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UP-LiNK THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE CHERRYVILLE REPEATER ASSOCIATION II, INC. “Community Service Through Communication” June 2001 |
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W2CRA
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UP-LiNK THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE CHERRYVILLE REPEATER ASSOCIATION II, INC. “Community Service Through Communication” June 2001 |
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W2CRA
BOARD MEETING June 6 8:00 PM CLUB MEETING
June 8 7:30 PM
PUBLIC SERVICE
de WB2NQV
The March of Dimes Walk in April went very
smoothly, thanks in part to the number of operators we had. This made W2CG,
Marty’s job of safety of the walkers an easy task. Also the Equestrian Event at
Bucks County Horse Park had seven ops helping Bob, WB2F make it a smooth,
enjoyable and safe day for all the participants. The next events are the
Special Equestrian June 16, N2VWL Coordinator N2VWL@epix.net, and the Lebanon Parade July 4 WB2NQV Coordinator WB2NQV@arrl.net
. The other confirmed dates for the year 2001 are; Bucks County Horse Park
August 12, October 7 and November 10 and 11, N2VWL Coordinator N2VWL@epix.net, If you can help with any of
these events contact the event coordinator or myself at WB2NQV@arrl.net.
For the latest Public Service dates log on
the CRA web site http://www.qsl.net/w2cra
SCHOLARSHIPS
AWARDED
de N2ZVY
The Cherryville
Repeater Association awarded two graduating high school seniors academic
scholarships at their June, 8, 2001 club meeting held at the Flemington Baptist
Church in Flemington, NJ.
The following high
school seniors were the recipients of the Cherryville Repeater Associations
Annual Memorial Scholarship:
Michael
Lanieri of Branchburg, NJ-in the amount of $250.00; and,
Mary
McLaughlin of Hillsborough, NJ- in the amount of $250.00.
Michael, a licensed ham
radio opererator, whose call sign is N2UJW, lives in Branchburg with his
parents, and will graduate from Somerville High School later this month.
Michael is an honor
roll student who is a volunteer member of Branchburg’s Office of Emergency
Management, also participates in sports. He plans to attend the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst in the fall majoring in Sports Management. Micheal’s
father, Thomas Lanieri, is a long-time member of the CRA.
Mary McLaughlin of
Hillsborough, is slated to graduate this month from Hillsborough High
School. She will be attending Cook
College in the fall. Both her mother and father, Tim and Cheryl McLaughlin, are
active members of the CRA.
Both students displayed
academic excellence and community service. These attributes along with other
criteria were used by the scholarship
committee during the decision making process.
Each recipient was
presented their awards by the scholarship committee whose members are: Patrick
Mauro, of Alexandria Township, Scholarship Chairperson, John Crovelli, of Frenchtown, and Elaine
Langdon, of Middlesex. Club President, Rob France, of Plumsteadville, PA,
presented each winner with a scholarship certificate.
The
CRA memorial scholarship honors the memory of deceased club members.
CRA PROGRAM SCHEDULE
de Denis KA2YYB
June Meeting: FIELD DAY 2001
Upcoming meeting programs
include APRS, weather, safety, “The Future of Amateur Radio” ….
Hamfest Calendar
de George N2VWL
Here
is a list of ARRL sanctioned Hamfests in New Jersey, for the current year:
16 June Raritan Valley ARA Dunellen
12 Aug. Jersey Shore ARS Bayville
6 Oct. Bergen ARA Hackensack
The following are those in nearby PA:
9 June
Colombia-Montour ARC Bloomsburg
1 July Murgas ARC Wilkes Barre (Dallas)
15 July Mid-Atlantic ARC Kimberton
15 Sept. Del. Lehigh Schnecksville
EXTREME HOME BREW
This is the first of a
multi-month serial outlining the radio exploits of H.G. Wells, a British
soldier held captive by the Japanese during the Second World War. I found it an extraordinary tale, one of
remarkable ingenuity. The text is in
Mr. Wells’ English. I made no attempt
to Anglicize his words. It is worth
reading two or three times to fully appreciate what was accomplished.—ed.
The need for a radio.
