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The CKARC Newsletter for October, 2005
Even More 440
Repeater News
HERE'S THE GOOD
NEWS! THE NEW 443.900 REPEATER IS UP AND RUNNING. ABOUT 80 WATTS
XMIT, AND 0.2 MICROVOLTS SENSITIVITY. SHOULD BE A GOOD WIDE AREA MACHINE.
NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS. THE DUPLEXER IS NOT IN VERY GOOD SHAPE. TIM,
NØHIM, THE TECHY SUGGESTED THAT WE REPLACE IT. I ORDERED ONE TONIGHT FROM
AES. WILL RUN ABOUT $60.00. THEY ALSO SUGGEST THAT WE REPLACE THE 10 YEAR
(PLUS) OLD ANTENNA WITH A HIGHER GAIN MODEL. I PRICED THE DIAMOND MODEL
X500A DUAL-BANDER FROM AES; $239.95 PLUS FREIGHT. WE'LL HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THAT
A BIT, AND DISCUSS IT AT THE NEXT CLUB MEETING.
On a related
note, the 2-mater machine was putting out only 8 watts and the sensitivity was 1
microvolt. it is now at 25 watts and about 0.5 microvolts. We should
be able to see a marked improvement in range and quality.
Saving the best
for last, a great big CKARC Thank You to Mark KBØMQX and Harvey KØRY for their
help in getting the machine up to the head house at the United Building.
That box was HEAVY! We owe Ron NØYKR and Tim NØHIM even more of a thanks for
providing us with a first rate machine and the expertise to get it up and
running.
73 de Ron WAØPSF
Because of Elaine's health problem we will
moving the end of the year to Wichita.
The area were moving into has some restrictive
covenants which will take me out of the Ham business. I don't have time now
with everything that's going on.
Any how I have equipment to sell and I need
some help with prices and placing it in the club letter.
This is what I have: Kenwood TS 850 AT
Speaker Sp31
Kenwood TM 241A
Kenwood TM 733A
35 Amp power
supply
GAP Vertical
Antenna
MFJ HF//VHF
analyzer
Low Pass
Filter
DC Outlet Bar MFJ-118
Appreciate the help
Rex- WB0WUW
CKARC MEMBERS
OCTOBER BIRTHDAYS
Jerry Mallon KCØVDX 10/07
Alan Shurts W0NO 10/20
Date for the CKARC Christmas party has been set. December 15th from 6
to 9 PM at the Western Sizzlin' Restaurant.
From the Wall Street Journal Thought you might want to pass it on.
As Telecom Reels
>From Storm Damage,
Ham Radios Hum
By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 6, 2005; Page A19
MONROE, La. -- In a shelter here, 300 miles north of New Orleans, Theo
McDaniel took his plight to a young man fiddling with a clunky,
outdated-looking radio.
Mr. McDaniel, a 25-year-old barber, had evacuated New Orleans with his wife
and two small children more than a week ago and since then had had no
contact with his brother or his aunt. The last he heard, his 42-year-old
aunt was clinging to her roof.
"We've got to get a message down there to help them," he said. The man at
the radio sent the information to the emergency-operations center across
town, which relayed it to rescue units in New Orleans. Later in the weekend,
Mr. McDaniel learned that food and water were on the way to his
trapped brother and his brother's young family. He had heard nothing about
his aunt.
With Hurricane Katrina having knocked out nearly all the high-end emergency
communications gear, 911 centers, cellphone towers and normal fixed phone
lines in its path, ham-radio operators have begun to fill the information
vacuum. "Right now, 99.9% of normal communications in the affected region is
nonexistent," says David Gore, the man operating the ham radio in the Monroe
shelter. "That's where we come in."
In an age of high-tech, real-time gadgetry, it's the decidedly unsexy ham
radio -- whose technology has changed little since World War II -- that is
in high demand in ravaged New Orleans and environs. The Red Cross issued a
request for about 500 amateur radio operators -- known as "hams" -- for the
260 shelters it is erecting in the area. The American Radio Relay League, a
national association of ham-radio operators, has been deluged with requests
to find people in the region. The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for hams to
help with its relief efforts.
