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Issue 115 — DECEMBER 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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President's Corner

Ho, Ho, Ho...it is time to see what Santa brought.
Hope you all can come to the Chistmas dinner next Tuesday night.  I look forward to seeing you all.

Happy Holidays from all of us at SOARC!

CUL, Jim, WA6OTP

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Welcome From Your Editor

No matter how much time I try to allow to do this newsletter, nearly every month something comes up to delay the completion of it. About 30 minutes ago I heard a strange noise and went into the bathroom adjacent to my home office where I heard the unmistakeable sound of running water. I rushed outside and looked underneath the house to find a broken water line just below my hot water heater. During the past week, mice have gotten underneath my house and eaten four holes in the water lines. The water was coming from one of the repairs that failed. My handyman said he couldn't find the parts to make a more permanent repair, so we agreed we needed a bonafide plumber. I called a fellow I knew who would know reliable repair people and he recommended Shamrock Plumbing. I called, they came within an hour, and repaired the leak within 15 minutes. I was really impressed with their professionalism. Anyway, we'll see what D-con and glue traps can do to decimate the rodent population under my home.

Don't forget the Christmas potluck/gift exchange at 6:00 next Tuesday at the Redwood Grange on Redwood Avenue in Grants Pass. Bring your food dish and place settings and $5.00 gifts for each person in your party.

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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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.

Our next luncheon will be at 11:30 on January 4^th at Rupert?s Restaurant, 314 SE H Street, Grants Pass.

73, Wilma, W1LMA, and Anita, KC7MGH

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For Sale

Butternut HF-6V vertical antenna with 160-meter coil. $90.00. Jan Moller, K6FM, 474-5031.

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2002 SOARC Officers and Board

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Coming Attractions

This month is our annual Christmas potluck and gift exchange. All area hams are invited to come and bring a guest. We will have a ham and a turkey and each party coming should bring a food dish of some kind. Also, bring a table setting and a $5.00 gift for each person in your party. There will be lots of food and fun for all! It all happens this Tuesday at 6:00 at the Redwood Grange, Redwood Avenue, Grants Pass.

Next month will be our election of officers and directors for the coming year. How would you like to serve your club?

73, Bill Tyner, WX7U

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2003 VE Test Dates

SOARC-sponsored ARRL VE license exam dates for 2003 have been set and are as follows: January 31, May 30, September 26, and November 28.

Testing will be conducted at the Senior Center, 4th and C Streets (our regular meeting place), at 1830 hours.  VE's please be there at 1800 sharp to help eat the cookies that we buy for the examinees.

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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Gleanings From The ARRL Letter

FIRST AMATEUR TRANSATLANTIC HF DIGITAL VOICE QSO REPORTED

Radio communication pioneers Ten-Tec and Thales have announced that they've used an Amateur Radio linkup to span the Atlantic on HF digital voice for the first time. Ten-Tec's Doug Smith, KF6DX, and Thales' Didier Chulot, F5MJN, successfully transmitted and received HF digital speech signals November 22 between Paris, France, and Ten-Tec's Sevierville, Tennessee, headquarters.

"We view this as a significant accomplishment," said Smith. "Amateur Radio has long been at the forefront of technological development. It's nice to be able to show that our legacy is alive and well." Tests are being conducted under the auspices of ARRL's Digital Voice Working Group, which Smith chairs. A written report on the tests is due in January.

Calling it "a major breakthrough," a Ten-Tec news release said the two amateur stations "demonstrated the advantages of digital audio during the conversation, including noise-free, FM-like reception and the potential for simultaneous voice and data." The feat was accomplished on 15 meters using Ten-Tec transceivers and Thales Communications Skywave 2000 digital audio software. Operating as F8KGG, Chulot spoke with Smith for several minutes over the HF digital link, operating within a 3-kHz bandwidth.

Smith said he and F5MJN used unmodified Ten-Tec transceivers in upper-sideband mode, although AM or FM mode also would work. No additional hardware was required beyond the cables connecting the transceiver and the microphone to the PC sound card. Smith said audio quality was roughly the same as a conventional telephone circuit. An Amateur Radio version of the Thales system is expected to appear on the market early next year.

"At this stage, the system is experimental-only for ham radio, but it looks like it's going to take off," Smith predicted.

