Laws…Laws…Laws
by Bob Wexelbaum, W2ILP
Unless we are anarchists, we all agree that we must obey
laws. Hams must follow the rules set
forth by the FCC of the
A now famous Law was written by Gordon Moore, a cofounder
of Intel.
In my opinion, as
an active Internerd, Godwin’s Law of 1990 has proven itself. It states that: As a Usenet discussion grows
longer, the probably of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
That all being said… Let me introduce you to Wexelbaum’s
Law of pricing, purchasing and procuring precision parts. It states that… If something is small it will
get lost…If it is big it won’t fit…and if it is “temporally out of stock”, it
won’t arrive until the day after it is no longer needed
PRESIDENT’S NOTE by ED GELLENDER,
WB2EAV
We have increased the
transmit power of the
UPCOMING MEETINGS
August: The
August meeting will be on Wednesday August 20th at the usual meeting
time and place…
September: SAVE THE DATE – Wednesday Sept 17th
at
We also are planning to have
a guest speaker – Frank Fallon, N2FF.
Frank has been the Hudson Division Director for some years now and he is
always a pleasure to meet and listen to.
Many years ago, Frank and I found out that we have something unexpected
in common. When Frank first got out of
college, he started as a new teacher at Jr. H.S. 22
Looking forward to seeing all
of you there on September 17th.
Ed, WB2EAV
GRUMMAN AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
MINUTES OF GENERAL MEETING 7/16/2008
Karen, KC2OPX, secretary.
The meeting was called to order by Ed at 5:40 PM.
TREASURERS REPORT – Ed, WB2EAV REPEATERS Gordon, KB2UB
Finances continue to be in good shape. The Hauppauge repeater is doing fine.
The
VE REPORT –
Bob, W2ILP NET REPORT- Zack, WB2PUE
No VE session this month, since no Thursday night net 145.330 net had usual
crowd,
applicants applied. 146.745
had only 3 check-ins. Sunday morning was good, but NY could not hear
OLD BUSINESS
Ed moved the antenna coupler on the
Gordon called Eaton’s Neck for Lightship weekend. The Petty Officer is on leave.
NEW BUSINESS
We
are planning a picnic for the Sept. meeting.
The picnic originally planned for
PROGRAM
Our
former President Pat, KE2LJ stopped by for a visit from
The meeting was adjoined at 6:30PM
GARC NETS:
40 Meters: 7.289 MHz at 7:30 AM EST
Sundays.
2 Meters (via repeaters): 146.745 MHz (-.600)at
145.330 MHz (- .600) at
[Tone for
both repeaters is 136.5 Hz]
(ARES/RACES) Mondays
MEETINGS
General Meetings of the GARC
are held on the third Wednesday of each month, starting at 5:30 PM. The meetings are usually held at the
Ellsworth Allen Park in Farmingdale. Driving directions and maps can be obtained
from http://www.mapquest.com It is
suggested that the GARC Web Site be checked to be certain of meeting location,
which may change after this newsletter is distributed. Board meetings are held
eight days before the General Meeting.
GARC WEB SITE
The web site of the GARC can
be found at http://www.qsl.net/wa2lqo/ Webmaster
is Pat Masterson, KE2LJ. Pictures of
GARC activities, archives of newsletters, roster of members, and other
information about the GARC may be found there.
INTERNET LINK OF THE MONTH FOR INTERNERDS
We hams use a group of three letter signals to save us a
lot of Morse Code characters or spoken words.
These are known as Q signals. QSL?
Many Hams think
that Q signals were invented by the ARRL.
This is not so. They were first
used by commercial shipboard radio operators.
The Q signals that hams use are but a few of the possibilities. They are listed in the amateur handbooks, but
do not include all those that commercial operators have used. Commercial ops
needed more official signals. The only
special abbreviation adopted by the ARRL is “QST” which means “CQ to all
Amateurs and especially ARRL members…W1AW is about to broadcast.” Hams are not supposed to broadcast…but the ARRL
is the only organization that the FCC has given the special right to broadcast inside
of ham bands. “QST” is also the name of
the monthly ARRL magazine that members get.
“Q” was chosen for
these signals because there are few words that begin with Q in the English
language…and fewer Q- words that don’t begin with QU in most languages (except
for the abbreviation of an Australian airline).
Thus there are no QU- radio signals, in order to be certain that these
signals do not get confused with anything else.
“CQ” but no “QU-?” All of the
official Q signals start with QR- as they apply to receiving, QS- or QT- as
they apply to transmitting. The Internet
link for this month lists a bunch of Q signals that the authors of the list
(KA0SEY and K7ITL) say were missing until they found them.. You can read it on http://www.zerobeat.net/qrp/missingq.html
For those who don’t have
internet access, I’ll write a few of the “missing” Q signals here.
QBA My antenna is big!
QBA? How big is your antenna?
QBO Don’t sit next to that guy in the meeting.
QBO? Buddy, can you spare some soap?
….The list goes all the way
to …
QZZ? Is that a 60-Hz hum, or are you snoring?
A word of caution:
Don’t use any of the QR- signals as listed on the link, as their meanings
may be confused with QR-s of the official amateur or commercial serious list. In fact I wouldn’t encourage anyone to use any
of the “missing” Q signals on the air. I
would prefer that they remain lost.
