NORTH CAROLINA SECTION NEWS – November, 2013

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL HAMS AND THEIR FAMILIES ACROSS NORTH CAROLINA

FALL SIMULATED EMERGENCY TESTS (SET) EXERCISES will be held in two sessions over the next month.  The first SET begins this Saturday, November 30th, and will continue on Saturday, December 14th.  In addition to phone on 3923 KHz, the North Carolina ARES frequency, digital modes will be used extensively.  Winlink will remain the primary mode for store-and-forward traffic as it has in the past, but peer-to-peer modes will be introduced using Olivia and MT63, digital
modes which many other ARES and AUXCOMM units are using.   For those
who want to try these two modes, download FLDIGI software available free at http://www.w1hkj.com/download.html and learn how to operate it at http://www.w1hkj.com/beginners.html  Further updates on the SETs are available on the Tar Heel Emergency Net (THEN) nightly at 7:30 PM local on 3923 KHz, and especially on Monday evenings which is ARES night on THEN. The section website at www.ncarrl.org will also have frequent SET updates.

15th ANNUAL SKYWARN RECOGNITION DAY is Saturday, December 7th.  The Raleigh and Newport, NC National Weather Service (NWS) offices will be hosting special event stations operating on HF, VHF and UHF as well as various IRLP, Echolink and D-Star reflectors across the country.  Also on the air will be NWS offices outside North Carolina which cover counties within the Tar Heel state, including the Greenville/Spartanburg,SC; Wakefield, VA; Blacksburg, VA and Morristown, TN NWS offices.  Details are available at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/skywarn/index.shtml and on the websites of your local NWS offices.  SKYWARN is a vital form of severe weather warning, such as the perilous tornadoes which hit the Piedmont and coastal plains regions of North Carolina in 2011.

FIELD DAY RESULTS ARE IN – and congratulations to the 57 individual and club stations around the Tar Heel state which participated.  Top NC stations in each category were: 1A – KG4CDI, Asheboro; 2A – Smith Chart K4OO, New Hill; 3A – Carolina Contest Consortium K4FQU, Raleigh; 5A – Wayne Co ARA W4HS, Goldsboro; 6A – RARS W4DW, Apex; 9A – OCRA/Durham FM W4EZ, Hillsborough; 2A COMMERCIAL – Foothills ARC W4FAR, Wilkesboro; 2F – Charlotte ARC W4CQ, Charlotte; 3F Forsyth ARC W4NC, Winston-Salem; 6F – NC Four County ARES NC4CA, Oxford.
Complete results can be seen at:
http://www.arrl.org/news/2013-arrl-field-day-results-posted

JUNE VHF CONTEST RESULTS show Paul Trotter, AA4ZZ, was the winner in the Southeast Region in the Limited Multiops category.  Paul lives in Charlotte, but he and many Carolinas DX Association members operate in
VHF contests from a mountaintop near Boone in Watauga County.  

COLLEGE DEVELOPING CUBESAT –Students at Mitchell College in Statesville are designing a “cubesat”, or a small satellite to go into space.  Many Hams know that satellites have always been pretty small in order to meet stringent payload requirements on rockets, but modern technology now permits satellites about the size of four inch cubes. In order to make such satellites economically attractive for launch, cubesats typicallyy are a combination of commercial and academic ventures containing multiple experiments.  Amateur Radio these days is usually a portion of two-way communications on board, and can be either dedicated to Ham Radio use fulltime or part-time, such as on weekends. Mitchell College professor Clint Halstead, KD5SBQ, is leading the project, which he hopes will be launched in five to seven years.

SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM GETS YOUNG HAMS ON AIR – The Forsyth Amateur Radio Club (FARC) has a novel incentive program to get Hams under age
18 living in or near Forsyth County on the air.  It’s the WB4ZWS Cedric S. Rodney Memorial Upgrade Scholarship.  FARC has at least one two meter rig and one HF transceiver available for young Technician and General Hams.  Applicants have to complete in 50 words or less “Why I would like to win one of these prizes”. This is a wonderful way to recycle equipment for the next generation of operators. Details at http://www.dwepe.com/FARCNewsletters/102013.pdf

PUBLIC SERVICE – No known events for December. The Carteret County Amateur Radio Society participated in the Carteret County Emergency Service’s “Trunk or Treat” program October 26th.  The Rowan Amateur Radio Society helped with the Veterans Day Parade in Salisbury on November 11th.

