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Announcements... |
► License Exam session @ SMCARA 'Field Day' site at the Hollywood Fire Station:
Date: Saturday, 23 June 2012 |
► Weekly St. Mary's County Amateur Radio Association (SMCARA) 2-meter net: Every Tuesday evening on the K3HKI 146.640 MHz (negative offset, PL146.2 Hz) at 8:30 PM
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► Weekly 'Mentoring Net' on 2-meters: Every Wednesday evening on the W4GMF 146.895 MHz (negative offset, PL156.7 Hz) at 7 PM
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► Weekly Chesapeake 6-meter Net: Every Thursday evening on 50.145 MHz at 8 PM
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Every Saturday evening on 144.205 MHz (SSB) at 9:30 PM
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► Manassas (Virginia) Hamfest & Amateur Radio Show: Prince William County Fairgrounds 10624 Dumfries Road Manassas, Virginia 20108 Website: http://manassashamfest.org Sponsor: Ole' Virginia Hams Amateur Radio Club |
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Presented at the April meeting - to be voted upon at the 26 July meeting Take a look at the [ CURRENT ] and [ PROPOSED ] versions and let us know what you think... (click on hyperlinks shown in red above to open files in Adobe PDF format)
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Vote on acceptance of proposed new Club Constitution & By-Laws
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What's New in the Repeater business: - The 223.90 MHz repeater (minus offset, no PL tone) is now on the air at WA3UMY's QTH in downtown Lexington Park running low power (about 2 watts) for testing purposes. After completion of several additional circuit modifications to add a fan controller for the amplifier and addition of a PL encoder/decoder, the repeater will be moved to its new location on a tower in downtown Lexington Park with an antenna at the 170' level and will run several hundred watts effective radiated power. - The re-built 443.05 MHz repeater (plus offset, no PL tone) returned to the air on 12 January 2012. It is located in the center of Lexington Park. The transmitter is putting out about 70 watts to a Super Stationmaster antenna at the 80 foot level on the tower. Try it out! - A new wide-area coverage repeater was put into service on the 2nd of January 2012. The new 145.35 MHz 2-meter repeater is operating from a 500' tower located in Prince Frederick, Maryland with the call sign N3NO. Initial tests confirm an extensive mobile coverage area across a wide area. The PL tone is 156.7 Hz. - A new local coverage repeater was put into service recently in the northern neck of Virginia near Montross. The W4GMF 146.895 MHz repeater uses a PL tone of 146.2 Hz to activate. It will occasionally be linked to the 145.35 MHz repeater in Prince Frederick for nets, etc. - A wide area simplex D-STAR 'Hot Spot' node is now on the air and available for use (it is operating on 145.60 MHz simplex). The hot spot permits local D-STAR users to connect to the Internet Gateway (currently set to Reflector 001C) to talk to other D-STAR users world-wide. This local hot spot, located in the center of Lexington Park, is running 15 watts to a 4 dBd gain antenna about 70' above ground level at WA3UMY's QTH. There are a number of local hams experimenting with the D-STAR digital voice mode on the hot spot frequency (shown above) and on 145.670 MHz simplex including WA3UMY, K3KLC, N3CAL, W3PAP, W4OKW, N3NO and N3JTN |
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New 'How to' Articles written by your fellow amateur radio enthusiasts in the local area: - Sam Leach (K3KLC) has just completed writing a short tutorial about his ECHO LINK Node. Click [ HERE ] to read all about it! - Tom Shelton (AB3IC) recently forwarded a series of contesting tips via our club e-mail reflector. He has now edited those e-mails and recompiled them into a single, informative article that should be of value to anyone desiring to get into on-the-air contesting. Click [ HERE ] to download the article. - D-STAR (Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio) is an interesting new digital mode that you should take a look at. Pete (WA3UMY) wrote up an article [ HERE ] that describes the process for registering your call sign with the Internet Gateway Server Team so that you can begin working stations all over the world using the D-STAR reflector system. Take a look!
1) The node operates on 145.600 MHz simplex and is available 24/7 2) The node is usually 'parked' on some DSTAR reflector (conference bridge) but you can change it to any DSTAR repeater or reflector you want from your own DSTAR radio 3) Click [ HERE ] for complete instructions on how to set up and use the UR memories on your DSTAR radio to control the node
Having trouble trying to figure out how to manually program this radio by following the poorly written "Chinglish" instructions in the manual? Throw the manual away and do the following steps to get on the air ASAP: 1) Call up Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) and order the Wouxun KG-699E serial-to-USB programming cable for $15.95 2) Download the correct version of the programming software available [ HERE ] and put it in a folder on your computer home page 3) Download the southern Maryland frequency list software file available [ HERE ] and put it in the same folder on your computer where you put the programming software 4) Plug the programming cable into one of your computer's USB jacks 5) When the cable is recognized, go to your computer Start page and select the 'devices and printers' properties tab - find the Prolific cable and write down which COM port was assigned 6) Run the programming software - open up the COM port tab and select the correct COM port that you identified in the previous step 7) Plug the other end of the programming cable into the two jacks on the right side of the radio - ensure that the plug is fully seated 8) Turn on the radio - select the file tab at the top of the programming window and select/open the southern Maryland frequency list file 9) Go to the program tab and select "upload to radio" - the green light on top of the radio should begin flashing very fast and the file data should load into the radio 10) Disconnect the radio from the programming cable and you should be good to go with all the popular simplex and repeater frequencies used here in southern Maryland - have fun!
NOTE: All articles are in the Adobe PDF format. Free PDF reader software is available at www.adobe.com on the web.
Pete (WA3UMY) gave an update during the January 2012 meeting on D-STAR digital voice technology and demonstrated it in action using actual hardware and video segments. Click [ HERE ] to view the Power Point briefing slides presented at the meeting.
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Got your call sign registered... now try out the WA3UMY DSTAR Node in
Lexington Park:
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Welcome:
Thank you for visiting our Web Site! We would be delighted if you would like to know more about the oldest, continuously operating amateur radio club (established in 1956) in the Southern Maryland area. The St. Mary's County Amateur Radio Association is a general interest group whose goal is to advance the state of the art of and get others interested in the greatest hobby in the world. If you would like to learn more about amateur radio in general or perhaps find out what some of our specific activities are, come to the next meeting (see date/time on Club Meetings tab). At each meeting, we attempt to have a special guest speaker to provide an overview of a specific interesting facet of the hobby. Please feel free to join us at one of our monthly meetings! If you can not make it to a meeting, call Pete Butt at 301-862-2214. If you would like to join our group, please fill out the membership application (click to open link) and mail it to Lee Jamison at the address shown below. Please note our new club mailing address: SMCARA, c/o Lee Jamison (N8HTG), 45695 Frigate Place, Great Mills, Maryland 20634 |