It
was about the beginning of 1942 when I was a prisoner of war of the Japanese,
when I was ordered to go on a working party which eventually finished up in
Sandakan in British North Borneo. 2,000 odd of us were on this work party and
it wasn't long before we noticed the absence of information as to the
international situation, what was happening in the outside world, and the whole
camp had a real craving to get news by whatever means. Escape parties were
being organised, but none of these was very successful. The next thing people
turned to was a means of getting some radio news, and this is where the
building of a radio set became an urgent requirement. The main thing, of course, was that we didn't have any components
and although we had some contacts outside which later on were helpful in the
building of this receiver, it limited our requirement to a regenerative receiver as distinct from a superheterodyne receiver and the decision to do that was borne out
by the results. The high frequency spectrum during that time of the war was
fairly quiet in that part of the world and the BBC, we hoped, would be able to
be received. This was aided by the fact that the Japanese in their wisdom
called a friend of mine out one evening to repair their radio set and he took
the opportunity, of course, to switch over to the short wave bands, with
headphones while doing that, and picked up the BBC successfully. That day was
memorable because it was the day that the BBC broadcast the death of the Duke
of Kent in an aircraft crash. That was the only news we had of the outside
world for something like six months.
Next month: Creating the capacitor
BBC
To End Shortwave Broadcasts to North America
On June 30th, 2001, the BBC will
discontinue its renowned shortwave radio World Service broadcasts to North
America and large areas of the Pacific region. The BBC will now rely on
Internet broadcasting to transmit its programming. Swiss Radio International
has dropped 80% of its shortwave programming too. The reason: its cheaper and
delivers higher audio quality, and reaches more people over the Internet. Today,
more consumers have personal computers and Internet connections than have
shortwave receivers. Other alternatives
have also emerged including the satellite digital radio broadcast services of
Worldspace. An end of an era is coming - the end of shortwave broadcasting.
Alinco
Restructures, Kachina Drops Out
Alinco Electronics has closed its California
office and shifted its US business operations to an independent distributor in
Ohio. Effective May 3, 2001, Alinco says in a news release, customer service
and distribution to dealers will be handled by Atoc Amateur Distributing of
Covington, Ohio. All warranties will remain in force and will be honored for
their full terms, according to the announcement. Alinco's US manager, Katsumi
Nakata, said the company would be concentrating on designing and manufacturing
new products while Atoc serviced its dealers and customers.
Meanwhile, Kachina Communications announced in mid-May that it is dropping out
of the amateur radio market and discontinuing all of its HF radios (commercial
and amateur), including the 505DSP. The 505DSP was the first computer-based
amateur radio transceiver. In a letter posted on the internet, Kachina Vice
President Cameron Earnshaw said the company would continue to honor all factory
warranties, and would continue providing service and spare parts for Kachina HF
radios "for the foreseeable future."
FIELD DAY
JUNE 23 &
24
Don’t miss it!
Comments Sought
on Revised Extra Class Syllabus
The Question Pool Committee of the National
Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators has released the draft syllabus
for the new Element 4 (Extra Class) Question Pool, and is seeking comments from
amateurs. This question pool will become effective July 1, 2002. The draft
syllabus can be found and downloaded from http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/pool.html.
Comments must be received prior to August 15, 2001, and should be e-mailed to
all three members of the committee: Chairman Scotty Neustadter, W4WW, W4WW@arrl.net; Bart Jahnke, W9JJ, vec@arrl.org; and Fred Maia, W5YI, fmaia@prodigy.net.
AO-40 On the Air
The transponder on OSCAR-40 was opened for
limited amateur use in May, and satellite-active hams around the world
immediately began making contacts and reporting excellent results. The
satellite is currently operating with uplinks on 435 and 1269 MHz, and a
downlink on 2401 MHz. A recent attempt to activate AO-40's 10-GHz (X-Band)
transmitter was unsuccessful, and AMSAT officials said it appears that no power
is getting to the transmitter. According to the AMSAT News Service (ANS), the
system had worked flawlessly before launch, and ground controllers are
continuing to try to resolve the problem. A test of the 24-GHz transmitter
appeared to be successful, but controllers said more tests are needed before it
is fully activated. One big success was the activation of LEILA, an innovative
system designed to prevent overly strong signals from using up a
disproportionate share of the satellite's power. With the system turned on, any
signal stronger than the satellite's own beacon sets off a siren on the
downlink frequency, warning the operator to reduce power. If the warning is
ignored, the system will attempt to notch out the offending signal. It was
turned on after complaints were received of some stations using too much power
to access the satellite. According to ANS, "this is the first time that
such a system has been used in space for a transponder with uncoordinated
multiple accesses." Users are reminded to avoid operating within 5 kHz of
the satellite's Middle Beacon frequency of 2401.323 MHz.