PUZZLE
Here is another cryptogram:
LGWGC GAESNPL
- XDBC JCPGLIM
ID LDU LGGI
PU, NLI XDBC
GLGHPGM TPSS LDU
QGSPGWG XDB
NLXTNX . –GSQGCU RBQQNCI--
Solution to July’s Cryptogram: THE SECRET OF LIFE IS HONESTY AND FAIR
DEALING. IF YOU CAN FAKE THAT YOU”VE GOT
IT MADE. –GROUCHO MARX--
Our most popular daily LI
newspaper “Newsday” has been bought by Cablevision. This means that there is now a local media
monopoly of sorts. Cablevision and
Newsday may say that there is no such monopoly because there are now hundreds
of TV channels and newsletters and people have lots of options. I for one don’t like monopolies. I guess that you may have noticed that I
don’t think that there should be only one organization to represent hams as the
ARRL does…even though I believe that the ARRL does an excellent job. This kind of dilemma was once debated by
folks who didn’t like radio station WQXR (a classical music station) being
owned by “The New York Times”. WQXR insisted that they would not editorialize
on the air and would stick to playing music. Thus they won the debate. Newspapers all over the
73,
w2ilp (Independent Little
Pub?)
CQ de WA2LQO
AUGUST 2008
VOL. 81,
NO. 8
EDITOR
Bob Wexelbaum W2ILP
(631) 499-2214
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
All the members of GARC (we hope!)
CQ de WA2LQO is published monthly
by the Grumman Amateur Radio Club for its members and friends. Send articles
and amateur equipment advertisements to: W2ILP
Articles may be sent by
e-mail or postal mail. They can be in MS
Word format or simply in plain text.
Articles will only be edited when permission is granted by the author.
ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS
For insertion to the WA2LQO
website, information may be sent to Pat Masterson.
Pat Masterson’s e-mail
address:
Ed Gellender’s e-mail
address:
[email protected] or [email protected]
GARC VE EXAMS
We are continuing to
proctor exams for all classes of ham licenses on the second Tuesday of each
month, starting at 5:00 PM.
The present exams
are:-
The Element 1 CW exam is no longer required.
Element 2: Technician
Element 3: General
Element 4: Amateur Extra
Class
Please Note: THE EXTRA CLASS Q & A WAS CHANGED AS OF
JULY 1, 2008.
The fee for 2008 is
$14.00 for all exams taken in one sitting.
Applicants for
upgrades should bring their present license and a photocopy of it and know
their FRN number.
New, first time
applicants should be aware that their Social Security number will be required
on their application form, unless they register with the FCC for an FRN.
All applicants should
bring picture ID such as driver’s licenses.
Until further notice
exams will be given at:-
Room:
Briarcliffe,
All applicants should
contact W2ILP to register, so as to confirm location. If no applicants apply, the exam session will
be cancelled.
For any information
e-mail [email protected] or phone-
(631) 499-2214
Study material is
available at the web sites of the ARRL
http://www.arrl.org
or W5YI
http://www.w5yi.org
All VECs use the same
Q &A pools.
Since the beginning
of the VE program the GARC has provided opportunities to take the ham exams
monthly, during all 12 months of every year.
Bob Wexelbaum, W2ILP
and the GARC VE team.
Computer Sayings
In the July 2008 issue of “Random Oscillations”, the
newsletter of the Radio Central Amateur Radio Club, there is a list of Computer
Sayings. The list was attributed to Anonymous.
Since I don’t know Anonymous (although he sounds Greek to me), I’ll
take the liberty of reciting some of the sayings anonymously here myself;
editing them where I see fit and adding some of my own as well.
Home is where you hang your @.
The E-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.
Speak softly and carry an iPod.
C:/ is the root of all directories.
Pentium wise = # foolish.
The Greeks had no MS Word for it.
Don’t byte off more than you can view.
A Chat has nine lives.
Fax is stranger than fiction.
Modulation in all things.
Oh what a tangled website we weave when first we don’t
practice to defrag.
What boots up must scroll down.
Don’t put all your hypes in one home page.
The geek shall inhibit the Earth.
The modem is the message.
Virtual reality is its own reward.
Give a man a dish and you can feed him microwaves for a day;
teach him to point it and he’ll waste his time searching for ETs.
An Apple a day keeps a PC in standby.
Great oaths from little icons grow.
A fool and his memories are soon partitioned.
There’s no space like http://home
Have faith in apple-pie and motherboards.
A click in time may save CMOS.
Every chip must have a silver lining.
Any port on an ISB cable.
A pixel is worth a thousandth of a word.
The days of the digital clock are numbered.
A rolling strobe gathers no MOS.
Windows will never cease.
Never byte the bus that feeds you.
Take two aspirins and Google in the morning.
Don’t count your Gigabytes before they launch.
There is nothing new under the Sun work stations.
A slip of a disc may crash a hard-drive.
Care not for what your computer can do for you…Care what you
can do to your computer!
Never look a gift survey in its modifiers.
Send no evil…View no evil…Hear no evil…Don’t pay your ISP
bill!
A rose is a rose by any other name but product code bars
form unique IDs.
Time and tides wait for no manufacturer’s rebates.
The printout isn’t mightier than a store receipt.
What hath Gates wrought?
73,
Bob w2ilp (I Laundered Proverbs)