Radio Amateur - On Line Ham Radio Class
Contents
1. MARCH 2002 BEHIND THE SCENES BROADBAND INTERNET AND CABLE The March 12 RAN V Meeting Thinking of upgrading to Broadband Cable Internet service Or if you have Broadband Cable ever wondered how it works or why it doesn t work sometimes Or have you ever questioned how all those hundreds of TV channels come out of the little box on top of the TV Or even wondered why you hear a big fat carrier on 145 25 MHz all over town Well you ve come to the right place Our March meeting will feature Mike KB1FUV speaking about all of the above and more Mike works for Adelphia Communications and is involved with a lot of the behind the scenes stuff to make all the cable programming work He will be able to explain the setup and answer a lot of your questions But don t bring the fruit for throwing if you have lackluster service We want Mike back for a second talk on Repeater Linking Next Month All of this craziness takes place on Tuesday March 12 Dinner and pre meeting warm up start at 6 PM at Zack s on Williston Road The meeting starts at 7 PM at the O Brien Civic Center 113 Patchen Road South Burlington Hope to see you all there Don t forget your RAN V Jackets RANV JACKETS You ve seen them at the hamfest and agreed Wow they are sharp look ing Weare talking of course about the new RAN V Jackets You didn t place an order at first but now you want one Here are the details The2. missed A switch to the proper head phones after that dramatically improved my copying ability Headphones come in three general types lightweight Walkman types single ear types and full muffs I almost always use the lightweight phones in quiet locations such as in the shack while using the full muffs in noisy loca tions such as at a public service event Some like the single ear types when they have to listen to both radio and live people This is a personal decision as I personally don t hear very well with these I also find that headphones really help out in HF operating while mobile but be sure to use lightweight phones which allow you to hear horns and sirens and be careful to not use these where they are prohibited by Mitch WISJ LEARN TO SAY YOUR CALLSIGN It is also amazing how many hams do not know how to properly send their callsign You would think this is a no brainer When trying to dig a weak W3 out of the noise on 10 meters how the operator presents his or her callsign will most likely determine if the contact is possible First always use proper phonetics If you are not going to give your callsign phonetically then don t bother giving it at all Why Because it will likely be copied incorrectly In a contest points are deducted for miscopied information Frankly I am not willing to waste time on anyone who will not send their callsign cor rectly Make sure you use one of the standard phon
3. jackets from WearGuard of Norwell MA The particular jacket that we have ordered is Style 414 Color Bl They sew three things on to this jacket 1 RAN V Logo 756412 on front left 2 your callsign in gold on right 3 Radio Amateurs of Northern Vermont in light blue on back optional The base jacket costs 50 The embroidery can run 10 40 additional depending on if we get the half price discount and if the back is embroidered To this also add shipping costs We got a good end of year sale the first time Those who hesitated will have to pay a bit more more this time Debbie is willing to put together another order If we have several jackets together we will get savings on the embroidery and shipping Contact her directly at dstern zoo uvm edu Radio Amateur News Views The Official Journal of the Radio Amateurs of Northern Vermont Vol 12 No 3 COMING UP The last 5 weeks have been wild and woolly with the Vermont QSO Party a pair of DX and 160 Meter Contests and of course the Milton Hamfest Things will quiet down briefly and then the activities will come bang bang again March 16 is the Weekend Ham Radio Class There is still time for some latecomers to jump in and get their ham licenses Our next meeting April 9 is on Internet Repeater Linking Project IRLP This is a fascinating system where repeaters all over the world can be linked up After we will be working to provide this function Ou
4. of what they want and they will come It s not always clear what they want but that s the fun of it The 2002 hamfest hit 550 attend ees This topped the last two years in which we were in the 450 475 range This year s attendance was about the same as the attendance in 1997 99 This is a very good sign Perhaps it is a trend that hamfests all over will start getting better this year Or hamfests could continue their slide and we are the odd case In either scenario we come out fine For the first time the number of vendors was down Usually we have about 90 tables 6 foot of vendors This year it hit around 70 A number of factors contributed to this First we lost Radio Bookstore this year as Craig had a family situation to tend to Thanks go to Rhyne at Radio De vices who took up the slack in the book sales area He did a great job because few people really noticed A few other of the big connector ven dors also didn t make it up this year perhaps due to the soft economy A new trend has developed in that vendors flock to the back flea market room Years ago vendors considered it an exile area How things change This caused an abundance of tables in the front room I certainly didn t want to run out of tables at 8 00 like what happened last year Go figure The drop in vendors didn t seem to bother many Paul and Debbie at the vantage point at the door saw hundreds of pounds of junk make their
