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: Jim Callow K8IR
Vice President: Ed Engleman KG8CX
Treasurer: Lynne Rynish N8OSK
Secretary: Gary Luthardt KG9AD
The MMARC Newsletter June 2003
Our
monthly meeting will be held at 7pm, Thursday June 12 at Henes Park in
Menominee. We’ll try for one of the
three pavilions, hopefully the third pavilion, site of our August picnic, but
we’ll take whatever is open.
We’ll
try to have a grill going by 6pm, so anyone who would like to come early and
bring a picnic supper can cook, but it’s a bring your own affair.
The
highlight of the agenda will be finalizing Field Day details.
FIELD DAY PLANS…
The M&M
ARC Field Day Station, W8PIF, will be located this year on Earl Bramschreiber,
KC8WJN’s property northwest of Menominee. Follow Highway 577 north of
Menominee to 2.5 Lane, turn left, go over the one-lane bridge, around several
curves, and look for a lane on the east end of a pond that will lead through a
gate onto Earl’s property. Signs will be erected to help you find your way.
Please refer to the map.
Friday
June 6th, W9YQ, NS9R,
KG8CX, N8LHB, KC8WJN, and K8IR toured the property, and found a good location.
We’ll be setting up three stations this year, using a tent, along with
W9YQ’s and NS9R’s campers.
Field
Day starts at 1pm local time on Saturday June 28th and runs for 24
hours. We hope you can come out
and join us, for a few minutes, or several hours.
It’s a great chance for all of our members, as well as newcomers, to
get some HF operating experience. We’ll
also hope to continue our tradition of excellent food.
One
caution…be sure to bring some bug spray.
The mosquitoes have been plentiful this year.
We
still have some details to work out, so come to the June meeting, and listen
to the Sunday night nets for more information.
NEW MEMBER WELCOMED…
At
the May meeting, Dennis Knutson, KB9GFX, was accepted into club membership.
He lives in the Oak Orchard area south of Oconto along Cty. Hwy S.
Dennis has been a ham for many years, is an ARRL Official Observer, and VE.
Welcome to the club, Dennis.
ARES-RACES MEETING HELD RECENTLY FOR MARINETTE/OCONTO COUNTY…
Members of the Marinette/Oconto County ARES/RACES
organization met May 29th at the Beaver Town Hall.
Marinette/Oconto County ARES Emergency Coordinator Jeff Rymer, KE9S
called the meeting to review written plans developed by himself for ARES
(Amateur Radio Emergency Service) and by Marinette County Emergency Services
Director Eric Lowman, KB9ZQX
for Marinette County RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service).
The
group decided to establish an ARES/RACES net each Monday evening at 8:15pm on
the 146.835 Abrams repeater, with check-ins also taken on the 147.000 M&M
repeater and 145.470 Crivitz repeater. The
Abrams repeater is expected to be linked soon to the new 146.775 Wausaukee
repeater, and the two should
provide coverage to both Marinette and Oconto Counties.
Membership
in the Marinette/Oconto County ARES/RACES is open to anyone with a valid
amateur license. Members are
expected to take part in training and be available to assist when emergency
communications are needed. For
more information, contact Jeff, KE9S.
WAUSAUKEE REPEATER NOW ON AIR…
As
of May 24th, the 146.775 repeater
went on line, albeit in a temporary configuration. It is a Motorola 2000
unit capable of 152 watts output, but only loafing along currently at 40
watts. The antenna is a ground plane up 30 feet on one of the tower
cross members. Once the climbers show up on site (within a week or two
hopefully), a commercial antenna and hardline will be erected at 100 feet, and
the repeater will go into independent operation, pending approval of the
link frequencies. Actual linking with the Abrams repeater will then take
place. In the meantime, the repeater has been doing very well from its
temporary antenna location....10 over S9 signal into the twin cities.
Since the tower is on the highest point of land around Wausaukee, once the
antenna is erected, and power raised to 100 watts, coverage should reach most
of Marinette and Menominee counties, as well as several of the surrounding
ones as well.
Remember
also, the PL is 136.5, and is presently operating minus a controller.
Until such time as a controller is installed, please ID with the
WA8WG repeater call as well as your own.
