Last month we had a presentation by Paul Pond, N7ONI, and Bob Dornan, WA2EKU on Spectrum analyzers. Bob started the presentation with an overview on spectrum analyzers that was very informative. Paul brought along his Cushman and HP analyzers and put up a splendid presentation complete with video projector. The video projector was a big plus since we could all see very well what was happening on the specan screen.

Thank you very much to Bob and Paul.

Two months ago we were supposed to visit the Deep Space Exploration Society. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and we had to call it off. Fortunately I was able to set the meeting up again and that is where we will be going this month. We will leave the club as a group at 6:50 pm and travel down Nelson to be at the gate at 7:00 pm. If you are late or lose us, we will be using the LARC repeater for talk-in from 6:30 onwards. The DSES needs a list of everybody that will be attending, so please let me know if you are going to attend. I can be reached by e-mail at mailto:[email protected] or in the usual ways. I am usually on the repeater mornings between 8 and 8:30 and evenings between 5:15 and 6 pm.

If you want to know more about the DSES visit their web sites at: http://www.dimensional.com/~rcraig/dses/dses-home.html or http://www.cs.colorado.edu/homes/batman/public_html/meyertr/dses.html

C y'all at the meeting.

73

Earle Cate and the LARC V.E. Team Will be conducting Licensing Exams this month on July 22nd at 10:00 A.M.

sharp. Examinees will need to bring a Photo I.D. as well

as the original and a copy of your License and/or any C.S.C.E. that hasn�t been acted upon by the F.C.C. Please see the article by Earle further on in this Splatter.

- 100 Hz CTCSS tone on repeater

LARC�s General Meeting will be Wednesday, July 19^th at 7:00 P.M. Don�t miss it!

All club members are invited to attend.

Please remember to renew CLUB DUES. A NEW POLICY HAS BEEN ENACTED THAT ALLOWS YOU TO PAY DUES AT ANY TIME OF THE YEAR, THEY WILL NO LONGER BE PRORATED BACK TO OCTOBER.

Solder Sniffers will not be convening during July. Those who still need to finish up the keyer project should contact Bob Dornan and see to arrangements for finishing their projects.

We are holding the annual club picnic at Thompson park in Longmont at the

north shelter on August 16 Wednesday at 5:30 PM. Soft drinks will be

provided but we would like each of the members to bring a salad, desert

or main course for themselves and a couple of others.

73, Rod

Please update your records to reflect our new postal mailing address:

NEW

Northern Colorado Amateur Radio Club

PO Box 272956

Fort Collins, CO 80527-2956

OLD

Northern Colorado Amateur Radio Club

PO Box 3258

Greeley, CO 80633-0258

The Longmont V.E. team conducted its session on Saturday, June 24, 2000. We had 7 applicants. Two applied for and were granted preexisting certifications for upgrades without testing. One testee achieved Extra Class, one tested for and achieved General Class and three new licensees successfully tested for their initial Technician Class license. One of the applicants is an on-air DJ for KYGO (FM 98.5), Tad Svendsen. He attained his first license at this session and m ay comment about his amateur radio enjoyment on air, after he is granted a license. If you listen to that station give him a call and congratuate him. If you hear or know these people, give them your congratulations; Thomas Ruwitch of Lafayette and Anth ony Foiani of Ft. Collins both achieved Technician license certificates. Michael Poteet, KB0STK, of Longmont achieved General Class.

Our next session will be at 10:00 AM July 22, 2000 at the Boulder County Fairgrounds Office.

Are you waiting for an upgrade of your license. Your not alone. I know that your anxious. The ARRL/VEC group processes new licenses first and then gets to the upgrades as time allows. Since Jan. 1, 2000 the demand for upgrades has been 10 times gre ater than the past so getting to the stacks of mail is taking more time (3 to 6 weeks), then because upgrades will not receive any band use advantage (you already have the privileges) those seeking their first license are processed first. The VEC office at ARRL hired three additional staff and has an additional 4 volunteers helping to work through the stacks of upgrade paperwork. Recently, they were three weeks behind in opening the receive mail packets from testing sessions around the world. We hope y ou will be patient. The FCC did not increase their staff any to accomodate the work load so processing goes slowly there. If you would like the most up to date license information use the internet and go to http://www.fcc.gov/wtb/uls and click on the "L icense Search" tab.