5. use your radio properly That is not the time to be messing with the manual 6 IMPROVE YOUR HF OPERATING Ma and more amateurs are upgrading and focusing their efforts on the HF frequencies HF com munications using SSB requires stricter adherence to operating procedures Unlike the full quieting high fidelity signals of an FM repeater channel HF is filled with wide ranging signal levels very tight filtering and a good deal of interference from transmissions on ei ther side of one s frequency In my activities as a contester I com plete on the order of 8000 QSO s each year a routine which has occurred for over 25 years At the receiving end of the pileups it is quite obvious which operating techniques work and which ones don t This article will be the first of several on techniques to make you a better HF operator PUT ON THE HEADPHONES It never ceases to amaze me how many times hams do not or will not use headphones A classic example is a scene from the video The New World of Ama teur Radio where several operators are straining to copy signals on mul tiple receivers at a Convention of all places It s so ridiculous it is funny Unless you are engaged in a casual con tact where signals are truly armchair copy as we like to say use headphones You will be surprised how much more you will hear Years ago I was sur prised when I heard a tape of myself operating and noted how many calls I
6. 1Z Brian N1BQ Don N1QKH Eric N1SRC Fred N1ZUK Mitch W1SJ John WA1RMS Tickets Bob KB1FRW Paul AA1SU Debbie W1DEB RANV Table Charly W1CHG Fred N1ZUK Grant K1KD Brian N1BQ Don N1QKH Forums Brian N1BQ John VE2EQL Mike N1JEZ Henry KT 1J Ron KK1L Mike W1RC Bob WE1U Jim N1NK Rick NRL Tom K1KI Examiners Jim AA1BO Ted K1HD Tom K1KBL Joe K2KBT Fran KM1Z Brian N1BQ Ed N1PEA Eric N1SRC Fred N1ZUK John NV1Z Mitch W1SJ CONTEST CORNER by Paul AAISU The results of a few recent contests have been published in the March issue of QST In the 2001 IARU HF World Championship held last July 14 15 Jim NIBCL managed to rack up 234 QSOs and 41 multipliers for a total of 30 217 points in the single operator category Way to go Jim In the September 2001 VHF QSO Party once again our own Mitch W15J operating as WB1GQR used his operating skills and fine Mt Equinox location to rank number two in the country for Single Operator Low Power And once again he did this using only four of eight available bands Mitch reports that these were The best condi tions in a lifetime In the QSO and Multiplier Leaders boxes he led on all four of the bands that he worked which were 50 MHz 144 MHz 222 MHz amp 432 MHz Nice going Mitch In the nosebleed category of contests Mike NIJEZ worked the 2001 ARRL 10 GHz Cumulative Contest last August and September He made the top ten box for numbers of different call signs worked
7. BH of Williston has also been licensed for many years Carolyn N1SKM of West Boylston MA is president of the Central Mas sachusetts Amateur Radio Club in Worcester and is active in DX Her son is Robert KB1EVV of East Burke John VE2EQL of Greenfield Park PQ has been a Forum Speaker at Milton for the last two years and is an avid ORP enthusiast taking part in the FYBO contest at N1BQ s QTH Ham Steak Oh noooo FYBO RESULTS By Brian NIBQ The Northern Vermont QRP Society is group of local operators many who are RAN V members who get together to operate a few of the larger QRP low power operating events each year Again this year we operated in the annual Winter Field Day known as FYBO Freezing Your Butt Off sponsored by the Arizona S QRP ions Club We set up in Field Day style no fixed station equipment just hastily erected anten nas and battery power The location was in the yard at N1BQ s OTH The temperature ranged from 5 F to 24 F in the bright sun about 18 F actual back down to about 5 F at shutdown 9PM One of FYBO s major quirks is a score multiplier that goes up as the actual tempera ture at the operator s position goes down As with last year s operation we easily qualified for the maximum multiplier of 6X We operated single rig multi op switching between a pair of Elecraft K1 s on 40 20 15 and a Ten Tec on 10 We ran dipoles to fiberglass poles jammed into the snowbanks and tun
