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News last updated: Mon, January 18, 2010 at 10:18 PM ET
JANUARY NC SECTION NEWS
NEW NC SECTION MANAGER ELECTED
My four years as your ARRL Section Manager have been the most rewarding experience of my 33 years in Amateur Radio. But expanding work responsibilities and a couple of over-active kids make it hard for me to devote enough time to the important work we've doing in the North Carolina section. But the section will be in good hands when my term expires. On December 10, Bill Morine, N2COP, our current Section Public Information Coordinator was declared the next NC Section Manager, running unopposed in the election. Bill's term begins April 1.
Bill was first licensed in 1970 as WN1NOP and got his General and his current call of N2COP in 1981 while living in New Jersey. Bill became an Extra in 2001. Bill is a life member of ARRL and QCWA. He and XYL Pam have two sons: Reid, W4RSM, and Grant, W4GHM, who was named Young Ham Of The Year in 2007. Bill became an ARRL Public Information Officer (PIO) in 2000, was named section Public Information Coordinator (PIC) in 2004, and became a member of ARRL's national Public Relations Committee in 2005. Bill has served as chairman of the national PR committee since 2008. He is an Assistant EC in New Hanover County (Wilmington) and is also an ARRL and W4VEC Volunteer Examiner. Bill has worked extensively with Boy Scouts, and served on the staff of K2BSA at the 2001 and 2005 National Jamborees. He has helped over 1,800 Boy Scouts earn the Radio Merit badge, and has helped over 300 Scouts and Scout leaders nationally and in North Carolina get licensed. He served as the first chairman of CARES, the Carolinas Amateur Radio Emergency Services, from 2001 to 2006, implementing a 220 MHz network in southeastern North Carolina dedicated to public health traffic in disasters. Since 2008, he has served as head of communications for the Beach 2 Battleship triathlon, the only full iron distance (140.6 miles over 17 hours) triathlon in the Roanoke Division. Bill and his wife run an independent financial planning practice in Wilmington.
The North Carolina Section is fortunate to have so many strong leaders like Bill and I know you will join me in supporting him as he assumes his new and challenging responsibilities.
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, CW WORKS!
Running our section SSB nets has been a big challenge since we returned to standard time. The band frequently goes long soon after sunset and while Midwest stations boom in, it's hard to hear others in North Carolina. There have been several Tarheel nets with NO check-ins because of poor band conditions. So I've been occasionally checking into our section CW nets to get my "net fix" and polish my rusty fist. I've been amazed at how often I've listened to a struggling SSB net only to move to the CW frequencies to find a full net with perfectly readable stations from all over the state. It's a reminder of the effectiveness of CW even in poor conditions.
Joel Hallas, W1ZR, wrote an interesting article about CW for the May, 2007 QST. According to Joel, CW has major advantages over voice and other modes. CW has much lower bandwidth than SSB. How well we can receive a signal is specified by its signal to noise ratio (SNR). If we change our receive filter from 2.5kHz for voice to 250Hz for CW we reduce the received noise power by a factor of 10. That's equivalent to 2 S-units improvement in SNR. To gain the same SNR improvement with SSB we would need to increase the transmit power from 100w to 1000w! With a higher SNR for CW, it's much easier to detect a weak CW signal than a weak voice signal. A good CW operator can copy code at or below the noise level. To copy voice it takes a minimum of 3-5 dB SNR. Because of the narrower bandwidth, five or more CW stations can fit into the space one SSB signal can fit. But what's this all mean? It means your CW signal can usually get through when your voice signal cannot. Your 100w CW transmitter can get to places that your neighbor's 2000w voice transmitter can't!
So try one of our CW nets some night when you're struggling to copy the net control for an SSB net. A great place to start is with the Carolina Slow Net, which meets nightly at 8pm on 3.571MHz. Helpful info on the net can be found at http://bellsouthpwp2.net/r/g/rg_burns/index.htm.
UPCOMING EVENTS IN NC
March 13-14: Charlotte Hamfest, Concord
April 3: NC State Convention, Raleigh Hamfest
DECEMBER TRAFFIC
K4IWW 561 (BPL), N3BW 267, W2EAG 233, KI4YV 228, W4DNA 61, W4TTO 61, W4FAL 45, KE4AHC 34, K8SKX 30, W4EHF 26, KC4PGN 22, W3HL 21, NC4VA 16.
DECEMBER PSHR
NC4VA 273, K4IWW 130, W4DNA 130, W4FAL 130, W2EAG 110, KI4YV 100, W4TTO 100.
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