Tom Carrubba, KA2D, ARRL Section Manager, will be the speaker at the October meeting.  Tom will discuss Ham Radio University 2008 (HRU 2008)

 

 

SHANGRI-LA ‘76

By Bob Wexelbaum, W2ILP

 

“Shngri-La ‘76” was not a DXpedition to Nepal or Bhutan.  It was an ARRL Hudson Division Convention that was held at the Playboy Resort and Country Club at Great Gorge, McAfee, New Jersey on November 13-14, 1976.  I had been looking for the Hudson Division Director’s Newsletters for Spring and Fall of 1976, which anounced this bicentenial year ham event for some time now and they finally turned up…along with a copy of  an old Jimmy Carter interview from “Playboy” magazine, [which doesn’t belong here.]  You can never tell what I may find in my archives.  I fail to throw stuff away…Unfortunately I have no orgainzed method of sorting it and I usually find things that I looked for months ago while I am fervantly searching for  something else. I then become so interested in what I find that I usually forget what it was that I started looking for.

I had attened this ARRL convention with my cousin Joel, W2ZXR (sk) and both of our XYLs.  I was looking for details about this convention when I wrote about Jean Shepherd, W2ORS (sk) but I couldn’t find them at that time.  Jean was the Banquet Speaker and I had outlined his speech in a previous newsletter.

I dunno if a Hudson Convention of today could be so educational or diverse as Shangri-La was.  The HRUs have tried to muster up educational forums and to appeal to hams and wanna be hams at all levels but I dunno if all the PR and the organizatrions of today can get the kind of support that Hudson Conventions of the past had gottten.  However inexpensive and well attended this convention was, I don’t know if I was the only  member of the GARC who attended Shangri-La ’76.  Correct me if you know otherwise. I don’t know because I was not yet employed by Grumman in 1975.  I was working for Collins-Rockwell at that time, so I can’t be certain as to how many from the GARC would make an expedition to McAfee, New Jersey for the sake of attending a Ham convention … even if enticed by the probability of eye-balling authentic Playboy Bunnies.  The Registration Fee was only $3.00 per person in advance, or $4.00 at the door.  The Banquet was $15.00 per person in advance or $16.00 at the door.  A room for two at the convention site costed only $36.  I guess that we can never expect to see such bargains again.  I noticed that there were people of all ages attending this convention.  For example two newly licensed young men sat with us at our banquet table. The list that follows, reads like a “Who’s Who” of the two area’s ham leaders and educators.   The Playboy Club isn’t there in McAffe anymore.  The last I looked there was only a water park in Great Gorge.

 

 

Here was the program listing for Shangri-La ‘76.

Saturday, Nov 13th                                                                 Sunday, Nov 14th                                                                                                                                                

10-11 AM     FM Panel- WA2EXP                                      10-11 AM  Consumerism- WA2ATW

10- 12 Noon  ATV- W1ICP                                                 10-11 AM Amateur Radio Training Course

10-11:30 PM DX Movie, 7J1RL                                          10-12 Noon    FM Technical Talk-WA2EXP

10-11 AM  PR Panel -WB2FHN                                          10-12:30 PM AMSAT- K2QBW.WA2INB/1

10-12 Noon NTS Forum - W2MTA                                     11-12 Noon    Legal Problems – K2SKV

11-1:30 PM Micriprocessors – WA2SFF                             11-12 Noon    Antennas – W2EBS

12-1 PM AREC – WB2PBO                                                12 - 1 PM   RTTY – K2AGI                                                                                             

1 – 2 PM  AMSAT – K2QBW, WA1INB/1                         1 -2 PM Beginners session for new hams

1 – 2:30 PM Contest Forum – W2FVS, W1YL                    1 -2 PM New outgoing QSL Bureau

1 – 2:30 PM Antennas – W2DU                                            1 – 4 PM VHF – WA2UYM

1:30 – 3 PM MARS – Gardner Harris                                   10 Am – 5 PM Exhibits

2 -3 PM Radio Astronomy – Richard Campbell                    10AM – 5 PM Flea Market

3 – 4 PM FCC Forum – J. John Johnston

4 – 5 PM ARRL Forum – K2SJO, W2TUK

6 PM  Cocktail hour – Cash bar.

7:30 PM Banquet: MC: W2ALS, Speaker,

              Jean Sheppard, K2ORS

10 AM – 5 PM Exhibits, Flea Market, FCC Exams.

 

Note that presiding at the ARRL Forum, were K2SJO and W2TUK.  Stan Zak, K2SJO, was at that time the ARRL Hudson Division Director, and Harry Dannels, W2TUK (later W2HD) later became a Hudson Division Dirrector.   Harry has since retired to Virginia.

