Texas Adventist Emergency Communications

ARRL News

ARRL Delta Division Gets New Leadership; Great Lakes Division Remains Unchanged
On Friday, November 21, ARRL staff members started opening ballots for the Director and Vice Director races in the Delta Division and the Vice Director race in the Great Lakes Division. ARRL Chief Financial Officer Barry Shelley, N1VXY; Dakota Division Director Jay Bellows, W0QB; Southeastern Division Director Greg Sarratt, W4OZK, and a representative from an independent auditor looked on; Sarratt is also a member of the League's Ethics and Elections Committee. After all the ballots were counted, the Delta Division gained a new Director and Vice Director, while hams in the Great Lakes Division voted to keep their Vice Director. The leadership team in the Atlantic, Dakota and Midwest Divisions will remain the same. Terms for Directors and Vice Directors begin at noon on January 1, 2009 and run for three years.

The K7RA Solar Update
The latest sunspot appearance lasted eight days; the spot passed from view after Monday, November 17. Geomagnetic indices have remained nice and quiet. If you look here for recent geomagnetic data, you will notice certain times which were extremely quiet with many zeroes in the K index. One of those periods is the days after November 16. You won't see quiet conditions like this once we get greater solar activity. The next time we see unsettled geomagnetic conditions should be November 25.

Canadian Amateurs Receive Limited 500 kHz Privileges
On November 10, Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) announced that Industry Canada, which regulates Amateur Radio in that country, has accepted an RAC proposal for selected Canadian radio amateurs to operate in the vicinity of 500 kHz. The proposal states that RAC would recommend amateurs who would be licensed to operate in the 504-509 kHz band with a maximum power of 20 W ERP and bandwidth up to 1 kHz. Stations operating in this band would be technically operating under Special Developmental Licenses, although they would all be radio amateurs. Distinct call signs would be used and the licenses would be renewable on an annual basis, subject to the amateur demonstrating the research he has carried out. According to the RAC, these amateur operations would support Canada's efforts to place a proposal on the agenda of the 2011 World Radio Conference (WRC-11), which, if adopted, would create an amateur allocation in the 600 meter band. The US, under the auspices of the ARRL's 500 kHz Experimental Station, WD2XSH, is also conducting research in this band. Canada is the eighth country to do experimentation on 500 kHz; along with the US and Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Romania are also participating. More information on the Canadian proposal will be posted to the RAC Web site as it becomes available.

Surfin': Revisiting Radio Monitoring Memories
This week's Surfin' reveals new information about broadcast band and shortwave listening.

News

Repeater Update

As I said in my last article, we have the 440 machine back up in its permanent location and it seams to be doing good. We have had reports from north Ft. Worth, N Dallas with marginal signal strength and at hwy 377 and cherry lane in SW Ft. Worth and Hillsboro with good signal strength. That puts our effective good signal strength area at about 30 miles, which covers the entire county and then some. We are continuing to monitor it for any anomalies.

As far as the 2 meter repeater goes, we have finally found one that will work. After a lengthy search and about $1800 we have located and ordered a brand new Motorola Digital/Analog repeater. It was ordered early last week, 07/14 - 07/15, and should be in by the first part of next month. We are hoping that it will have an even better range than the 440 machine does.

K5CLM on July 22 2008 20:07:07 · 0 Comments · 757 Reads ·

Club Update

There is quite a bit that happened in the past couple months in our club and in the amateur radio community in our area.

Club Updates

First off, what has happened in our club? First and foremost, we have our 440 repeater back up at its regular location. We have not gotten anyone out to check the area to see if there is sometime in the area that caused our previous repeater to go out, but we have moved our new one back there none-the-less. We are listening to it closely and if it starts to give us problems like the old one did, we will take it back down and move it back to our temporary location. We did get in contact with our ARRL Regional Manager who has agreed to come down and check out the location, however, we have not bee able to work out a time to meet yet, because of his work schedule, but hopefully it will be soon. We have had reports from different areas around the county and beyond. One person was able to talk on it and gave a great signal report at Camp Bowie and Cherry Ln and also around Hillsboro.

The 2 meter repeater as Im sure most of you know is also down at this time. We put it to a vote last club meeting to buy a new one and are currently looking for a new one. We have a couple people looking for one and should hopefully be getting it back up soon.

Community Update

We, in Johnson County, have a new ARRL AEC. Off the top of my head, I cant remember his name, but he will be coming to our meeting this month to talk with us and introduce himself. He has a bunch of plans, all of which if they come to fruitation, will be a great thing for our county community of amateur radio operators. Lets spread the word that he will be at our meeting so we can have a great turn out.

We have got some new equipment at the EOC. We have bought a new 2 meter radio, a couple headsets and foot switches, a TNC for an APRS/Packet station and have a couple other things in the works. If anybody looking at this would like to come and check out our EOC, All you need to do is get a hold of Gerald Mohr, KC5PWQ, our club president and arrange a time to come down.

K5CLM on July 07 2008 04:30:24
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Club Repeater - Update

Well I have good news and bad news for everybody. The good news is that we have a new repeater that has more power for the Keene repeater. The bad news is that we have not figured out what is knocking them out in the first place, so it is at a temporary location until we do so that it doesn’t get knocked out too. Unfortunately, the temporary location has no where near the range as the permanent location does so we wont be able to get into it as easily.

We are trying to find someone that has a spectrum analyzer that can come down and check the area to determine if there is some interference from somewhere close by or not. Unfortunately, we have been having difficulties finding someone that does. Until we can find the source of the problem, however, it will be kept at its current location.

Even though we don’t have the range on the repeater that we normally do, we are starting up the nets once again. We started them last night, 03/06 and just had a couple check ins. Whether it was because some people couldn’t hit the machine or people have forgotten about it since the repeater has been down, I don’t know.

K5CLM on March 08 2008 07:02:28
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Club Repeater

Both repeaters are currently down. The 147.220 repeater is offline because of technical difficulties with the repeater. The 443.125 repeater is down due to possibly interference. We are in the process of finding the interference and getting it corrected. Hopefully both will be back up very soon. We are also having problems locating someone to work on our repeater system since we have been unable to get in contact with the person that we use to use. If anyone knows of someone that works on amateur radio repeaters please contact our president, Gerald Mohr or myself. Click on the Officers Link to send us an email.

K5CLM on January 20 2008 18:38:15
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Changes With the New Year!!

As I'm sure that you have already noticed, our website has changed. To celebrate the coming of the new year, we are launching a new website. This website is more dynamic than our old one and easier to use and integrate with other things. This page now has a live weather feed from the Nation Weather Service as reported at the Cleburne Municipal Airport, the 4 most recent stories as posted on the ARRL website and much more. On the right is a new Calendar of Events area, I have posted all the club meetings as well as club nets on the calendar. I will put other events on it as they become available.

Keith, KE5AWF, has agreed to help me with the website as assistant Webmaster. With his help, it will be alot easier to keep up with and add new things. We have a couple other things planned not only for the website but a couple other things too.

You will also see a section marked Newsletter. Yea, I know, its been a while since we've had a regular newsletter. Im wanting this year to at least a quarterly newsletter sent out. I think that a quarterly newsletter will be a lot managable than a monthly one. We will also be able to use this feature to send our reminders and other things alot easier than we have before. If anyone would like to help with the newsletter by writing something, please let me know.

If any of yall have any comments, questions, suggestions, etc please drop me an email or give me a call.

** This page is still under construction **

k5aec on December 16 2007 01:00:00
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