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Issue 109 — JUNE 2002

Monthly Newsletter of the Southern Oregon Amateur Radio Club

SOARC, P.O. BOX 1164, GRANTS PASS, OREGON 97528
VISIT THE SOARC WEBSITE AT: http://www.qsl.net/soar/SOARC/
EDITOR: MIKE WRIGHT, N7GEI, 432 GRANDVIEW AVE., G. P., OR 97527
PHONE: 541-471-0440 E-MAIL: n7gei@msn.com

President's Corner

OK, here we are in June!  Boatnik went well and all who participated had fun.  Hope your garden is in; it's not too late to plant!  We still have some hats and jackets to give out.  Hope to see you all at club.

Here are those who worked Boatnik.  If you are not listed, it is my mistake (Jim) and your effort was appreciated.  This list is one-third or our club!

WX7U, W7PUP, N7KS, N6AXB, KB7EKF, KB7TSX, WB6LMA, KC7CZG, KC7GLY, KF6CBK, N7YLB, KC7ADN, K7OBW, KC7JJG, KC7MGH, KF6AR, WB6CYK, K7XI, K7YQM, KD7OBX, KD7IAB, KC7WEU, KB7NFY, KC7YKT, WB6KET, N7NCM, KC7ULP, KK7BF, WA6OTP, WA6OWE, KC7IXX, KG6IA, KI7RU, KK6NC, and K7WHM.

73, Jim, WA6OTP  

Welcome From Your Editor

SOARC has been designated by the ARRL as a Special Service Club. Many thanks to Bill Tyner, WX7U, for his efforts in helping us to achieve this prestigious honor (see article in this month's Gnus).

Fire season has begun. As dry as it is already here in Oregon, we don't have nearly the problem that Colorado does. As I write this, the Hayman fire is "over the ridge" (about 20 miles away) from my brother and his wife who are loading up their pickup and fifth-wheel travel trailer to be ready if an evacuation becomes necessary. The fire is west-northwest of them and moving to the northeast, so long as the wind doesn't change. The blaze has been moving at one to two miles per hour. My brother told me today (June 12) that they are not real worried that the Hayman fire will reach them, if it keeps moving in the direction it's currently headed. The unpredictable nature of fire, however, doesn't guarantee that the direction and speed of the conflagration will continue. My brother and his wife live in an area of five-acre lots with lots of open tinder-dry grassland already suffering from numerous dry-lightning-sparked wildfires. There was one yesterday near my brother?s property and he arrived home from work just in time to help the neighbors shovel a firebreak to contain it until the fire department arrived. Are you prepared?

If you have anything to submit for publication in the Gnus, see the contact information below the masthead.

73, Mike, N7GEI

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NEXT CLUB MEETING
TUESDAY, 18 JUNE
1900
SENIOR CENTER
3^RD & B STREETS
GRANTS PASS

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2002 SOARC Officers and Board

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Coming Attractions

At the next SOARC meeting, there will be a review of Boatnik, so there will be an extended round of discussion and remarks concerning it and the Grants Pass Active Club.  I hope to have a technical discussion lined up and we will be discussing the upcoming Field Day weekend.

73, Bill Tyner, WX7U

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Calling All Ladies

Western Belles is a women's ham radio chat group that meets at 7:30 PM on the 1^st and 3^rd Thursdays of every month on the 147.300 repeater. Please check in!

The ladies get together regularly for lunch and all female hams are invited to attend.

The next luncheon will be at 11:30 on Saturday, July 13th, at Wild River Brewing and Pizza Company, 595 NE E Street, Grants Pass.

73, Wilma, W1LMA, and Anita, KC7MGH

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SOARC A Special Service Club!

As most, if not all, of you know, SOARC is affiliated with the American Radio Relay League. ARRL members are encouraged to renew their memberships through SOARC because we get to keep a little bit of those dues in our treasury for handling the paperwork for the renewal.

Now, SOARC has been designated a Special Service Club by the ARRL! According to the ARRL, "The ARRL is especially proud of our affiliated clubs that excel in their activities. Clubs that go the extra mile to provide ongoing training and support for the benefit of their community, fall into our Special Service Club category. These extraordinary groups actively pursue all aspects of Amateur Radio: New Ham Development and Training; Public Relations; Emergency Communications; School Club Support; Technical Advancement; Operating Activities; Annual Reports, and more."

Thank you guys and gals for all of your great efforts in helping us to achieve this honor!

73, Bill Tyner, WX7U

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2002 VE Exams

The next VE exams will be held August 30th at 6:30 PM at the Senior Services Center!  Just go into the parking lot off of 4th and C Streets.  We will need a copy of your license (need to see picture ID) and a copy of any CSCE's you may hold and want to use (make sure they have been awarded within the one-year time limit).  Anyone who will grandfather into general class needs proof of their license status prior to 4/87.  It's surprising what will pass for proof nowadays.