It is also interesting to note that in the Spring 1976 Hudson Newsletter there was a report about a new repeater council that was formed  It was called “The Tri-State Amateur Repeater Association.”  An organizational meeting had been held on December 6, 1975 in Rye, New York.  This was at that time the largest repeater organization in the USA.  There were 140 attendees present, representing 59 of the 75 repeaters in the area covered by the Hudson Division.  The President of the organization was WA2EXP and there were different Directors and Vice-Directors for each telephone area code as well as a Director at Large responsible for frequency coordination.  All hams were cautioned to remember that if their club was anticipating placing a repeater on the air, they must check for frequency assignment with their area coordinator FIRST.  OT GARC members might remember if the GARC repeaters were among the 75 considered at that time.

In the Fall 1976.Hudson Newsletter an anoucement was made of a special bicentenial commemorative station, WL2USA, which operated from the Statue of Liberty for four days, November 25 -28, 1976.

 

INTERRNET LINK OF THE MONTH FOR INTERNERDS

Our program at our September meeting was a video of  the K5K expedition to Kingman Reef in 2000.  If you were at the meeting or if you missed it you might want to learn more about the operation and about the reef itself.  The following site was sponsored by Force 12, which suppled some of the antennas (switchable vertical dipole arrays) for this exposition..  Just go to:  http://Force12inc.com/k5kinfo.htm         

 

 

 

 

PRESIDENT’S PAGE

By KE2LJ

                                                                                                                                                  

            We are having a good time in Sun City Center at our “new” retirement house. I say “new” because, although it was built in the 60s, we have totally renovated the place in the last year. All the inside stuff is done mostly, and we are furiously spending our pensions on the two outside projects, the garage and the landscaping. Our carpenter guy, who did all the inside work, once worked in a cabinet shop. He did a great job with the kitchen cabinets that KD1F designed for us. So I asked him about building me a desktop for my shack. I need a surface for my radios and computer. I sketched the layout, and gave him dimensions. The only “innovative” thing I did was to leave a 2 inch gap at the back of the table top and shelves for wiring to go. He made it out of oak plywood, and stained it to match the existing desk in that room. Finally, I now have a nice place to set up my gear, and I’ll begin doing that as soon as the wood dries. The garage is also nearing completion. As soon as the contractor is done, I’ll have my carpenter guy build me some storage shelves in there. This garage would be the envy of almost any man. It is more than 2 cars wide, leaving lots of room for cabinets, shelves, and a workbench inside. It is also quit high. The 2 doors are 8’ tall. I can drive right in with my SUV and the 2 meter antenna doesn’t hit anything. One day I was going to move some furniture to West Palm, and I had tied a small dresser onto the roof rack of the SUV. It was beginning to rain, so I drove my Blazer into the garage. Even with the dresser on top, it went in without hitting anything. That’s pretty big. The garage is rated for 130 MPH winds, so it should easily withstand almost any hurricane we could get. Another thing that’s unique to retirement communities like this, is the golf cart culture. The rules allow us to operate golf carts up to 20 MPH on all the local roads. We are about a mile from the nearest strip mall, so there is almost no reason to operate the car. For most of our local errands, we can get there quickly in our electric golf cart. Around here, there are special, smaller parking spots for carts only. Some people have carts with fake car body reproductions on them. One neighbor has a cart that looks like a miniature 1965 Mustang.  I bet that cost a pretty penny.

 There are lots of Hams here, and I joined the local club, the SCC  ARC. The first 2 meetings I attended were boring. It seems that there are a good number of new Hams here, and the meetings are geared towards educating these people. While that is a noble thing to do, the older Hams like me find the meetings to be quite dull. In fact, many of them just don’t attend anymore. The last meeting was an elementary discussion on how to QSL a DX station. It was difficult for me to stay attentive. They also don’t usually have refreshments, so that’s another incentive for people to not attend. I think I’ll keep going for a few months and see what happens. Maybe I can help with the antenna or repeater committees. They could probably use a decent tower climber sometimes.