8. ast month Ron KK1L put together an excellent operation in the ARRL DX Contest this past weekend The category was two transmitters The main station used tribanders stacked at 60 and 90 feet while the second used a Vertical Nine operators pumped out close to 2500 contacts for a score of over 3 million The highlight was that none of the amplifiers broke down Last year two amplifiers went up in smoke so this was a definite concern The operating team consisted of AA1SU K1HD K1KD K1WEY KC1WH KK1L N1ZUK W1DEC and W1SJ The score put us in the middle of the pack which is not bad considering that the operating approach was half competitive and half fun and the station was off for a few hours overnight Two weeks earlier KK1L was on for the CW portion of the ARRL DX Contest with a smaller multiop contingent of KIKD KK1L KM1Z W1CX and W15J who produced a score of around 1 mil lion I ran a few hours of CW DX at close to 100 per hour and it was a real slap in the face but fun Thanks to Ron for opening up his station and allowing us all to have fun and to wife Laurie for putting up with all the strange guys in the basement There was some activity in the CQ Worldwide 160 Meter contests as K1KD and I played a little in the CW portion In the phone portion which was Milton Hamfest eve I got on for a mere 46 minutes and had a big pileup But with a 5 45 wakeup call for the fest the fun ended early The surprise participant in this conte
9. behave closer to the written stan dard Try going in to your program s options may also be called preferences or configuration and making sure you ve set it fora VT100 VT101 ter minal and have the local echo turned off This will resolve the problem on a number of terminal programs Probably the best solution is to use one of the programs that have been tested to work correctly with the DX Cluster On the support web site there are links to many terminal programs that work fine with DXBVT I ve also included links to several logging programs that inte grate the DX Cluster terminal within the logging program Combined with a radio that has CAT a com puter interface this is a powerful way to work a lot of new DX These pro grams connect to the DX Cluster and as the spots come in compare the station to those you have in your log You can set up the logging pro gram to sound an alarm if the sta tion is anew DXCC ona new band or mode etc You can then just click on the station and the radio will tune to the frequency ready for you to work them Of course if your ra dio doesn t have computer control you can always tune it manually During the recent ARRL DX SSB contest this was done quite success fully at the KK1L multi op effort Connected through the radio port for the full 48 hours of the contest KKI1L benefited by the over 25000 spots that came from the 1000 us ers connected to the network that
10. ed them with the built in antenna tuning unit on the K1 s Power came from Gel Cells which were charged by a 60 watt solar panel The sun was so bright that we only connected the solar panel for about 10 minutes each hour to keep the battery up Operators were Bob WE1U Fran KMI1Z Brian N1BQ John VE2EQL Eric N1SRC and Sara WISLR Also present in body or spirit were Kristin AA1SK who wasn t feeling well but made a pot of killer chili Ralph KD1R and Suzanne John s wife plus an interested about to be ham and his father We had 87 contacts with 32 SPCs and took multipliers for Field operation x4 Alternative Power x2 and well under 20 F temperature x6 for a total of 133 632 just up from last year s 133 056 On the culinary front we started the morn ing with fresh bagels from Burlington Bagel Bakery compliments of Fran and fresh crois sants from Montreal from John Lunch was baked baby back ribs marinated in Bob s spe cial sauce for the last two days dinner was a fabulous beef stew and some fresh Montreal French bread from Suzanne and John Kristin s killer chili was an all day affair literally and figuratively Sara added fresh baked chocolate chip cookies We may have been colder than heck out there operating but there was always something to look forward to Look for pictures at http www wulfden org NVQS HF ACTIVITIES By Mitch W1SJ There has been lots of HF activity in our area over the l
11. etic alphabets Don t make up your own phonetics as this will confuse the issue The ARRL and ITU each recommend a particular set of phonetics but there are phonetics used by used by police and the military DX operators also use alternate phonetics as some words are hard for them to pronounce If the receiving station can not copy a part of your callsign try using a different phonetic word That is usually all it takes Some words and syllables have very low energy content and are hard to hear in noisy condi tions Knowing when and how to switch phonetics is an important tool If the station you are calling does not get your callsign keep screaming your callsign and I mean just that and try different phonetics If you are persistent and re ally really want to get though you probably will However if you casu ally mention your callsign a couple of times you re likely to not get though How bad do you want it The FCC gave you a callsign which is 4 6 characters long They did not au thorize a shortcut of two letters Never and I mean NEVER use two or three letters in place of your call Trust me when I say that hams who do this re ally shoot themselves in the foot There are all sorts of folklore propagated by poor operators who claim that this re ally helps Bunk When numerous sta tions are calling my goal is to collect the most number of characters of one person s callsign so that Ihave a unique statio