Ham radios, battery operated, work well when others don't in part because
they are simple. Each operator acts as his own base station, requiring only
his radio and about 50 feet of fence wire to transmit messages thousands of
miles. Ham radios can send messages on multiple channels and in myriad ways,
including Morse code, microwave frequencies and even email.
Then there are the ham-radio operators themselves, a band of radio
enthusiasts who spend hours jabbering with each other even during normal
times. They are often the first to get messages in and out of disaster
areas, in part because they are everywhere. (The ARRL estimates there are
250,000 licensed hams in the U.S.) Sometimes they are the only source of
information in the first hours following a disaster. "No matter how good the
homeland-security system is, it will be overwhelmed," says Thomas Leggett, a
retired mill worker manning a ham radio in the operations center here. "You
don't hear about us, but we are there."
Slidell, a town 30 miles northeast of New Orleans, was directly hit by the
hurricane and remains virtually cut off from the outside world. One of the
few, if not the only, communications links is Michael King, a retired Navy
captain, operating a ham radio out of a Slidell hospital.
"How are you holding up, Mike?" asked Sharon Riviere into a ham-radio
microphone at Monroe's operations center. She and her husband, Ron, who is
the president of the Slidell ham-radio club, had evacuated before the storm
to the home of some fellow ham-radio enthusiasts in Monroe. She said Mr.
King had been working 20-hour days since the storm hit.
Crackling static and odd, garbled sounds followed her question to Mr. King.
Then he replied: "It's total devastation here. I've got 18 feet of water at
my house. Johnny's Café down there has water up to its roof." Ms. Riviere
asked about her own home, which is not far from Mr. King's. "It's full of
mud," Mr. King replied. "Looks like someone's been slugging it out in
there." Ham radios are often most effective as one link in a chain of
communication devices. Early last week, someone trapped with 15 people
on a roof of a New Orleans home tried unsuccessfully to get through to a 911
center on his cellphone. He was able to call a relative in Baton Rouge, who
in turn called another relative, Sybil Hayes, in Broken Arrow, Okla. Ms.
Hayes, whose 81-year-old aunt was among those stranded on the New Orleans
roof, then called the Red Cross in Broken Arrow, which handed the message to
its affiliated ham-radio operator, Ben Joplin.
Via stations in Oregon, Idaho and Louisiana, Mr. Joplin got the message to
rescue workers who were able to save the 15 people on the roof, according to
the ARRL, based in Newington, Conn. "We are like the Pony Express," says the
26-year-old Mr. Gore, wearing black cowboy boots. "One way or the other,
even by hand, we will get you the message."
Mr. Gore, who is in charge of the northeastern district of Louisiana for the
Amateur Radio Emergency Service, has spent a lot of time the past week at
the Monroe shelter, helping evacuees try to track missing friends and
relatives.
Last Monday, Danita Alexander of Violet, La., came to a ham operator in the
Monroe shelter asking about her 96-year-old grandfather, Willie Bright, who
had been in a nursing home in New Orleans. The next day, she got word back
from a ham operator that he had been safely transferred to a shelter near
New Orleans. "We can't do enough of these," says Mark
Ketchell, who runs the ARES branch in Monroe.
Nevertheless, the ham-radio community feels under threat. Telecom companies
want to deliver broadband Internet connections over power lines, which
ham-radio operators say distorts communications in the surrounding area.
Since hams are "amateurs," there is little lobbying money to fight such
changes, they add.
The hams also get little respect from telecommunications-equipment
companies, such as Motorola Inc. "Something is better than nothing, that's
right," says Jim Screeden, who runs all of Motorola's repair teams in the
field for its emergency-response business. "But ham radios are pretty close
to nothing." Mr. Screeden says ham radios can take a long time to relay
messages and work essentially as "party lines," with multiple parties
talking at once. Says Mr. Leggett at the Monroe operations center: "We are
the unwanted stepchild. But when the s- hits the fan, who are you going to
call?"
