Short CIRCuits

October, 1997


W9AML -146.940 Repeater

'Message from the President's Mike'

     It's time to plan! - Please see attached map route & the minimum radio check points requested for the Jingle Bell Run(5, but more are welcome). We have done this before and it is a good project for the club. Let's mark the calendars now and hopefully get two people committed for each spot so we will not have problems if someone comes down with the flu. Starts Sunday November 9th at 1 P.M. - we need to be in place no later than 12:30. I told them we don't accept moneys for our services, but publicity is always nice, just to let the towns know (if they read the paper) that the hams actually do something for the community, other than attend planning commission & city council meetings. Perhaps you've seen their brochures around - I'll see if someone can come over to the meeting to pitch for it.
     I asked about tours of both the 911 service & LIVCOM (Livingston County Communications center) - no problem, week night or weekends OK - just need to give them a rough count, schedule time, etc. Two things I'd like to do before it gets too late for outside activities would be a fox hunt. Cookouts seem to be popular with the members & gets them active. We have had a real good response for the JOTA stations. Wish the scouts had been as enthusiastic.
    Newsletter looks good as always - perhaps we can pitch for people to write to their congress/reps if we make a list of addresses for people to mail/e-mail to about another government fiasco similar to the Telecomm Act of 96, this scanner privacy act is crap - just have the mfgrs put scramblers on their radios & phones or make them all digital and to hell with the scanner laws - they too will be self-regulating as there is less & less to listen to, the public won't have a chance to lambaste politicians who say things they shouldn't over unsecured airwaves. The FCC can't regulate or enforce stuff now, why would it be any different with the new laws?

'73 & gl - Chuck / N9RZV


Calendar of Events

Weekly 2 Meter Net
Every Tuesday evening on the 146.940-
repeater at 9:00 p.m.
10/10 Breakfast
First Saturday of every month at 8 a.m. in the Steak and Shake at Vernon Ave. and Veterans (Just South of College Hills Mall).
CIRC Meeting
Fourth Wednesdays of the month at 7:30 p.m. at the Red Cross building in Bloomington (Just north of the airport).

Central Illinois Radio Club
P.O. Box 993
Bloomington, IL 61702-0993

President: Chuck Kostelc, N9RZV
Vice President: Rick Kempf, WD9HRU
Secretary/Treasurer: Norman Huber, N9ZKS 309-378-4674

     The CIRC is a not-for-profit ARRL special service club whose purpose is to advance the service of Amateur Radio. Located in Central Illinois, CIRC and its members welcome all to use the 146.94 repeater and to attend club meetings.

Submissions for the newsletter must be received by the 10th of the month and may be snail or e-mailed to the editor at:
Norm Huber
19268 E. US Hwy 150
Bloomington, IL 61704-5855
e-mail nihuber@ice.net

Permission is granted to Amateur Radio-related organizations to reproduce contents of             Short CIRCuits provided full credit is given.

Minutes From September by
Norm Huber, N9ZKS
The meeting was held at the normal location, the Red Cross building.
The meeting was called to order by Chuck.
The minutes were presented by N9ZKS.
We discussed the following topics:
WACC Good job, special note of Mitch's job as net control.
Scout Camporee Sep 27th.
JOTA - October 18th & 19th. Station at Radio Shack
Interest in meeting at Pontiac for a tour of the Livingston Communications Center.
       A motion for adjournment was made by Rick WD9HRU, seconded by Jim WB9LQX and carried.
     We then were treated to a discussion of RC planes by Mitch KB9PXL who had brought his trainer, and a display of some television equipment by Chuck N9RZV.

Scouts-JOTA-Membership-Elmering
by Norm Huber N9ZKS
The Camporee held at Weldon Springs Recreation center a couple of miles south east of Clinton the weekend of the 27th. of September was a success.
    Saturday afternoon there was a "Midway" of demonstrations for the scouts elaborating on the theme of the camporee, "Bridge From the Past to the Future". Gary - AB9M had my HF station set up with the club's R7. After he set it up his first contact was with a Wisconsin station. The second was with Finland! Ten- Tec tuned it up well when they had it.
       I had my Alinco dual band mobile feeding a home-made 5 element quad. That allowed me to sneak into the Toluca repeater from Weldon Springs. I made contact with the two other Boy Scout events that weekend in the Starved Rock and the Princeton area which had Amateur Radio presence.

Jamboree of the Air (JOTA) the weekend of the 18th of October.

A great deal of work was done by all in trying to provide two stations for JOTA weekend. Gary and I took fliers to the Cub Scout Roundtable (monthly training & planning meeting for adult leaders) spelling out our plans. I took the same to the Boy Scout Roundtable. I also attended a meeting of Explorer Scouts for the same purpose. Dean, AA9BS and Floyd, W9EX contacted the Girl Scouts. No one got back to us besides the troop which had already contacted us. So the station for the Radio Shack fell through.
Gary is setting up a HF station at Old Town Town Hall on Saturday the 18th of October. He will have a 2 band dipole, tuner, and good HF rig.
     I am taking my Ten-Tec, power supply, SWR/Power meter Alinco dual-bander, and home-made 5 element 2 meter quad. We will try to operate both stations if the intermod dosen't get too bad.