12. filled with boat anchors This year more than any other we proved that Milton is a full service Convention Planning the hamfest is quite easy I made a list of the things that need to be done before the show and it is surprisingly short However if you leave anything out you re dead One of the key activities and one of the hardest is obtaining local pub licity It entails going after the print radio and electronic media and con vincing them that the Milton Hamfest is an important community event Simply sending them a fax doesn t work faxes often go ig nored I managed to get a piece in the Free Press on the Thursday be fore the show which helped greatly Also on Thursday I chatted with Mark Johnson on WKDR 1390 and WDEV 550 about the Milton Hamfest and amateur radio Each week my engineering work requires I inter rupt Mark s show to run an Emer gency Alert System test EAS or the old EBS This time I got to interrupt myself Hey it s a form of packet radio why not Reaching out to the community is vital to keep the hamfest and amateur radio grow ing It s a pain sometimes but we must all do it Help is always needed to publicize the hamfest and ama teur radio Milton has come a long way from 20 years ago when 3 people ran it So here is the list of folks who make it happen Please take the time to thank them when you get a chance Setup Paul AA1SU Ted K1HD Howie K2MME Ron KK1L Fran KM
13. he topic of the night was Beyond Line of Sight Commu nications He first spoke the meth ods behind Meteor Scatter Commu nications and how the new WSJT software automatically encodes and decodes information for much more efficient meteor scatter communica tions We all got to see the program in action and heard just what WSJT sounded like The talk shifted to the JT 43 mode of communications where weak signals can be copied by computer right out of the noise Mike told us that with JT 43 one could communicate several hundred miles and with WSJT out to around 1500 miles Not bad for VHF and UHF After the enlightening talk the group broke for some soda and cook ies Later a vote was taken and passed to spend 50 100 for a set of BADGES We have a batch of badges for people who have joined RAN V over the last year and at Milton RAN V gives all new members a light blue callsign badge We have also ex tended this service for folks who change their callsign and need a new badge Lately there have been an increasing number of people request ing a badge to replace one which was 1 put in the wash 2 run over by a streamroller 3 eaten by the dog etc Please take care of your badge At some point we will have to draw the line on replacing badges for whatever reason They do cost money to make and our provider has raised the price dramatically I will notify people I have new badges for by E mail Please make an ex
14. ion that s of interest to you Instead I will push that back to next month and instead we ll talk about what s new at DXBVT and pass along some useful information First off there now is a web site up and running to support the DXBVT DX Cluster Along with a very well written user s manual by the author of the software and Jan GOVGS there is information on the cluster and how to get the most out of it There s also useful links and photos of the operation The site is http n1zuk home dyndns org Next I ve had several people tell me that they have been having prob lems accessing the cluster via Telnet I ve been trying to work one on one with each of them to resolve their issues The trouble is mainly due to the terminal program on their com puter Unfortunately the folks who write software these days keep add ing more features to their programs having them do more than what the Telnet standard was written to do This causes the terminal program on your computer to hang waiting for a response that it never gets from the cluster software So what s the solution Well sev eral things could be done I could try and accommodate every one of the hundreds of different terminal pro grams out there but I d need to quit my job to devote enough time to do this If anyone wants to support me at my current lifestyle I may be willing to do this Another option is to see if you can configure your program to