Write to Christopher Rhoads at
[email protected]
John K. Burchill
Assistant Professor
Kansas Wesleyan University
1-785-827-5541 ext. 2120
[email protected]
Who shall put his finger on the work of justice and say, “It is there”?
Justice is like the kingdom of God: it is not
without us as fact; it is within us as a great yearning. – George Eliot
Thanks, John for submitting this article. Ron
OCTOBER FUNBASH
Saturday - October 22, 2005 - 9am until ???
Ensor Farmsite & Museum - 18995 W. 183rd Street - Olathe, KS 66062
EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO VISIT OR PARTICIPATE
For more information on these FREE EVENTS contact: Wretha Galeener KC0HHO,
National SATERN Recruiter Email: [email protected] - Phone: 913-856-7109
These FREE EVENTS are sponsored by KANSAS S.A.T.E.R.N. - Salvation Army
Team Emergency Radio Network
12:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. LUNCH
Come have lunch with your friends. Hot Dogs and Chili with drinks, will
be provided FREE by S.A.T.E.R.N.
1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. EQUIPMENT TESTING
Bill Brinker WB 0CBW has specialized equipment that can monitor your
equipment and diagnose problems that you may be having, and test
the capability of your radios at no charge.
1:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. ENSOR MUSEUM GUIDED TOUR
This fantastic FREE 30 minute ham radio museum tour is a great experience.
Larry Woodworth WÆHXS, the Ensor Museum Director will
give a guided tour for groups of 10 who want to see this fine vintage
equipment. See Ensor Museum website < http://www.w9bsp-w9ua.org/>
for more information.
1:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. EMERGENCY RESPONSE EQUIPMENT SHOW-N-TELL
EVERYONE is invited to participate. Bring your emergency equipment
[radio, antenna, power source ..etc] and setup for others to see your
great ideas and your special equipment -- we especially love those
homemade items! Those with that fun digital stuff are especially
welcome! Those with new items from the "candy store", bring your toys!!
Everyone is welcome to take this opportunity to practice
setting up their equipment. Elmers, come and help!! New hams, come and
see what you want for Christmas!! You are welcome to bring ANY
emergency response equipment in general, it does not need to be ham
related.
There will be a Balloon launch, weather permitting!
Please bring your lawn chairs!
Participants You need to bring your own tables, chairs, power source,
generator and any other equipment needed to operate. Electricity and water
hookup is not available. The SATERN generator will be available.
2:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. ANNUAL KANSAS STATE SATERN MEETING
Membership meeting for all Kansas & Missouri members. Each year we provide
a forum for our members to gather and discuss activities
being planned and training that is available. The most important
opportunity is to meet one another. The National SATERN Director
from Chicago and our KS Division EDS leaders are planning to attend, as well
as our KS Section Manger, Ron Cowan. This is a great time
to meet our leaders, friends and members across Kansas that you have not
met before. We are inviting all SATERN members around the Midwest
to join us. Non-members are especially welcome. Bring your lawn chairs!!
4:00 p.m. until 4:30 p.m.DEMONSTRATION
There is going to be an equipment demonstration by Dan Harlow KF0RS with
Associated Radio [aka Candy Store]. See it in operation and
demonstrated by a professional.
6:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. COOKOUT
The Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services, Kansas Division will provide
a FREE picnic dinner for everyone served from the Canteen.
You are welcome to bring a covered dish to add to the picnic, or bring your
own grill and food to cook!
7:00 p.m. until ??:?? a.m. CAMPOUT AND FUN
Bring the marshmallows!! Ensor has plenty of ground to park your RV or
pitch a tent and campout overnight for FREE.
No water hookup or electrical hookup is available. Bring your own
generator. Rest rooms with stool & sink is available 24 hours.
FREE breakfast on Sunday morning for the overnighters!
9:00 a.m. until Noon === Saturday, October 22, 2005 === J.C.R.A.C. HAM
RADIO AUCTION
Sponsored by the Johnson County Radio Amateur Club [JCRAC] For more
information on THIS EVENT contact the JCRAC President
directly: Bill Gery KA2FNK Email:
[email protected]
HOSTS FOR THE
NEAR FUTURE
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