 They have their shack open every morning for 2 hours, and there are usually more than a half dozen Hams hanging around. You’d think they were talking about radios, but no, they were talking about each other behind their backs. All the little gossip stories were coming out. I have to tell you, it was not an enjoyable experience. If that keeps up, I won’t go there anymore. Hopefully, it was a one-time occurrence. They have a weekly evening net like we do, and I will try doing that once my radios are on the air. There is also an HF net, but with propagation still being pretty bad, it is quite under-attended also. Maybe it will pick up when the sunspots return. When that happens, I’ll try getting onto the GARC HF nets as well.

I think my next little project will be to put an APRS tracker in the golf cart. The cart runs on six 6 volt batteries, so  there’s plenty of juice for a milliwatt radio. My wife keeps getting lost, and she calls me on the cell phone for directions. My first question is always “where are you”. But, she never seems to know. Nor does she know what direction she is heading in. A regular GPS navigation system would probably get stolen out of a parked golf cart, but I can hide a small tracker pretty easily. Then all I have to do is look on my computer screen for her cart, and see which way she’s going. That should work good, right?  You guys could also follow her on findu.com if you had nothing better to do. Anyway, that’s it for now. 73 from Paradise. –KE2LJ

 

 

 

 

                                             MINUTES OF GENERAL MEETING – 9/19//2007

Secretary, Karen KC2OPX

This meeting was called to order by Gordon at 5:30 PM

TREASURERS REPORT – Ed, WB2EAV          REPEATER REPORT – Gordon, KB2UB                        

Finances continue to be in good shape.                    Bethpage repeater problems are being resolved.                                                                                                                                                                           VE REPORT – Bob, W2ILP                                  NET REPORT- Zack, WB2PUE

3 applicants applied:  2 passed the Tech exam;         Sunday morning was poor..

1 failed the Extra exam.                                             Thursday night was good.                    

4 VEs were present: AB2EF, AB2NT,                      

KB2QFT and W2ILP.. .                                                                                              

OLD BUSINESS:

Tom Lovelock’s (KC2HNN’s) father passed away.  Details were provided for visiting the funeral home on 9/22  or 9/23.

NEW BUSINESS:

Gordon is now filling in for Pat at General Meetings.  Nominations for officers of the GARC will be made as is usual, at the November general meeting.

PROGRAM

We saw a movie of the Kingman Reef DXpedition, where 15 hams from 5 countries, using the call sign K5K worked over 81,000 QSOs in 2 ½  weeks on a coral reef that averages only 25 feet wide.  See the Internet Link of this month for more details.

The meeting was adjoined at 6:30 PM

 

GARC NETS:

40 Meters: 7.289 MHz at 7:30 AM EST Sundays.

2 Meters (via repeaters): 146.745 MHz  (-.600)at 8:30 PM EST Thursdays.

                                           145.330 MHz (- .600) at 8:45 PM EST Thursdays.

[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 will be held at the Allen Ellsworth Park in Farmingdale.  Check the GARC web site to be certain of meeting location, which may change after this newsletter, is distributed. Board meetings are held seven 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 including Field Day pictures.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

          PUZZLE               

 Here is another cryptogram. 

 

PESXMPLC   USPZCM   EB   LPUWSC’B   YPJ   AK   IPHELN   JAW   MAAH   MEHC   JAWS 

 

XPBBXASU   XFAUA.   –PM   NASC--

Solution to the September Cryptogram:-  GO AND NEVER DARKEN MY TOWELS AGAIN.                         –GROUCHO MARKS—

 

 

EDITORIAL

 

 Most of the people who have recently applied for new licenses have had relatives who are hams.  They have learned about ham radio from their spouses or their parents and have decided to join them in the hobby…but more recently I have been contacted by youngsters who have no ham relatives and thus know little about ham radio licensing except what they heard about the new licensing structure that permits one to become a ham without learning the Morse Code.  This is exactly what the no code philosophy is supposed to promote and I think it is starting to do exactly that…at least for some potential newbies.   Psychology studies tell us that if you show kids that you want them to study anything that is not required for school work…they won’t…but if you are indifferent or even apprehensive about what they want to learn…then they will purposely want to learn it.  At least that is what I am hoping for, because a few youngsters have been asking me about the ham exams and I am looking forward to the time when they will be ready to take them.  I hope that these kids get to go to HRU2008.  That is one of the purposes of it…aside for rewarming up old hams….who may already be Extras.