15. ks The meet ings are just going to get more and more interesting The charity events that we cover this year are going to train more new hams to be ready for unusual circumstances The fox hunts will be under way soon Field Day will be here before you know it and new hams will be getting on the air getting a taste of HF and well as VHF on SSB All this and the year will only be half over You gotta love this club eh So by all means please stay in touch with the club any way that you can We all have busy lives and we can only do so much I encour age those of you who have not been able to be radio active to do so this year There is just an enormous amount of modes and bands to ex plore in this hobby Surely there must be something that interests the inactive ham Why did you know that at the April meeting we will be discussing a way to chat on repeat ers around the country from the com fort of your home computer It is just amazing some of the things that we have covered and what we will be covering in the months to come So hang on tight and TIl see you on March 12 MILTON HAMFEST 2002 remendous That was the word I heard describing the 20 annual Milton Hamfest Over the last few years it has been very hard planning the hamfest pro gram The question I often ask how do we top last year s great show The answer always comes down to us ing sound hamfest planning prin ciples give em more
16. lp serve the ham radio commu nity we present two more ARRL Field Organization job de scriptions The minimum requirement for any appointment is that you be a full member of the ARRL Applications for ap pointments can be found at www artl org fandes field org Do you want to know one way in which hams assist each other with diagnosing transmitting irregularities The League has sponsored the Official Observer OO Program for more than fifty years The OO is the backbone of the Amateur Auxiliary to the FCC and performs his or her function by listening rather than transmitting While tuning around the band the OO keeps an ear out for such things as frequency instability harmonics hum key clicks broad signals distorted audio over deviation out of band operation etc Once an operating or technical ir regularity is detected the OO sends a card to the offending station A response from the other station is not required the OO s job is done The requirements are a little more intense than the appointments we covered already The OO must take and pass a test must have been a Technician Class or higher license for at least four years must report to the OO Coordinator OOC on a regular basis and must maintain regular activity in send ing out advisory notices as needed In hard core rules violation cases OOs refer problems to higher ups in the Amateur Auxil iary Currently there are a few Official Observers in Vermont but there may be r
17. n to go back to I want to make sure that only ONE station replies not 2 3 or 30 When you give the entire callsign I have a prefix a number anda suffix to grab from you There is a far better chance to get more of your callsign this way then by just giving two letters which may very likely by shared by someone else And even if there is no pileup giving two letters causes me to have to ask for a repeat of your callsign since I only have two let ters at the start If you feel your callsign is too long whip out a check to the FCC and get a short call but whatever you use use the whole thing When saying your callsign say it once or twice and that s it Unless there is QRM on frequency don t say my callsign I already know what it is and I also don t need to hear it to peak my attention I can t tell you how many operators will give my callsign and then say their callsign quickly without phonetics So when you hear a station calling CQ or QRZ wait for them to stop transmitting pause a second and give your callsign once with phonetics Say your callsign with gusto with the idea that your life depends on the sta tion returning to you Attitude most certainly counts In a pileup or under poor conditions you might give your callsign a second time but stop there Don t call until you establish that the calling station is listening for you only Further calling will cause ORM to some one else s excha
18. nge causing that con tact to take longer and causing you to wait longer Never append anything onto or af ter your callsign Saying your QTH or QRP or mobile might make you feel important but it really fouls up the process I can t tell you how many times I ve put variants of W1QRP in the log Don t say it it is not going to make anyone hear you any better If you have to say anything say your callsign Sometimes shouting Vermont dur ing a pileup has helped me get through but this is done with discretion and only after my call is clearly enunciated with phonetics Now your homework for this week is to practice saying your callsign pho netically into a tape recorder And buy headphones See you next time NEXT MEETING Behind the Scenes of Broadband Internet and Cable Tuesday March 12th 7PM O Brien Civic Center RAN V http www RANV org P O Box 9392 South Burlington Vt 05407
