GNARC On Line Bulletin

September 2003               Founded in 1934                  Issue Number Nine

               Breaking News & updates www.qsl.net/w1ee/breaking   

Send your dues to: Bill Hart, KC1TX ~ 280 Main Street ~ Westport, Ct. 06880

You can view the photos of the event: www.qsl.net/w1ee/2003tailgate.htm 

Past Archives: www.qsl.net/w1ee/arct.htm 

Bulletin Sound Files.

I record each meeting to help me write this bulletin each month.
I had a idea to record certain parts of the gnarc meeting on a web page so members not attending the meeting could hear the audio. I have had only some success. Unfortunately I need a much faster connection and would need a volunteer with this knowledge to publish these sound files on a web page each month. I would like to discuss this idea with the members at the September meeting.

Emergency Power

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Let me first be clear: I speak for myself, alone, as an individual ham and ARES rank & file member. I do NOT speak for management of ARRL, ARES, or anybody else. I suspect they would agree with this, ---but that's for their own lips to speak.
Having said that...

I call upon ALL repeater owners to provide emergency power for their repeaters BEFORE October 1st of this year.

Obviously, some will be able to provide longer-duration standby power than others. Many engineering considerations---and cost considerations must be traded off. I'd suggest a minimum of 24 hours at full performance be a place to start.

A repeater is a franchise. Ham radio serves in the public interest, convenience, or necessity. If we are to have any hope of fighting off the Broadband Over Power line shark, we will need to be public service oriented as never before.

It's interesting to note, two of the smallest and most local of Area One's repeaters --Bethel, and peanut-whistle Ridgefield, were both uninterrupted during the entire event.
The Big Guns can't match that?

If you run a Big Gun wide-area coverage repeater, and that last statement offends you, ---good. Go out and buy a couple of car batteries and a charger to vent your anger.

I don't know about all the repeaters in Area One or in the state; I'm sure many provided excellent service, and were Ready when the hammer fell.

However, I'd like to extend my compliments and applause to the Greater Norwalk Amateur Radio Club for maintaining the Three-Nine machine on the air on emergency power. A large number of stations were present, active, involved, and Ready---and their machine was Able. Good job, guys... You're a model, and I hope an inspiration to others.

73,
W1WJB
________________________________________________________________

Amateur Radio Newsline™ is delivered primarily by automated telephone feeds from various locations nationwide. The tape is updated Friday evening in Los Angeles, with other lines usually updating within 24 hours. Please note that with the exception of the Los Angeles area lines, all other feed points are privately funded and sponsored. Some may incorporate the newscast into a program along with their own local or regional news. Also, please note that Amateur Radio Newsline™ does not directly sponsor any on-air operation. We have no transmitting facilities of our own on any band: HF or VHF / UHF. We are producer / distributors only.

The weekly Amateur Radio Newsline™ Amateur Radio bulletin is formatted and engineered primarily for distribution on VHF / UHF amateur repeaters and by FM simplex bulletin stations. Audio processing is specifically contoured for these delivery media, but the service can also be relayed with good results on HF SSB.
Amateur Radio Newsline™ bulletins conform to all sections and codes as outlined under the Part 97 Amateur Radio Service rules regarding the legal means of amateur radio operators issuing “QST’s” or “Bulletins of Interest to All Amateurs.”  We differ only in format and follow a more traditional radio “spot news” format.

Whenever possible, Amateur Radio Newsline™ stories include the voices of the newsmakers themselves so that you can more easily understand the effect that the story will have on all radio amateurs. If you have ever heard CBS Network Radio News or NBC News on the Hour then you will be familiar with the format utilized by Amateur Radio Newsline™, with the exception that the information we provide is strictly directed to radio amateurs. 

Amateur Radio Newsline™ can be heard every Sunday at 8:00 pm on the Stamford repeater. 146.655. PL-100Hz.  You are welcome to join the net.

Big Blackouts in U.S. History

The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965: After a relay failure, more than 80,000 square miles of the northeastern United States and parts of Canada lost power, turning the lights out on 30 million people.

The New York Blackout of 1977: One hot night in July, multiple lightning strikes knocked out power to the entire city of New York, leaving 8 million people without light or air conditioning. The blackout triggered mass looting and arson across much of the city.

The Northwestern Blackout of 1996: Transmission lines sagged into some trees, causing an electrical short that knocked out power to more than 4 million people in Oregon, California and other western states.

The Blackout of 2003: Cities across the Midwestern United States, northeastern United States and southern Canada lost power, apparently due to a problem with a series of transmission lines known as "The Lake Eerie Loop." Roughly 50 million people lost power.

