Radio club meeting is here! Yes, another month of our lives has slipped into the past.  The place where radio waves still travel in present time and we can only wonder.  You and I are here and now, the real time we are, at any time.  So, for what you might do or what you might be or what you were, does not matter.  You need to be here now, at the meeting, and have fun!

CUL, Jim, WA6OTP

Another year well on the way! Another year to pay dues! Dues are due by the end of this month to remain on the active club roster.

When you complete your spring cleaning, submit a list of items you would like to sell/trade/give away to the Gnus. Our ads bring results!

There are lots of non-member ham license plates around town. Let’s invite these folks to a meeting! I still can’t get over the fact that there are over 500 licensed hams in the area and only about 40-50 come to a club meeting. Are we not getting the word out or are a vast majority of hams just anti-social? Food for thought.

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

73, Mike, N7GEI

Western Belles is a women’s ham radio chat group that meets at 7:30 PM on the 1st and 3rd 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 Saturday, April 3rd, at Si Casa Flores Mexican Restaurant, 202 NE Beacon Dr., across the Parkway from the Grants Pass Shopping Center.

The SOARC VE test sessions this year will be held on March 26th, July 30th, and November 26th.

The exams are conducted at 1830 on the last Friday of the month in the Senior Center cafeteria (our regular meeting place). Volunteer examiners should be there at 1800.

The exam costs $12.00 and is available to all, first come, first served, with no reservation necessary.

73, Bill Tyner, WX7U, VE Liaison

WEST VIRGINIA HAMS SURPRISE GOVERNOR

It's not often one sees a state governor at a loss for words. Upon learning that the call sign of his late father, Robert Wise Sr, WA8AYP, was going to be used by the ham radio station in the new Kanawha County Metro Emergency Operations Center in Charleston, West Virginia, Gov Bob Wise quietly said, "I don't know quite what to say."

In a February 17 ceremony, Gov Wise prepared to present a $50,000 check to Kanawha County officials to purchase Amateur Radio gear for the new EOC--set for completion next spring. However, he was interrupted by a voice calling him on the ham radio set up in his office for the event.

Control operator Bill Hunter, K8BS, identified the station as WA8AYP. When he handed over the mike, the surprised governor responded, "This is the son of WA8AYP."

It was then that Gov Wise learned that the call sign of his father, who died in 1986, had been secured for the ham station at the new EOC. It was an emotional moment. "Thank you very much for remembering Dad," he said.

"I can't think of anything that would make him happier." Then he quipped, "Do I get a QSL card for this?"

To the governor's surprise, officials then unveiled a specially designed WA8AYP QSL card and passed out copies, later signed by the governor for the eager hams in attendance.

Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper, W8CHS, said Amateur Radio operators provide the county with $25,000 to $30,000 a year in free services during disasters.

Some of the state funds also will provide ham gear for a new Mobile Command Center.

HAMVENTION PLANS, PREP UNDERWAY

Hamvention http://www.hamvention.org General Chairman Gary Des Combes, N8EMO, reports all is going smoothly as the 2004 show approaches. Hamvention will take place Friday through Sunday, May 14-16, at Hara Arena in Trotwood, near Dayton, Ohio. The theme for the 53rd Hamvention is "The Year of the Contact."

ALVINO REY, SK

Musical pioneer Alvino Rey, W6UK, SK: Alvino Rey, W6UK, of Sandy, Utah, died February 24. He was 95 and had been in failing health. An ARRL member, Rey was a well-known musician for several decades and was considered "the father of the pedal steel guitar."

Born Alvin McBurney in California and raised in Cleveland, Rey was an inveterate tinkerer who gained a reputation both as a musician and an electronics whiz who got his ham ticket at an early age. During the Big Band era he was a star of the Horace Heidt and his Musical Knights and later formed his own ensemble. The Alvino Rey Orchestra's biggest hit, "Deep in the Heart of Texas," came in 1942, but his trademark was novelty music and creating new sounds. At one point during World War II, however, he found himself out of the music business and working as a mechanic in an aircraft factory. He subsequently joined the US Navy and led a service band. Rey and his orchestra were featured during the 1960s' "The King Family Show" on TV, and he was married to Luise King, who died in 1997. An active amateur, Rey and his "talking guitar" performed at more than one ARRL Southwestern Division convention in past decades. "He was great and a lot of fun as well as a long-time League member," recalled ARRL Honorary Vice President and former Southwestern Division Director Fried Heyn, WA6WZO, who also remembers hearing Rey talking to his friends on HF.

FCC KEEPS UP PRESSURE ON ALLEGED UNLICENSED 10-METER OPERATIONS

The FCC is continuing efforts to stem alleged unlicensed operation--primarily by long-haul truckers--on the 10-meter amateur band. Enforcement Bureau Special Counsel Riley Hollingsworth, this month wrote FedEx Corporation CEO Frederick W. Smith enclosing a complaint asserting that some FedEx drivers have used "Amateur Radio transmitters to communicate on the 10-meter Amateur Radio band without a license," Hollingsworth said. The complaint focused on alleged operations in Tennessee.

