that last country, province, prefix, county or state that
you need for whatever award you're chasing.
May your solder always flow easy and true.
May your troubleshooting problems always be minor and easy.
May that screw, washer, nut, spring or SMD device never leave your hands at the
wrong time and disappear into the twilight zone forever!
But most important of all, best wishes for a happy and healthy 2004 - for you
and your families. Godspeed and a "hurry home" for those who are
away or will be going away to serve with the Armed Forces.
73 de Larry W2LJ