     Late report on the JOTA weekend:

         The Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) weekend found Gary Huber-AB9M, Webelos Leader of Pack 53 and Norm Huber-N9ZKS, Scoutmaster of Troop 53 setting up ham radio equipment at Old Town Township Hall in preparation for a fun 24 hours of ham radio fun. Gary has been setting up on Saturday afternoon for the last three years and inviting the Cubs of Pack 53 and any Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts from the area to come over for a visit and a chance to make some contacts.
     This year was the 40th JOTA and there was an article in the Scouting Magazine as well as articles in QST. At least one troop committee member in the area noticed and went looking for a ham club. A representative of Troop 50 in Leroy asked at the local Radio Shack and was directed to the CIRC. This led to a campout for some of the troop members who were not busy at the conflicting OA Conclave. A total of 15 Scouters and Scouts from Troop 50 spent time at the site as well as 21 Cubs from Pack 53, 7 hams from the CIRC and N1SF (the State Farm Employee group's radio club) and one Girl Scout. There were also a number of Cub Scout parents who did not sign up for patches or certificates. Gary and I want to extend our thanks to the hams who helped. We have the ball rolling, now we just need to get a little more on it and I think we can make it a real great weekend. Perhaps, by next year, we can get some Cubs or Scouts their ham tickets and plan a campout for the whole weekend and work to make a great deal more contacts with Scouts around the world. I would love to see the Scouts have enough time to get over the initial shyness and exchange some real questions and answers with their fellow Scouts around the world. Besides, those contacts with countries without third party traffic agreements would be a lot more fun if there were a half dozen or so hams ready to carry on the QSO.

Classified Ads

Interested in placing an ad here?
If you are a current CIRC club member, simply write down the ad(s) and send them to the newsletter editor at the address on the first page of this newsletter. Ads are free of charge and will run for one month unless otherwise specified.

August Offerings

This was submitted by Jim Isom:
Dan Prescott's wife has some items for sale. Anyone can contact her for the price.
Rohn 25 - 40 ft
Rohn 20 - 30 ft w/top section
Rotor wire - 100 ft
Hardline w/connectors - 80 ft
2 meter sideband antenna beam - cushcraft
2 meter fm beam
coax - beldon - 1000 ft
2 meter linear
Kenwood 4100


Windtrack 13

       Another success took part in the mid-West with another flight of a ham radio equipped balloon called Windtracks.
       It was a mission that even NASA would be proud of. Windtrack 13, another in a series of high altitude amateur radio balloon experiments was launched from the Greentown Elementary Middle School near Cocuamo, Indiana.
      The weather balloon and its three package payload sailed into clear blue skies over central Indiana as dozens of school kids, parents and amateur radio operators watched. Inside the school students handling amateur radios provided by the Howard County Amateur Radio Club collected data and talked with hams from around the midwest that checked into mission control.
     The two and a half hour flight took the balloon to over 104,000 feet before it burst and parachuted back to earth. Color pictures were transmitted from suborbit via amateur TV. While slow scan pictures bounced from one side of Indiana to the other through the repeater.
      The GPS/APRS packet transmitter sent back location data while keeping tabs on the inside and outside temperatures of each of the radio packages. This was the first time sensors were used to study the temperature affects of the amateur radio packages.
      Eight carloads of foxhunters from Indiana and Illinois tracked the balloon for twenty six miles. Most of them saw the packages make a soft landing in an alfalfa field northwest of Anderson, Indiana.
      According to Windtracks Flight Director Chuck Crist, WB9IHS, this was the best flight so far.


IMPORTANT NOTICES

  Winter Weather Watch meeting will be December 4th at the Law & Justice Center at 7:00 P.M.

Put this date down on your calendar!
December 4 6:00 PM
Christmas Dinner at the Ozark House
Menu includes:
Fried Chicken              $12.25
Catfish                         $14.85
Jumbo Fried Shrimp     $15.35
Rib Eye Steak              $17.97
Prices include Tax & Gratuity
Dinner reservations will be collected at the November Meeting Also, Please fill out and bring your dues and the attached form so I can avoid the confusion at the dinner.

WE HAVE A WEB PAGE!

Thanks to Eldon KB9PZA who put together a web page and attached it to his own, we have a WEB PAGE

 http://www.fcg.net/~kb9pza/circ.html

Everyone who can, drop on in. And thank Eldon. It finally exists.


EXAMS
Morton EXAMS Date                                       ARRLWeb: Exam Session Search 

by Ken Teutsch
To All,
      The Volunteer Examiners in Bloomington, IL have one more date for Amateur Radio Exam sessions for 1997. Sunday November 23th 1:30 p.m.
      The testing is held at, the Bloomington Public Library, 205 East Olive St. in Bloomington, IL. We will start the exams, after setup, around 1:30 pm.
     We are requesting that those who plan to sit for exams pre-register by calling or contacting myself or one of the other examiners. They may contact me on my cell phone or leave a message on my cell phone voice mail at 309- 830-NX9M (6996). If you leave a message on the voice mail, I will put you down as being registered and will expect to see you on exam day.
      Walk-ins are ALWAYS welcome for Amateur exams. We just would like to be able to know how many to expect. Your help with this matter will be greatly appreciated.
     I am sure we would do better to have the exams on the same day of the month but with my work schedule and the Bloomington Library schedule it just does not work out that way, sorry.
     By the way we are NOT doing Commercial Exams anymore. We decided that it was just too much trouble and have returned all test materials to the NRE.
73's Ken NX9M.
Jingle Bell Run Map

Do Bureaucracies Ever Get It Right?