Thanks
to Bill, WA8WG, for providing the equipment and technical expertise in
establishing the repeater, and to Earl, KB9DSV, for his cooperation in getting
the linked system under way, with his repeater at Abrams. More
improvements and refinements are anticipated as time goes on, to make this one
of the premier repeater systems in the region.
NEW 60 METER CHANNELIZED FREQUENCIES AVAILABLE JULY 3RD…
From
the ARRL…
The new five-channel 60-meter domestic secondary
amateur allocation becomes available to US Amateur Radio operators at midnight
local time on July 3. The FCC Report and Order granting the allocation was
published June 3 in the Federal Register. Federal government users are primary
in the 5 MHz band.
The FCC has granted amateurs use of five 2.8 kHz-wide channels with center
frequencies of 5332, 5348, 5368, 5373 and 5405 kHz. The channels will be
available to General and higher class licensees. The only permitted mode will
be upper-sideband USB phone, and 50 W ERP is the maximum power allowed.
Users of the 60-meter channels should set their carrier frequency 1.5 kHz
lower than the channel center frequency. ARRL suggests restricting transmitted
audio bandwidth to 200 Hz on the low end and 2800 Hz on the high end for a
total bandwidth of 2.6 kHz. ARRL recommends that amateurs considering
modifying existing amateur equipment for operation on 60 meters contact the
equipment's manufacturer for advice.
MARINETTE
AND MENOMINEE AMATEUR RADIO CLUB MINUTES FOR MAY 8, 2003
The
May 8, 2003 meeting was called to order at 7:02 PM by President K8IR, Jim.
This
will be the last meeting to be held at the BAMC in Menominee Michigan. Everyone
introduced themselves at the meeting. The minutes for the April meeting
published in the May Groundwave were approved. The Treasurer's report was also
approved as read.
KG8CX,
Ed presented some printed information for club members on Skywarn Reporting,
Wisconsin NWR coverage and codes, and a listing of National Weather Service
locations and frequencies along with other information. The last Skywarn net Ed
reported fifteen participated for the first one that took place in April.
Ed
reported that both repeaters are working fine.
KB9DSV, Earl reported the 146.835 repeater is up to 100 Watts. WA8WG, Bill presented some technical information and footprints of coverage for some of the repeaters in our area as to height and location.
For
a meeting location N8OSK, Lynne reported a location may be found for the
September Meeting or October Meeting but will not say where in case something
does go wrong. The June 10th
meeting will be held at John Henes Park in Menominee MI at the number 3
pavilion. Future meetings will be decided where to hold them. Check the next
issue of the Groundwave for information.
Field
Day will be held on Earl Bramschreiber's property in Menominee County and do
check Groundwave for information on this. A portable toilet will be provided by
the club.
Dennis
Knutson, KB9GFX, was voted in by
the club members as a member of the Marinette and Menominee Amateur Radio Club.
Questions
were brought up about former members not rejoining this year. Lynne reported a
letter was sent to them about membership and they never did rejoin and this has
been covering a period of October to May 2003. Some questioned why they do not
rejoin and what reasons for not rejoining.
Gary,
KG9AD, reported that in the February 2003 issue of The Groundwave a request was
made by him to get a physical inventory of
equipment the club owns that various hams have at their locations. This
inventory list is to be maintained by the secretary of the club per the November
2002 Meeting. At this time he reports no information has been received as to
what inventory various hams do have of the club property.
Motion
made by Keith N9PQV and seconded by Bob K8RJ
for adjournment.
Meeting
adjourned by Jim K8IR at 8:21 PM.
Gary
W Luthardt, KG9AD
Secretary
Attendance
at the meeting:
Gary
Luthardt..................................KG9AD
Ed Engleman....................................KG8CX
Jim Callow.......................................K8IR
David Cunningham............................NS9R
Dwight Bosselman............................W9YQ
George Benoit..................................N9UGG
Larry Buchholz.................................N9OSF
Bob Jarnutowski...............................K8RJ
Diana Jarnutowski.............................KC8RSM
Valerie Hallam...................................KC8WAI
Lynne Rynish.....................................N8OSK
Allen Grenier.....................................N9QAA
Keith Tonn........................................N9PQV
Kurt Berge........................................K8BKA
Earl Andre.........................................KB9DSV
Bill Becks..........................................WA8WG
Matt DeGrand....................................
Earl Bramschreiber.............................KC8WJN
Marge Bramschreiber..........................