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

JUNE MEETING…

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 6^th,  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 28^th 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 29^th 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 3^RD…

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.