Prepared - October 12, 2009 By: Darrell R. Norris - WA3AJQ ===================================================== Dues - Dues Members - Please plan to pay your 2010 dues as soon as possible! Anyone not a current member is invited to join our club. Membership applications are available on our club website at: www.qsl.net/w3bmd ====================================================== Multi County Breakfast The date for our multi county breakfast is Saturday, October 24th starting between 8:30 and 9:00 AM. If you can't make it by then don't worry, we'll be there until about 11:00 or 11:30 AM. Eat*N*Park is located on the corner of Oakland Avenue (RT 286) and Indian Springs Road, eight tenths (.8) of a mile off the new route 422 on the right hand side, it's the Oakland Avenue exit. Please join us on October 24th, bring a guest if you wish. Contact me at: (724) 235-2143 or drphn@verizon.net if you have any questions. ============================================================== An interesting note from the ARRL The ARRL Letter, Vol. 28, No. 38 September 24, 2009 ARRL: A PROUD HISTORY OF DEFENDING AMATEURS' RIGHTS The fall operating season is just around the corner. Whether it's because radio conditions improve or just because attention returns to indoor pursuits as the days get shorter, on-the-air activity always picks up at this time of the year. Do you operate on 40 meters? "If you haven't been on the band lately, you're in for a real treat!" said ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ. "Years of patient effort by the ARRL and by our sister members of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) have paid off. The band is more useful now than it's been in more than 70 years. When you think of 40 meters, you probably think of interference from foreign broadcasters. Here in the Americas, amateurs always have had access to 7,000-7,300 kHz - but we had to tolerate broadcasters in the rest of the world in the upper two-thirds of the band." Sumner said he can recall the "futility" he felt as a 13-year-old Novice, "trying to make myself heard through the racket with just two crystal-controlled transmitting frequencies to choose from. I remember taking the crystal holders apart and putting pencil lead on the crystals in a vain attempt to slip in between the broadcasting behemoths." At the 2003 World Radio communication Conference (WRC-03) -- 40 years later -- he had the privilege of being present in Geneva when it was agreed that amateurs had made the case for a wider worldwide amateur band, free of broadcasting interference." For the first time in the history of radio communication, an HF broadcasting allocation would be shifted in order to accommodate the needs of another radio service -- the Amateur Radio Service! Sumner called the WRC-03 decision "very gratifying," but said an important question remained: Would the broadcasters really move? "The International Telecommunication Union has no enforcement authority," he explained, "and operation in contravention of the international Radio Regulations is not exactly unknown. In fact, the transition turned out to be quite dramatic. On the last weekend of March, on Friday evening 7,100-7,200 kHz was full of broadcasters as usual -- but as the new seasonal broadcasting schedule took effect on Saturday night the band cleared of all but a few. For the very first time our overseas friends could hear us on 40 meter phone without having to breach the wall of broadcasters! Over the past six months the situation has continued to improve as more broadcasters have complied with the WRC-03 decision. Nighttime operation above 7,200 kHz remains a challenge, but it's not an exaggeration to say that 40 meters is like a whole new band." Sumner explained that moving hundreds of broadcast transmitters in dozens of countries out of a band didn't just happen: "It took years of patient effort by a global team of volunteers and ARRL professionals, working through the IARU, to overcome objections and marshal the necessary support. It was an expensive undertaking, and it never could have been accomplished without the voluntary contributions - above and beyond their basic dues - of thousands of ARRL members." Even as we celebrate our reborn 40 meter band, Sumner said that we, as amateurs, must remember that it takes hard work just to hang onto what we have. "As much as we like to pursue new and improved ham bands, most of our effort must go toward frequency defense," he said. "Every day, new uses of the radio spectrum are being conceived. Each one competes for spectrum access with incumbent radio services, including ours. Not only must we defend our allocations against well-heeled backers of licensed services, we must also try to prevent the pollution of the radio spectrum by unlicensed devices. The fight goes on in Washington, Geneva and around the globe -- and there's no end in sight." Decisions for WRC-12 are being made now that will determine how many administrations -- including the United States - will support a new secondary allocation to the Amateur Service at 500 kHz, and whether proposals for allocations to oceanographic radars will threaten some of our existing HF bands. "We are hard at work meeting these challenges, but we need your help," Sumner said, in asking for support for the ARRL Spectrum Defense Fund. "Members' past response helped us to keep commercial satellites out of the 144 and 420 MHz bands, to gain access to frequencies around 5 MHz, and to win our court challenge of the FCC's flawed Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) rules. New challenges keep cropping up. Currently we are working to ensure that new short-range medical devices do not impact our ability to use our UHF and microwave bands." To help in the ARRL's ongoing mission to protect our valuable spectrum, please visit the Spectrum Defense area on the ARRL Web site ============================================================== Club Activities Our club picnic was September 20th at Jimmy St Clair's. We had some seventeen people in attendance, the food was very good and the weather was great. We want to thank Jimmy and his parents for hosting the picnic and thanks to Jerry Kiehl for gathering the furnished food, drinks and for his cooking at the picnic. "THANKS" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We have our ARES net every Monday night at 8:00 PM local time on the two meter repeater, 146.190. Terry Carnahan KB3JOD, is our net coordinator and is looking for people to serve as net control, so please consider helping out. Robert Zugates, KB3JOF, is our Indiana County ARES Emergency Coordinator. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our club meets the first Tuesday of every month at Eat*N*Park in Indiana. Everyone is welcome. Please consider joining our club. Our membership to date is thirty seven. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The club Christmas Party will be Saturday December 12th around 6:00 PM at Hoss's in Indiana. This will also serve as a fund raiser. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks and 73's, Darrell R. Norris - WA3AJQ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| NAME | CALL | |
|---|---|---|
| CARNAHAN | TERRY | KB3JOD |
| DZELSKY | DAVID | N3DZ |
| FREEMAN | LARRY | N3LT |
| HVOZDA | CARL | N3PIE |
| KIEHL | JERRY | WB3DUD |
| KIEHL | LINDA | ------------- |
| FRED | FRED | KM3M |
| MENK | BILL | W3LAB |
| MILLER | CLIFF | KB3AGT |
| NORRIS | DARRELL | WA3AJQ |
| O'DONNELL | RUSTY | WB3EUQ |
| ST CLAIR | JAMES | N3TQR |
| STRONG | ALTON | N3PHL |
| WHITSON | DENNIS | KB3LBQ |
| ZUGATES | ROBERT | KB3JOF |
| NAME | CALL | |
|---|---|---|
| BARTLEBAUGH | ROGER | N3ULC |
| BARTLEBAUGH | JODI | ---------- |
| BIGLER | CRAIG | KB3LBU |
| GUEST SPEAKER | ||
| NAME | CALL | |
| KLEBER | DAVID | KB3FXI |
Submitted by Jerry Kiehl WB3DUD
Oct 19,2009
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