19. on 10 GHz only at 34 That may seem like a low number but this is a tough two weekend contest Moving on to the upcoming contests the Rus sian DX Contest is Saturday March 16 starting at 7 AMand lasting for 24 hours Exchange is RS T and serial number This isa good way to work on your Worked All Oblasts Award Rules are on page 102 of the March QST There is also the Alaska Virginia and Montana QSO Parties on the air for you to hand out valuable Vermont contacts for March 29 is the CQ WW SSB WPX Contest This is a 48 hour contest that will help get you ready for Field Day as well as add to your DXCC totals for the year The exchange is signal report and serial number This is the contest where your call sign prefix is the multiplier Examples are W1 K1 KC1 N1 KEI KK1 and the very rare AA1 for us and HC8 P40 SP3 EA9 TA3 S59 PY4 JA1 UUO etc for the DX stations Stateside con tacts count for points too Contest software is highly recommended Of course not all contests are mentioned here This is just to motivate you a little Other sources are QST CQ Magazine and National Contest Jour nal Another source on the web is www arrl org contests and www hornucopia com contestcal Next month The premier of The New England QSO Party ARRL FIELD ORGANIZATION Official Observer amp Official Emergency Station by Paul AAISU In an ongoing series of articles to make Vermont amateurs more aware of how they can he
20. oom for more in your neighborhood During times of emergency hams are often called to duty However there must be amateur radio operators around the state that set the high standards of emergency preparedness and operating procedures that we reply upon for guidance The Section Manager SM as well as some other section level ap pointees can appoint amateur operators as an Official Emer gency Station OES The OES must be familiar with ARES and must make a deeper commitment to the program in terms of functionality than does the rank and file ARES registrant The appointee carries out specific functions and assignments desig nated by the Emergency Coordinator EC The major areas of responsibility are Operations Administration Liaison Logis tics Management Assistant and Consulting The OES appoin tee may be assigned to pre disaster post disaster and recovery functions He or she is also expected to do a variety of other functions that we don t have room for here For a more complete appointment description look on the link mentioned above Current OES s include Les W1UT in Charlotte and Micky K1XH in Wilder So why not consider one of these appointments for yourself You may have been wondering how you can get more involved with ham radio in Vermont This may be your ticket MORE DX CLUSTERS by Fred NIZUK This month I had promised you a more in depth look at using filtering on the DX cluster to help you find the informat
21. r first Fox Hunt of the year will be Friday April 19 W1SJ will once again be out there to drive you nuts Also on that Weekend hams will helping out with the Vermont Public TV Travel Auction And that brings us to May 3 4 Hosstraders And Spring IN THIS ISSUE Milton Hamfest 2002 Contest Corner ARRL Field Org More DX Clusters Welcome to RANV FYBO Results HF Activities HF Techniques OUR LAST RAN V MEETING by Charlie W1CHG Sec y The meeting was called to order by the President Paul AA1SU at 7 13 After introductions all the way around it was announced that the first of the RAN V jackets have ar rived after many miscues by the ven dor These look very sharp with very distinctive logos Dave W1DKL will provide the March meeting refresh ments It was announced that the May meeting will be a barbecue at Brian and Sara s N1BQ WI1SLR QTH Brian s place is totally solar powered so that should be the tech nical discussion of the evening The Field Day site is in much bet ter shape than as reported before Field Day is June 22 23 mark it on your calendar Mitch appealed to all members to promote and at tend the Milton Hamfest He was also looking for volunteers to help with tables and setup on Friday night before the hamfest and volunteers to staff the club tables during the hamfest Mitch appeared to have enough volunteers to fill the posts The speaker for the evening was Mike N1JEZ T