If you have a technician license that was first issued prior to March 21, 1987, you are eligible for an automatic upgrade, without any testing, to General Class. Bring your originally issued Technician license and a copy of it along with an original o f you current license and a copy of it to a test session. We will fill out the paperwork and certify your upgrade, on the spot.

Are you interested in doing more to help hams get licensed? I have been the contact V.E. for this area for many years and enjoy the experience. Fortunately, my business is demanding much more time than it used to and I need to find someone else to t ake over the Contact V.E. postition. You must be a General Class or higher licensee. The job takes about 3 or 4 days attention per month, spending a combined total of about 8 to 12 hours per month. Most of the other examiners are willing to serve as su bstitute Contact VE's and know how to complete the paperwork, so you�re not committed to the task every month. If interested, let me or any of the club officers know.

73,

Earle Cate N0ISB

Denver Radio Club Swapfest

August 20, 2000

Jefferson County Fairgrounds

Golden, CO

Ron K0HRT 303 989-3978

MARC Camp/Swap Fest

August 26-27, 2000

Lake George Community Park

Lake George, Co

Wes K0HBZ 719-687-8758

BARC Fest

Sunday September 24,2000

Boulder county Fairgrounds

Longmont, CO

RMRL Hamfest

November 11, 2000

Jefferson County Fairgrounds

Golden, CO

As more information becomes available, I will post the information here in the Splatter. This is all the information I have available right now, if you are aware of any that I have missed, Please let me know and I�ll add it to the list .

Subject: Packet Radio and Ham Radio only a hobby...

Hi Guys,

I'm usually a lurker, but the latest conversations about ham radio's

hobby status and packet radio prompted me to write this.

As some of you know, I moved to San Jose a year ago from Bloomington

Indiana. You may not know that Bloomington (really Southern Indiana) has

a very high number of limestone caves. Some of these caves are quite

extensive with up to 20 miles of mapped passage.

Now we had two things in Bloomington that made the caves in the area an

issue. Students at Indiana University, and Beer. As a result of these

three factors (students, caves, and beer). There were quite a few cave

rescues in Bloomington.

I was a Team Leader for the local volunteer cave rescue organization.

Every member of the team was required to get his/her Ham ticket to

participate in the group. We used Ham radios for all aspects of rescue

operations. A typical situation would happen as follows:

Someone would get hurt in a cave, and another member of their party

would call 911. The emergency dispatcher would page the Cave Rescue Team

Leads, and we would grab our gear and start driving to the cave. On our

way we would coordinate the volunteers running the phone tree, and other

responders via the Bloomington Repeater.

Once we arrived at the rescue site, one of us would set up a mobile as a

duel band repeater (because caves are almost always at the bottom of

sinkholes, and we would drop out of contact with the repeater). We would

use a separate 440 channel for local conversation, and another for

passing traffic through the mobile repeater to the Bloomington repeater.

For long rescues we would string W.W.II field phones into the cave, and

up to the patient. These field phones would be connected to the radio

network through a home grown patch. Now we had radio communications

miles into the cave. Finally, we would use the auto patch on the

Bloomington repeater to allow the Doctors in the emergency room, to

communicate with the medic who was at the patients side. Since the

typical rescue of a patient with an injury could take hours, this

communication between the Doctors and the on-site medic was extremely

important.

Also, the weather in Bloomington is extremely hard to predict. There is

an old saying in Indiana, "if you don't like the weather wait a few

minutes and it will change". The caves in the area flood regularly with

just a small amount of rain, so we would have other Hams on-site using

the local packet radio network to keep an eye on current weather

conditions and radar.

Finally, just as I was leaving we were starting to implement an APRS

system, to help coordinate the whole thing.

So, I would say that Ham radio is a hobby, but there are places that

still use it regularly for emergency communications. It is interesting

to point out that all of this happened with a bunch of no-code techs.

I've heard quite a few old-time ham operators tell me that there was no

innovation in radio since the no-coders came around. I would argue

though that we put together a pretty innovative system. It surpassed the

communications system of the local authorities in some ways, and helped

to save many lives over the years.

Anyway, have a good day everyone.

Allen