In terms of Amateur Radio, Alinco was the first manufacturer to come out with a digital voice option for some of its transceivers. ICOM debuted its D-Star digital "concept radio" system last May at the Dayton Hamvention--where Smith chaired the Digital Voice Forum--and demonstrated it at the ARRL-TAPR Digital Communications Conference in September. The unit, which operates on 1.2 GHz, was scheduled to hit the ham radio market this fall.

ALL-HAM, ALL-MALE CREW SETTLES IN ONBOARD INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

With last week's departure of the space shuttle Endeavour from the International Space Station, one all-ham crew has replaced another onboard the ISS. This time around, however, no female voices will grace the amateur airwaves between the space outpost and Earth. The new crew is entirely male. The crew change also marks the first time since Expedition 3 that a US astronaut will serve as crew commander.

The Expedition 6 crew--Commander Ken Bowersox, KD5JBP; Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin, RV3FB, and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit, KD5MDT--lifted off November 23 on its four-month scientific mission. The team replaces the all-amateur Expedition 5 crew of Commander Valery Korzun, RK3FZ; Sergei Treschev, RK3FU, and Peggy Whitson, KC5ZTD. The Expedition 6 team is the third all-ham crew to serve aboard the ISS.

In space since June 5, Whitson, Korzun and Treschev ended up staying in space a bit longer than they'd expected. The launch of the Endeavour and the new ISS crew was delayed--first by an onboard oxygen leak and later by weather problems in possible emergency landing zones. Subsequently, inclement weather on Earth frustrated the Endeavour's efforts to return home. By week's end it appeared they might not be back home until December 6 or 7. The shuttle launch was the last one for the year 2002. In addition to the replacement crew, it also carried a truss segment for the ISS.

The next scheduled Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school contact is December 16 with students at Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum in Chicago. A light ARISS school contact schedule is planned over the next three weeks or so, however, as the crew settles in and takes care of initial duties, including a spacewalk this month by Bowersox and Budarin.

ARISS http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov/ is an international project with US participation by NASA, ARRL and AMSAT.

NORTH KOREA ASKS P5/4L4FN TO QRT

The only Amateur Radio station active from North Korea has been ordered off the air. Ed Giorgadze, 4L4FN, had been operating for the past year as P5/4L4FN from Pyongyang. The ARRL subsequently accredited SSB and RTTY operation of P5/4L4FN for DXCC.

"This really hits the ham community hard," QSL manager Bruce Paige, KK5DO, said in a news release. "I, for one, was looking forward to a satellite contact on AO-40. I know that many of you were still awaiting your first QSO."

Paige said that on Friday, November 22, Giorgadze was called into a meeting with the "Radio Regulation Board" was politely asked to quit all transmissions and pack all his radio equipment. "Saturday, he spent all day on the roof disassembling his antennas and packing boxes." Paige said North Korean government officials later came by and sealed all of the boxes. When Giorgadze leaves North Korea on December 10 for two weeks of vacation, "he is to take everything with him out of the country," Paige indicated.

Giorgadze had tried for more than two years to obtain permission to operate Amateur Radio in North Korea and finally was given the okay in 2001 to bring an ICOM IC-706MkIIG into the country. In the intervening months, he's been slowly upgrading his antenna system. He's made more than 16,000 contacts during his stint in North Korea, and earlier this year attained the first DXCC ever from that country.

Paige said the P5/4L4FN logs should be 100% complete on his Web site http://www.amsatnet.com/ (click on "P5 North Korea").

Giorgadze, who's from of the Republic of Georgia, had been operating on the basis of oral permission from North Korean authorities, but ARRL Membership Services Manager Wayne Mills, N7NG, said the League was satisfied on the basis of written information submitted that the P5/4L4FN operation conformed with DXCC rules and cards would continue be accepted for credit.

NEW TECHNICIAN CLASS QUESTION POOL RELEASED

The Question Pool Committee (QPC) of the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators has released a revised and expanded Amateur Technician class (Element 2) question pool into the public domain. The new question pool becomes effective July 1, 2003, and must be used to generate all Technician written examinations administered on or after that date.

"The newly revised pool released this week by the QPC includes significant efforts to present the pool in a more friendly and understandable fashion for beginners while maintaining appropriate emphasis on safety, rules and operating procedures," said ARRL VEC Manager Bart Jahnke, W9JJ.

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