The blackout on August 14th was the biggest in U.S. history. And just like every major blackout, it raised a lot of questions about how our power distribution system works.

At a high level, the power grid is a very simple thing. It consists of a set of large power plants (hydropower plants, nuclear power plants, etc.) all connected together by wires. One grid can be as big as half of the United States.
A grid works very well as a power distribution system because it allows a lot of sharing. If a power company needs to take a power plant or a transmission tower off line for maintenance, the other parts of the grid can pick up the slack.
The thing that is so amazing about the power grid is that it cannot store any power anywhere in the system. At any moment, you have millions of customers consuming megawatts of power. At that same moment you have dozens of power plants producing exactly the right amount of power to satisfy all of that demand. And you have all the transmission and distribution lines sending the power from the power plants to the consumers.
This system works great, and it can be highly reliable for years at a time. However, there can be times, particularly when there is high demand, that the interconnected nature of the grid makes the entire system vulnerable to collapse. Here's how that happens:
Let's say that the grid is running pretty close to its maximum capacity. Something causes a power plant to suddenly trip off line. The "something" might be anything from a serious lightning strike to a bearing failure and subsequent fire in a generator. When that plant disconnects from the grid, the other plants connected to it have to spin up to meet the demand. If they are all near their maximum capacity, then they cannot handle the extra load. To prevent themselves from overloading and failing, they will disconnect from the grid as well. That only makes the problem worse, and dozens of plants eventually disconnect. That leaves millions of people without power.
The same thing can happen if a big transmission line fails. In 1996 there was a major blackout in the western U.S. and Canada because the wires of a major transmission line sagged into some trees and shorted out. When that transmission line failed, all of its load shifted to neighboring transmission lines. They then overloaded and failed, and the overload cascaded through the grid.
In nearly every major blackout, the situation is the same. One piece of the system fails, then the pieces near it cannot handle the increased load caused by the failure, so they fail. The multiple failures make the problem worse and worse and a large area ends up in the dark.
One solution to the problem would be to build significant amounts of excess capacity -- extra power plants, extra transmission lines, etc. By having extra capacity, it would be able to pick up the load at the moment that something else failed. That approach would work, but it would increase our power bills. At this moment we have made the choice as a society to save the money and live with the risk of blackouts. Once we get tired of blackouts and the disruption they cause, we will make a different choice.

Message Board

55 Ft. Heavy Duty Crank Up Tower with tilt over base in very good cond. About 10 years old. $700.00 or best offer.  (Hygain/Telex) Phone, 203-353-8422. Leave message. John,WB1GRB. E-mail me: [email protected]  Or phone. Pictures: www.qsl.net/w1ee/tower 

Icom 706mkIIG, no box, in excellent condition, have all the small connectors it came with, asking 650$ or Best offer. 203 748 7143

SWAN ST2 ANTENNA TUNER w/built in meters. Max legal power, Very Clean, lightly used. Output: Balanced, single wire & Coax. $160. Call Jack, K1UL, (203) 322-6047

MFJ ANTENNA TUNER A-1 Cond. $100; Cushcraft R4 Ant , New, $25; ¼ ? Mag. Mt. Ant., $12; ? ? Mag. Mt. Ant, $15, ? ? Trunk Mt. Ant.,
$10; Measurements Grid Dip Meter, $25; HP Signal Gen.; $15; Code Pract. Mach., $15. K1DLT, (203) 324-2723

For sale CT Sys. 3000B service monitor. Good condition. $1000.00 firm. [email protected]

Message Board Located At: www.gnarc.org/  &  www.qsl.net/w1ee/                      

Questions: 203-353-8422.  [email protected] 

The Greater Norwalk Amateur Radio Club
P.O. Box 115
304 Main Street
Norwalk, Connecticut 06851
Club Web Site: www.gnarc.org/ 
A non-profit service oriented organization



"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards."  -Aldous Huxley  (Quote Of the Month)                                                               

Join us before for pizza at John’s Best Pizza on New Canaan Ave. at 6 pm.
Articles must be in by the 20th of the month to be published in this newsletter & web site.

Updates & Breaking News can be made anytime and will be published at: www.qsl.net/w1ee/breaking 

Please I desperately need articles from our GNARC club members!

Extra Page.  Copied with permission.  http://w1cws.southern.vg/ham/repeater.php      08/29/2003     

2002-2003 © Copyright, Christopher Southern, W1CWS. Questions, comments or suggestions can be sent to [email protected].