 

73, w2ilp (Increase Licensing Publicity)..for more unrelated hams!

 

 

 GARC VE SESSIONS

 

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:

Element 2: Technician

Element 3: General  

Element 4: Amateur Extra Class.

 

The fee for 2007 is $14 for all exams taken at one sitting. 

 

Applicants for upgrades should bring a photocopy of their license and any CSCE and their FRN number.

 

New, first time applicants should be aware that their Social Security number will be required on their application form.  All applicants should bring driver’s license or other picture ID.

 

Until further notice, VE exams will be at Briarcliffe College

1055 Stewart Avenue

Room: Long Beach #5

Bethpage, NY

Briarcliffe in Bethpage is located in a building that was formerly part of the Grumman complex.

 

All applicants should contact W2ILP to preregister so as to confirm location.  If no applicants apply, exam sessions may be cancelled.

 

For any information e-mail: -

[email protected] or phone: -

(631) 499-2214

 

Study material information is available at the http://www.arrl.org or the http://www.w5yi.org web site.

All VECs use the same Q & A pools.

Since the beginning of the VE program the GARC has provided opportunities to take ham exams monthly, during all twelve months of every year.

 

 

GRUMMAN AMATEUR RADIO CLUB OFFICERS FOR 2007

 

President                                  Pat Masterson              KE2LJ         Retiree     813-938-4614

Vice President                          Gordon Sammis                     KB2UB    Retiree     631-666-7463

Secretary                                  Karen Cefalo             KC2OPX                          631-754-0974
Treasurer                                  Ed Gellender             WB2EAV              X02-14   516-575-0013

2Yr Board Member                   Zack Zilavy              WB2PUE               Retiree    631-667-4628
2YrBoard Member                   Dave Ledo                AB2EF

2Yr Board Member                  Bob Christen          W2FPF       

1Yr Board Member                  Bob Wexelbaum    W2ILP          Retiree     631-499-2214

1Yr Board Member                  Jack Cottrell          WA2PYK    Retiree     516-249-0979

Trustee WA2LQO                            Ray Schubnel        W2DKM       Retiree

 

Meeting Programs:                             Contact a Board Member

FCC Exam Coord:.                           Bob Wexelbaum  W2ILP  631-499-2214

 

 

 

 

20 Years Ago- “CQ DE WA2LQO” – Nov. 1987 Vol. 59 N0.5 CIRC 411

The fears of losing the shack below the Blue Ball, which were discussed at the October meeting were substantiated.  A new location that was offered to the GARC turned out to be unsatisfactory, since it was directly in the line of a runway. This was no good because it limited the height of antennas, including the repeater antenna. Ken Fitch, KC2DH, wrote his final President’s page. Since Ken had obtained a position at the Grumman West Coast Office he said his last farewell, knowing that a new president would be elected in November.  As one of his last official acts, Ken welcomed members of the Republic Radio Club, K2KIX, who had joined Grumman, as part of the A-10 program.

Ken spoke about letters he had received from Harry, K2AAN in CA and Ben, N6SL at sea on the “Sea Venture” (WJMV). The scores from Field Day 1987 appeared in this issue.  The GARC, operating as a class 5A, racked up a score of 5,736 points.  This made us number 10 in that category.  Other scores (above 4500) were shown for comparison.

In addition to the first part of the FD 1987 article, other reprints from QST included the

 W1AW operating schedule, an article about the questioning pools used for license exams, and an article asking if your license manual was up to date. An article from WorldRadio told about various organizations which were had filed comments with the FCC in attempts to take over the issuing of vanity call sign coordination.  There was also a reprint of Steve Mendelssohn’s “ARRL Update”.  It spoke about PRB-1  with regard to Andy’s (K2LE) antenna height problem.

Also mentioned was Carole Perry’s promotion of Ham Radio for “Geography Awareness Week.”, Nov. 15 -21.