A quick rundown of the license categories is pretty simple.  If you pass the written technician test, you will be entitled to the technician license.  Add to that five wpm and you will have the technician w/HF privileges license.  Successfully add the written general class exam and you are a general.  Add the amateur extra exam and you are then an extra class amateur.  But, unless you do the code, you will never get past technician no matter how many written tests you take.

As always, VE's will assemble at 6:00 to coordinate and prepare for the crush. 

The remaining date for SOARC-sponsored ARRL VE license exams for 2002 is November 29th.  Walk-ins are welcome.

Come by and test your code speed.  SOARC still offers code speed certification tests rewarded by a very attractive certificate to attest to your Morse prowess.

73, Bill Tyner, WX7U

VE Liaison

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Field Day Expanding Territory

For the first time in its 69-year history, Field Day officially will expand its scope beyond the borders of the US and Canada to include participation by amateurs in all of North and South America--including the Caribbean. Field Day takes place this year on the first weekend of summer--June 22-23 (Field Day is always the fourth full weekend in June). Following this year's event, clubs, groups and individuals taking part will be able to upload photos and comments to the ARRL Contest Soapbox Web site http://www.arrl.org/contests/soapbox/.

"We encourage interesting photographs that will give those visiting the site sense of the 'flavor' of a group's Field Day participation," said ARRL Contest Branch Manager Dan Henderson, N1ND. Henderson says he gets "hundreds of photographs" for possible use in QST, which typically has room for about a dozen. "The Online Soapbox gives groups the chance to display their best efforts for FD," he said.

The Field Day Soapbox area will open Sunday, June 23, at 2100 UTC. Anyone may post stories and photos, but these will be screened before posting.

Groups and individuals still are expected to submit Field Day reports--summary sheets, dupe sheets, proofs of bonus, etc--for the annual QST Field Day report. "Also, we still encourage groups to include their best photographs for consideration for QST," Henderson added. The complete--and official--rules for Field Day 2002 are available on the ARRL Website and in the May issue of QST (page 108).

Field Day has a long tradition as an emergency preparedness exercise, operating equipment "in the field" using power sources other than the commercial mains. As ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ, pointed out in his "It Seems to Us . . ." editorial http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2002/05/01/2/ in June 2002 QST, Field Day also presents an ideal opportunity to showcase Amateur Radio to the general public and to local officials and to convey an important message in the process.

While contacts with amateurs around the world always have counted for credit, this year's event will mark the first formal participation by stations outside the US and Canada. Another significant change this year is the new "Get on the Air" or GOTA station, which replaces the Novice station at Field Day setups. The idea is to give Novice and Technician licensees as well as generally inactive amateurs of any class and even unlicensed individuals a chance to participate--under the supervision of a licensed control operator.

One persistent question Henderson says he's been getting concerns how the Field Day rules define a "generally inactive" licensee in terms of GOTA operation. "We do not want to get into hair-splitting or micromanaging a definition of that term," Henderson said. Instead, he points to the frequently asked questions information in the Field Day packet, which says, "Clubs should use their judgment in determining the operators of the GOTA station."

Examples in the Field Day packet include operators who have never been on HF or who have been off the air for the past couple of years. Any single GOTA operator is limited to a maximum of 100 contacts of the 400-contact for-credit contact total.

(from The ARRL Letter)

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Out-of-the-ordinary Interference Case Resolved

In what FCC Special Counsel for Enforcement Riley Hollingsworth called "a textbook example" of FCC-ARRL cooperation, a case of strange interference involving a power company and an AM broadcast station has been substantially resolved. As a result of their follow-up investigation, six Cincinnati-area amateurs were awarded the ARRL Certificate of Merit.

In January, the FCC wrote Cincinnati AM radio station WLW and Cinergy Corp--the electric utility serving the region--to help resolve the unusual and longstanding interference situation that was affecting local amateurs. Apparently spurious signals associated with WLW transmissions had been monitored over a wide area and frequency range and were severely affecting some amateur bands. The investigation focused on utility towers carrying 345-kV lines in the vicinity of the WLW broadcast tower. Jay Adrick, K8CJY--a member of the amateur team involved in tracking down the problem and one of those honored--explained at the Dayton ARRL Forum earlier this month that the primary problem seemed to stem from so-called static lines on the towers, which do not carry electrical power. The static lines, he pointed out, were not sufficiently RF-bonded to the tower structure. "They're actually loose-fitted," he said. "At 60 Hz, it's a reasonable ground." But at RF, it acted as a non-linear junction, and the static wires acted as a huge antenna. The result was something that sounded a bit like a spark gap modulated by WLW's audio on several amateur bands.

Success did not come easily, and mop-up operations continue. Hollingsworth called the situation "a history-making RF interference case" that generated more investigative analysis than any other case in his years with the FCC.

Ohio ARRL Section Manager Joe Phillips, K8QOE, said the local amateurs brought the matter to the FCC's attention after working with WLW and Cinergy for almost two years to pin down the cause of the spurious signals.

(from The ARRL Letter)

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