HAMS AND CB’ERS TOGETHER AT LAST
The ARRL has signed a
Memorandum of Understanding with REACT, an emergency response service that
began in CB but has since expanded to include GMRS (General Mobile Radio
Service) users and amateurs. According to the ARRL Letter, the agreement says
the two organizations will "cooperate and utilize their resources to
optimum mutual benefit." President Jim Haynie, W5JBP,
himself a longtime member of Dallas REACT, says the agreement can benefit
members of both groups, not only in terms of emergency communications but also
on such matters as antenna ordinances.
CRA II CLUB
INFORMATION
The Cherryville Repeater
Association II, Inc. is a non-profit New Jersey Corporation dedicated to
Community Service Through Communication.
Meetings are held on the
second Friday of each month at 7:30 PM
at the Flemington Baptist Church
unless otherwise announced. Visitors are always welcome! Also,
everyone is welcome on the Thursday Night Traffic Net, at 8 PM every Thursday,
followed at 9:30 by the Swap-Net, and the ARES-RACES net at 8:30 PM on the
first Thursday each month (immediately following the traffic net), all on the
147.375 repeater.
A CRA II Publication
Editors
Articles &
Info:
WA2EPY,
Bruce Cunningham – bcc@interpow.net
KA2YYB, Denis Albisser –
KA2YYB@arrl.net
Interviews:
K2PA,
Roberto Matos – K2PA@arrl.net
Roster & Mailing:
W2CG, Marty
Grozinski __ W2CG@arrl.net
Many thanks to all those who have contributed
articles or information for this publication, including: WB2NQV, N2VWL, N2ZVY,
KA2YYB, the ARRL, The Center for the History of Defense Electronics Museum, Ham
Radio Online and all not mentioned for their help. This newsletter is an open
forum for the Cherryville Repeater Association, II Inc. and its members, of
general interest Club and ham radio related interest items. The opinions
contained herein are those of the authors who have contributed their work. The
officers and members of the CRA II Inc. are not liable for its contents.
Articles and
information are always welcome, and may sometimes be edited for content,
punctuation, grammar, and newsletter space.
Deadline for submission for all issues is two weeks prior to the Board
meetings.
"Don't compromise yourself. You're all
you've got."
- Janis Joplin
THE CHERRYVILLE REPEATER ASSOCIATION II
CLUB INFO:
|
Club Info Line |
Website |
Packet |
|
(908) 788-4080 |
W2CRA 145.51 |
EXECUTIVE
BOARD:
|
Pres |
N3QDC |
Rob France |
(215) 766-8066 |
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|
VP |
KB2DDM |
Susan MacRae |
(908) 475-5299 |
|
|
Sec |
K2YSY |
Pete Sneed |
(908) 369-5095 |
k2ysy@arrl.net |
|
Treas |
W2NCN |
Bill Greenhalgh |
(908) 369-3191 |
greenhalgh@rcn.com |
MEMBERS AT
LARGE:
|
|
W2CGX |
Barry Campbell |
(908) 725-0478 |
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N2ZVY |
Patrick Mauro |
(908) 470-6346 |
n2zvy@att.net |
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W2GD |
John Crovelli |
(908) 996-3043 |
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N3MSK |
Ed Kita |
(610) 252-6193 |
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K2PA |
Roberto Matos |
(908) 788-8253 |
COMMITTEE
CHAIRPEOPLE:
|
Public service |
WB2NQV |
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|
Technical |
N3MSK |
(610) 252-6193 |
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|
Emergency |
KC2CMC K2PA |
(908)
806-3998 |
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Education |
W2CGX |
(908) 725-0478 |
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|
VE Testing |
W2CG |
(908) 788-2644 |