22. s about one every 7 seconds By click ing on the unworked stations that were listed in the logging program many stations could be worked ina short period of time Remember not all contests allow packet spotting and many that do require you to en ter as an Assisted class Make sure you read the rules before the contest and follow them On a side note I noticed many of the operators at KK1L came from the ranks of RANV and W1PU Road Kill ARC W1PU also has a new web site at htto w1pu home dyndns org That s it for this month Next time TIl help you sift through the wealth of information available on the DX cluster Welcome To RANV Wow we have a big list to give you Mike KB1FUV of Essex attended the Weekend Class last year and will be speaking on Internet Access and IRLP at upcoming RAN V meetings Philip WB7EKM of Addison has been a Novice for many years and upgraded to General at the Week end Class last fall Ron KB1HRV of Burlington is ac tive on many of the area repeaters Fred WA1LIE and Jo KB1EPT of Waitsfield are active in both RAN V and CVARC Steve KA1JUN of Georgia attended the very first class taught by W15SJ then WB2JSJ in 1982 His son will be at class next week 20 years later Matt KA1KLJ of Burlington at tended the second class taught by WIS in 1983 He was little then Steve N1HLP of Fletcher has been licensed over 10 years and just picked up his Extra at Milton Stuart WB2P
23. st showed up Saturday evening as W1DEB exercising her new Gen eral privileges banged out 57 QSOs on the top band You can track what RANV members are up to in the latest contests by checking the web http Avww ranv org scores html REPEATER OPERATING As you may know we have a noise problem on the 145 15 repeater To tie us over until this problem can be fixed a second receiver was installed in Chittenden County To use it simply turn OFF your CTCSS tone If you go back over the mountains to Central Vermont turn ON the tone This should be simple enough Hardly a week goes by without someone bellyaching about the noise And when I check I find that BOTH stations are running tone using the mountain receiver and are well within range of the local receiver This upsets me greatly We go to great lengths to make the system work All you need to do is to use your equipment properly After reading this get out the manual for whatever radio or radios you use and learn how to change tones and offsets while driving If that is when you use the radio then know how to safely change things or program it We are trained amateur radio operators who ought to be experts on this There is no excuse During last year s Marathon two operators kept transmitting on the output of the repeater causing confusion for everyone They weren t aware or didn t know how to set the offset Learn One day someone s life may depend on your ability to
24. tra ef fort to come to the March meeting This saves us from having to mail them which is a slow and tricky process Contacting RAN V Meeting March 12 7pm O Brien Civic Center 113 Patchen Rd So Burlington PO Box 9392 So Burlington VT 05403 145 15 repeater In Person By Mail By Radio WW Web hitp Avww ranv org President Paul AAISU aalsu arrl net VP Tres Brian N1BQ nibq wulfden org Secretary Charlie WICHG 434 5995 cccharly wevt com Editor Mitch W1SJ wisj arrl net 860 1134 899 4527 879 6589 Please send submissions for the newsletter to the editor W1SJ amateur radio books for the Underhill Jericho library The meet ing was adjourned at 9 00 2 THE PREZ SEZ by Paul AAISU President The Milton Hamfest has come and gone and boy what a success it was We had an marked improve ment in turnout eight forums two exam sessions and tons of eyeball QSOs Members have remarked to me how much fun it was just to hang around in groups and talk to people You should know by now that this is one of the key elements that make a hamfest successful The camara derie is a very important part of the whole hamfest experience Plus I saw a lot of bargains going out the door as Debbie and I were collect ing the admission money Thanks to all of you that came out and made this such a nice event I hope that you all had fun We have a jam packed year planned out for you fol
25. way out to the parking area by Mitch WISJ New this to Milton was full ser vice QSL Card checking While Fred VUCC and I DXCC had no tak ers Linda W1MP was busy for a long time checking WAS QSL cards Paul AA1SU also found someone to check his WAC QSL Cards rumor has it the janitor checked them The VE Sessions had increased traffic this year There were 26 ap plicants who picked up 18 upgrades or new licenses Some of the people upgrading W1DKL N1HLP N1NZH to Extra and W1DEB KB1EZC KB1EZD KB1EZE to Gen eral There was major activity at the RAN V table this year How do I know this We picked up 6 new members a record anumber of renewals sold out of the RAN V T shirts and even sold out of the Vermont Amateur Ra dio Directories This is a first Fred commented to me that stuff was fly ing off that table at an amazing rate The forums were spectacular Of course I would say that since I or ganized them But those aren t my words they are yours At 8 30 the QRP Forum packed the room filling all 35 chairs and then some That set the tone of the day with full forums and people buzzing around outside discussing all the wonderful tekkie stuff they just learned The sad part is that it all happened so fast in those 3 hours Before you knew it the show was done I am particularly happy about how the forums program has grown over the years It has been our goal to make Milton more than just a flea market
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