"Many truckers use CB radio, which does not require a license," Hollingsworth told Smith. "However, any person using a radio transmitter on Amateur Radio frequencies must possess both a station and operator license, for which an examination is required." He pointed out that some truckers have been known to use uncertificated dual-purpose CB radios that also can transmit on 10 meters. CB gear must be FCC certificated, formerly known as type acceptance, but ham radio gear does not need to be. So-called dual-use ham/CB transceivers may not be sold or marketed under FCC rules.

Two additional trucking firms this month were the target of FCC warning notices involving complaints of unlicensed operation on 10 meters.

Hollingsworth wrote Carl Leonard Ross of CLR Transport in Saluda, North Carolina, citing allegations that a CLR Transport vehicle traveling on I-85 in North Carolina "was the source of unlicensed radio transmissions on the 10-meter Amateur Radio band on July 14, 2003."

Cassidy's Express of Bristol, Pennsylvania, heard from the FCC regarding reports that one of its vehicles was the source of unlicensed radio transmissions while under way in Pennsylvania last October 9.

Hollingsworth asked Smith to advise FedEx drivers that such operation of radio transmitting equipment without a license is a violation of federal law and could subject violators to stiff fines and even jail time as well as seizure of equipment. Pointing out the same penalties for violators, Hollingsworth asked the other two trucking firms to contact him to discuss the allegations.

Earlier this year, the FCC sent warning notices to two shipping companies in the wake of reports to the Commission that some of the companies' vehicles may have been illegally transmitting on 10 meters. At least one of the companies, UPS, offered its full cooperation and promised to investigate.

LAST YEAR'S YOUNGEST GENERAL NOW THIS YEAR'S YOUNGEST EXTRA

An Oregon girl considered a year ago as the youngest General class licensee in the US now may be the country's youngest Amateur Extra ticket holder. Seven-year-old Mattie Clauson, AD7BL (ex-KD7TYN and ex-KD7SDF), of Roseburg passed her Extra examination January 14 during a Valley Amateur Radio Club http://www.valleyradioclub.org/home.htm ARRL-VEC volunteer examination session in Eugene. The FCC granted her new ticket and Extra-appropriate call sign on January 20.

"I DID IT! I DID IT! I DID IT! I PASSED MY EXTRA CLASS EXAM!!!!! YIPPEEE!!!" Mattie exclaimed loudly on the QRZ.com website. She also announced her accomplishment in a message routed via the RS0ISS packet system on the International Space Station. "Looks like a future astronaut to me," Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Chairman Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, remarked after learning of the post.

Mattie says she'd at least like to talk with one of the ISS astronauts some day. She's also a member of the ISS FanClub http://www.issfanclub.com/ and enjoys digipeating through RS0ISS.

Mattie's proud papa, Tim Clauson, AC7SP, says his daughter missed only four of the questions on the Element 4 test, which Mattie described as "really, really hard!" Whether she is the youngest Extra in the US is difficult to determine since the FCC no longer makes date-of-birth information public.

Several of the very youngest amateur operators in the US have been female. In 1948, Jane Bieberman, W3OVV (now Jane De Nuzzo and still holding the same call sign), made the December cover of QST for getting her General ticket when she was just barely 10 years old. Rebecca Rich, KB0VVT--a very active amateur--got her Extra ticket in 1997 at age 8. The parents of both girls were amateur licensees.

Mattie's own ham radio heritage also may have been a big plus. Her late greatgrandfather, S.A. "Sam" Sullivan, was W6WXU; his daughter, Joan Brady--Mattie's grandmother--now holds his former call sign. That makes her a fourth-generation ham. Mattie concedes that she would not have made it to Extra without a lot of study help and guidance from her parents (her mom, Charlotte, is AC7XM) and practice examinations on the QRZ.com website http://www.qrz.com/p/testing.pl. The Clausons all are ARRL members.

Mattie says she continues to enjoy working HF SSB, especially DX. In addition to various HF nets, she also regularly checks into the Douglas County Amateur Radio Emergency Service Net as a visitor. Aside from ham radio, her dad says, Mattie--who is home schooled with two younger sisters--is "a regular kid who likes riding her bike, playing with her sisters and friends and flying her toy airplanes. She even likes to play in the mud."

Mattie hopes to be sporting a new vanity call sign soon. Her father says she's applied for AE7MC--Amateur Extra 7 (year-old) Mattie Clauson, her dad explained.

An Irishman who had a little too much to drink is driving home from the city one night and, of course, his car is weaving violently all over the road.

A cop pulls him over. "So," says the cop to the driver, "where have ya been?"

"Why, I've been to the pub of course," slurs the drunk.

"Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few to drink this evening."

"I did all right," the drunk says with a smile.

"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms across his chest, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?"

"Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf."

A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional booth, sits down but says nothing. The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention but the drunk just sits there. Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall. The drunk mumbles, "ain't no use knockin, there's no paper on this side either."

Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears.

He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?"

She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. My husband passed away last night."

The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, Mary, did he have any last requests?"

She says, "That he did, Father.

"The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?"

She says, "He said, 'Please Mary, put down that gun...'"