Norm Huber - Taken from Newsline

I put this in after reading the comment by Chuck reguarding the scanner law article in from the President's Mike.
     The FCC may not prosecute the two non hams who admitted to harassing an Amateur Radio repeater in Elkhart, Indiana by planting jamming devices. This is because the FCC says that Elkhart hams failed to file a formal complaint to the agency through the ARRL's Amateur Auxiliary.
     According to Mike McCauley, KB9GNU the FCC did come to Elkhart and it did pick up all the evidence in the case. But the agency is now telling the ham radio community that Amateur Radio is self policing. The agency indicates that this combined with its failure to file through the Amateur Auxiliary was an indication that hams had solved the problem on their own.
     Chris Jellinek of the Chicago Field Operations Bureau says that her office is in receipt of a malicious interference complaint filed by the county sheriff. It names the man and a woman who admitted planting numerous jamming devices in Elkhart over the past year.
      But McCauley says that the FCC is not telling the whole story. He tells Newsline that the hams involved in hunting down the jammers did attempt to contact the FCC. They did so on four different occasions, but never once did he or anyone else receive a reply.
     McCauley says that they also contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation twice and the American Radio Relay League three times and never received a reply. McCauley was also critical of the attitude of the FCC inspector who did finally come to town. He says that there was supposed to be a meeting with the FCC's Robert Harness. The hams waited over three hours for him to show up. When he finally arrived, he would only meet with the Sheriff. The inspector snubbed the ham radio community and left without speaking with those waiting.
     The FCC's Jellinek says her office is investigating the situation, but not as an ham radio related case. She also says that a letter of reprimand or similar minor sanction may be issued against the pair of jammers depending on the information that is uncovered.

West Virginia confiscates $75,000 in CB equipment

(Via various news reports)
      CBers passing through Fairmont West Virginia are learning the hard way to keep dirty words off the air. This, as the Fairmont sheriff's department has already seized $75,000 worth of citizens band radios from foul-mouthed operators.
     Authorities call it an effort to end the use of profanity on the 11 meter Class D Citizens Radio band in West Virginia. According to news reports, in one incident a tractor-trailer driver made the mistake of directing some rough language toward Sheriff Ron Watkins. Watkins says that this particular CB'er was overheard making obscene comments while the sheriff was patrolling in his squad car. Apparently the trucker CBer didn't think that Watkins was listening but the sheriff was tuned into his every word. This CBer became one of many who'se radios Sheriff Watkins has confiscated. Watkins says that profanity and sexually explicit language have been a problem on the airwaves for years. He decided to crack down after receiving a complaint from a local resident. Watkins says the man was a father whose son and his son's friends were studying to obtain a ham radio operator's licenses and who overheard the dirty language while listening to a shortwave radio. So far none of the fourteen foul-mouthed CB'ers stopped by Watkins have been arrested, but the Sheriff says that he plans to file charges against several. Meantime the county has quite a pile of eleven meter sets in its evidence lock-up and nobody from the FCC has bothered to tell Sheriff Watkins that he lacks the federal authority needed to confiscate CB radio, or any other radio gear.

Nets in the Area

Monday                   9:00 P.M.            146.730       123.0 PL Open Net
Tuesday                   7:00 P.M           . 146.910        Tazwell County ESDA Net
Tuesday                   9:00 P.M.            146.940        CIRC Open Net
Wednesday              9:00 P.M.            147.060        Open Net       Has Newsline
Wednesday              9:00 P.M.            442.250        123.0 PL     ARES Open Net
Wednesday             Varies                   147.100        Trader's Net follows ARES
                                                               Net on 442.250
Thursday                 9:00 P.M.             146.760        Open Net with Newsline
Tuesday                  9:00 P.M.             146.895         North central IL Traders *
                                                                                 Net
Friday                     7:30 P.M.             147.345         Open Net with Traders Net
Sunday                   8:30P.M                147.075         Open Net with Newsline
                                           * correct by kb9pza

(Please help me correct this list. I know it's not up to date at this time.
Norm N9ZKS)

Local DX Packet Cluster Information

Bloomington   Access and Transport node BMIDX1 (AB9M-7) 144.91 1200 baud
Champaign     Access and Transport node ILDX1 (KA6A) 144.91 1200 baud
Champaign Network Node Server CMIDXC (K9CW) 144.91 1200 baud
Connections to the network are made by first connecting to BMIDX1, then
connecting to ILDX1, then connecting to K9CW.
The primary purpose of BMIDX1 is to provide local access for DX Packet Cluste


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