The Ham Public Service Net meets on Wednesday at 7:30 pm on the Carolina 440 Link System, using the following repeaters:
441.725(+)(100) – Raleigh, NC Hub, 443.450 (+)(100) – Cane Mt., Snow Camp, NC, 444.325 (+)(100) – Holly Springs, NC, 444.375 (+)(100)
- Henderson, NC, 444.550 (+)(100) – Coats, NC, 444.775 (+)(100 – Cary, NC, 444.875 (+)(100) – Wendell, NC, 145.330 (-)(100) – Goldsboro, NC, 442.250 (+)(107.2) - McCain/Southern Pines, NC, 444.200
(+)(179.9) - Johnsonville, NC, 444.025 (+)(100) - Benson, NC, 442.425
(+)(100) - Buxton, NC, 145.41(-)(67.0) – Wilmington, NC.  The net is also accessible through IRLP Reflector 9210. The Ham Public Service Yahoo Group link is: Ham Public Service North Carolina

MEDIA HITS – None known for this month, but attention all club Public Information Officers (PIOs).  Now that we’re entering the quiet part of the annual Amateur Radio calendar, it’s a good time to construct a list of key reporters, producers, editors and bloggers in your market.
By putting together such a list now, you’ll be able to reach key media people in your area quickly.  To find out how to build a media contact list, go to www.mediavantage.com/blog/media-relations-101-creating-a-targeted-media-list


HAMFESTS – None for December. January 11, FirstFest in Winston-Salem

SPECIAL EVENT STATIONS – None for December.

LICENSING CLASSES – None beginning in December. Technician Class begins in Wilkesboro January 9th. To find upcoming classes, go to www.arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-class  To register a class your club or organization is sponsoring, go to www.arrl.org/register-a-new-license-class

NTS OCTOBER SECTION TRAFFIC REPORT – QNI (Total Check-Ins) 2,933.
TOTAL MESSAGES PASSED 611. STATION ACTIVITY REPORTS (SARs) - K4IWW 346, W4DNA 294, W2EAG 228, AK4RJ 168, WB4ZIQ 108, WK4WC 91, WK4P 81, W4TTO 76, KC4PGN 73, KK4BVR 51, K4JUU 40, KJ4JPE 35, KE4AHC 34, W3HL 33, N2RTF 24, WB4Y 24. PUBLIC SERVICE HONOR ROLL (PSHR) – KJ4JPE 235, W4DNA 150, WB4ZIQ 150, WK4P 150, K4IWW 130, KK4BVR 130, WK4WC 125, K4JUU 110, W2EAG 110, AK4RJ 105, W4TTO 100, N2RTF 89, WB4Y 62.

SILENT KEYS – we regret to report the passing of Guy Tolbert, W4STQ, of Traphill and Neal Fisher, N4HAF, of Raleigh.

QUA* - This is the third consecutive year in which my Thanksgiving message has been “Thanks to you.”  With almost 4,500 ARRL members in the North Carolina section and 19,000 licensed Hams in the state, we are bound to have some outliers, but on the whole, we have an excellent section.  This fact is hammered home to me every May when I attend the Dayton Hamvention and I get to rub elbows with other section managers.
Some complain what seems like hours about problems in their sections.
If half of what they claim is true, they really do have issues which can be discouraging.  So I come back from Dayton every year thankful for a superb cabinet of officers who help the section run smoothly, a group of conscientious and dedicated field appointees who volunteer thousands of hours in emergency communications, public service and traffic handling, and an engaged ARRL membership which continually promotes and pushes Amateur Radio forward in North Carolina. Add to our blessings of a well managed and maintained section the luck of living in the country with the highest concentration of Amateur Radio operators who largely operate unfettered when they want and where they want, and you have a recipe for yearlong blessings.  Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families.

*QUA – CW net procedural signal (Prosign) meaning “Do you have any news for me?”

73 de Bill Morine ARRL North Carolina Section Manager

Follow the ARRL North Carolina section on its webpage at www.ncarrl.org, on Facebook at NC ARRL and on Twitter at ARRLNCSM