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Issue 112 — SEPTEMBER 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

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September chill is here...club picnic here and gone...now it's time to get ready for winter ham radio activities...CW  practice...kit building...license upgrading...come to club.

Don't forget the food drive for the Crop Walk. All of your non-perishable food donations need to be turned in at the club meeting next week. As we announced, if you wish to make a monetary donation, we will go shopping for you. By making donations of food only, all of it stays in the local area. If we donate money directly to the Crop Walk, only part of it stays here to help local people.

Don't forget to bring a friend to the meeting.

CUL, Jim, WA6OTP  

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Welcome From Your Editor

Great picnic, as usual! Sunny skies and lots of food! Our next big social event will be the Christmas potluck and gift exchange in December. Santa's already practicing his one-liners.

We've just observed the one-year anniversary of 9-11. I hope you all have been able to heal. With a background in law enforcement, most of my friends were police officers, firemen, and emergency services personnel. I felt personally attacked and as though I had lost members of my own family. The wonderful stories of rescue, escape, heroism, and survival really pulled me through.

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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2002 SOARC Officers and Board

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NEXT CLUB MEETING
TUESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER
1900
SENIOR CENTER
3^RD & B STREETS
GRANTS PASS

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Cliff Murray, an organizer for the local Crop Walk, will discuss the event.  Remember to bring your non-perishable food items to the meeting.  The contributed stores will be used to bolster the local food banks.

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.

There will not be a luncheon in September because of the SOARC Picnic. Details of the October luncheon will be announced at a later date on the net and in the Gnus.

73, Wilma, W1LMA, and Anita, KC7MGH

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2002 VE Exams

The last SOARC-sponsored ARRL license exams of the year will be held  November 29th at the Senior Center, 4th and C Streets, at 1830 hours.  VE's please be there at 1800 sharp to help eat the cookies that we buy for the examinees.

This will make two years that the new group has been administering tests.  While I haven't kept a running count, one of these days I will go back through and count the "retained copies" to see how many folks we have served.  For now though, I estimate that we have licensed about 125.

Don't forget--we will need a copy of your driver's 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 April 1987.  It's surprising what will pass for proof nowadays. 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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Oregon Section Cabinet Openings

1. Official Observer Coordinator
2. Public Information Coordinator
3. Technical Coordinator
4. Assistant Section Manager (administrative & specialty)

If you or someone you know is interested in one of these positions, check the responsibilities and duties on the ARRL web site. Then send an e-mail containing your interest in a specific position and your qualifications.  Deadline for submissions will be 9/21/02. Submit to: kk7cw@arrl.org.

Assistant Section Manager positions include administrative positions and positions including specialty areas (e.g. - digital development, training, inter-jurisdictional relations, section convention, etc.).

Appointments to these positions will be made by October 15, 2002.

I look forward to your response and working with you to make the American Radio Relay League Oregon Section the best ever.

73, Marshall Johnson, Sr. - KK7CW  Oregon SM

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Start Your Christmas Shopping

Christmas is coming, but here is something you can do before the traditional giving overcomes you and you make some donations to local charities. 

There are lots of food items as well as toys and childrens' clothing collected and given out.  The following is a list of what I have found is usually missing at food banks (like FISH) but are nevertheless greatly appreciated  "basic necessities".  What have I forgotten that you have added to past donations?

I know, heavy on the soap and hygiene -- but these are things that are left out when food is the issue.  These items are meaningful in terms of maintaining self respect.   You know, if you put a Christmas postage stamp on each of those envelopes then put them back in the stationary or Christmas card box they would probably be used.  Who knows what might come of a letter or card finally being sent?  Imagine!

73, Bill, WX7U

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Do You Seti At Home?

"Wired News" reports that Seti@Home--a project that many hams are deeply involved in--has clocked half-a-million years in computer time searching for ET on home personal computers.

The project harnesses the spare computing cycles of millions of individually-owned personal computers worldwide to search for telltale signs of intelligent life in radio signals beamed from outer space.

For the uninitiated, SETI stands for Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.

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Childhood Memories

Were you a kid in the fifties or so? Everybody makes fun of our childhood! Comedians joke. Grandkids snicker. Twenty-something's shudder and say "Eeeew!" But was our childhood really all that bad? Judge for yourself:

In 1953, the US population was less than 150 million, yet you knew more people then, and knew them better. And that was good.

The average annual salary was under $3,000, yet our parents could put some of it away for a rainy day and still live a decent life. And that was good.

A loaf of bread cost about 15 cents and it was safe for a five-year-old to skate to the store and buy one. And that was good.

Primetime meant I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Gunsmoke, and Lassie. Nobody ever heard of ratings or filters. And that was good.

We didn't have air-conditioning, so the windows stayed up and half a dozen mothers ran outside when you fell off your bike. And that was good.

Your teacher was Miss Matthews or Mrs. Logan or Mr. Adkins, but not Ms. Becky or Mr. Dan. And that was good.

The only hazardous material you knew about was a patch of grassburrs around the light pole at the corner. And that was good.

You loved to climb into a fresh bed because sheets were dried on the clothesline. And that was good.

People generally lived in the same hometown with their relatives so "child care" meant grandparents or aunts and uncles. And that was good.

Parents were respected and their rules were law. Children did not talk back. And that was good.

TV was in black-and-white, but all outdoors was in glorious color. And that was certainly good.

Your dad knew how to adjust everybody's carburetor, and the dad next door knew how to adjust all the TV knobs. And that was very good.

Your grandma grew snap beans in the back yard and chickens behind the garage. And that was definitely good.

And, just when you were about to do something really bad, chances were you'd run into your dad's old high school coach, or the nosy old lady from up the street, or your little sister's piano teacher, or somebody from church--ALL of whom knew your parents' phone number and your first name. And even THAT was good!

Can you still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Sky King, Little Lulu comics, Brenda Starr, Howdy Doody & The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy & Dale, and Trigger & Buttermilk.

The sound of a reel mower on Saturday morning. Summers filled with bike rides, playing in cowboy land, playing hide & seek, kick-the-can and Simon Says. Baseball games, amateur shows at the local theater before the Saturday matinee, bowling, and visits to the pool. Eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar, wax lips and bubblegum cigars.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that!" And was it really that long ago?

(via e-mail from KB7FCI -- thanks Gary.)

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Football Freqs

According to Fred Maia's "W5YI Report", one of the most concentrated RF environments on any given NFL Sunday can be a National Football League stadium. It appears as if everyone from coaches to players to officials to television crews is using wireless devices.

Now, so as to keep the various users of RF gear from bothering one another, the NFL is providing official frequency coordinators at each stadium during the regular season.

And you thought is was hard getting a channel pair for your new repeater!

It has been surmised that one of the reasons for the failure of the XFL was spectrum suitors had to wrestle for HTs at midfield in order to get their first choice of frequency.

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