Okanogan County Amateur Radio Club W7ORC The August meeting of the Okanogan County Amateur Radio Club was held at the Omak Library on the 21 st . We had 12 people in attendance. Old Business discussed, was the ARRL affiliation party. Dick KK7MF said no action had been taken yet and it was decided to hold the party as a 1 year anniversary party! A raffle was decided for the handy talkies we have in inventory. Tickets will be $1.00 each and we decided that a minimum of 10 tickets would need to be sold before a drawing was held. A good start with 6 tickets sold at the first meeting. At the next meeting we should be drawing for the first Motorola handy talkie. This will get these out of the closet and being charged and hopefully used. In the same discussion it was decided to try and move the 100 watt mobiles in the same way with tickets being $10.00 and the sale of at least 7 before a drawing. It is hoped we will get these in use by having the raffles and building a little interest in setting them up. The VE testing session that will be held on Saturday the 24 th of August was discussed. We had 2 people present that will be testing, one upgrade and one new license. One complained about the early time and Mike w7mcm offered to call them at about 5:00 am! It was decided after batting the idea around and some talk about the section scholarship, renamed the Wilse Morgan scholarship award, to donate $20.00 to the fund. A fox transmitter was brought up and decided to send out some specs on one and after 3 days of input time, members can vote via email. Mike will take input and then order the one that is voted best buy. One of the new Assistant Section Managers Chuck KI7DG graced us with his presence at the August meeting. He explained how he and Mark kb7hdx were working on a new packet of information to be sent out to new licensees in the section. The packet would contain local information about repeaters and clubs and although he didn't mention it, I assume details on joining the ARRL. This came as a bit of a surprise to our members, as the club already does a packet of info for new licensees at our testing sessions, it includes a free membership to the club, local repeaters, proper phonetics, ARRL information, bureau primer and other useful information for a new ham. Chuck ki7dg/asm then went on to explain the new elmering plan he and Mark are working on, to help new hams find an elmer and what qualifications the Elmers would have to possess. Acccording to Chuck the reason for this new approach is to get new hams beyond 2 meters. This was a real shock to Al kk7uf and Mike w7mcm as they had just came from a new ham's home, where they had assisted him in raising an HF antenna. Yes unqualified elmers were out there helping get someone on HF! HI HI We were informed by Chuck that the ARRL will be running a special event station using W1AW, All YEAR. The call sign will move around the country with all the states getting to use it. It will be coming to the Eastern Washington Section in November! Al kk7uf said he had heard they requested W100AW for w1aw to use during the 2014 year. Chuck ki7dg said that was turned down flat. The reasoning was that with all the different countries using special calls, a person can't tell if they are working a legitimate station or not. Al said it must be a homeland security crack down. Hi hi This reporter didn't like the reason so he looked into it further. Here is an excerpt from a report of the centennial celebration committee document 24. “Dave Sumner and Chris Imlay presented these two related proposals to the appropriate FCC officials, who turned them down flat. Their rationale was that if they allowed the ARRL and the WRTC to do this, they would have to allow others to use call signs with in-fixes for their special events, too.” So it was even more ridiculous of a reason in this
Transcript
Okanogan County Amateur Radio Club W7ORC
The August meeting of the Okanogan County Amateur Radio Club was held at the Omak Libraryon the 21st. We had 12 people in attendance. Old Business discussed, was the ARRL affiliation party. Dick KK7MF said no action had been taken yet and it was decided to hold the party as a1 year anniversary party! A raffle was decided for the handy talkies we have in inventory. Tickets will be $1.00 each and we decided that a minimum of 10 tickets would need to be sold before a drawing was held. A good start with 6 tickets sold at the first meeting. At the next meeting we should be drawing for the first Motorola handy talkie. This will get these out of the closet and being charged and hopefully used. In the same discussion it was decided to try and move the 100 watt mobiles in the same way with tickets being $10.00 and the sale of at least 7 before a drawing. It is hoped we will get these in use by having the raffles and building a little interest in setting them up.
The VE testing session that will be held on Saturday the 24th of August was discussed. We had 2 people present that will be testing, one upgrade and one new license. One complained about the early time and Mike w7mcm offered to call them at about 5:00 am! It was decided after batting the idea around and some talk about the section scholarship, renamed the Wilse Morgan scholarship award, to donate $20.00 to the fund.
A fox transmitter was brought up and decided to send out some specs on one and after 3 days of input time, members can vote via email. Mike will take input and then order the one that is voted best buy.
One of the new Assistant Section Managers Chuck KI7DG graced us with his presence at the August meeting. He explained how he and Mark kb7hdx were working on a new packet of information to be sent out to new licensees in the section. The packet would contain local information about repeaters and clubs and although he didn't mention it, I assume details on joining the ARRL. This came as a bit of a surprise to our members, as the club already does a packet of info for new licensees at our testing sessions, it includes a free membership to the club, local repeaters, proper phonetics, ARRL information, bureau primer and other useful information for a new ham. Chuck ki7dg/asm then went on to explain the new elmering plan he and Mark are working on, to help new hams find an elmer and what qualifications the Elmers would have to possess. Acccording to Chuck the reason for this new approach is to get new hams beyond 2 meters. This was a real shock to Al kk7uf and Mike w7mcm as they had just came from a new ham's home, where they had assisted him in raising an HF antenna. Yes unqualified elmers were out there helping get someone on HF! HI HI We were informed by Chuck that the ARRL will be running a special event station using W1AW, All YEAR. The call sign will move around the country with all the states getting to use it. It will be coming to the Eastern Washington Section in November! Al kk7uf said he had heard they requested W100AW for w1aw to use during the 2014 year. Chuck ki7dg said that was turned down flat. The reasoning was that with all the different countries using special calls, a person can't tell if they are working a legitimate station or not. Al said it must be a homeland security crack down. Hi hiThis reporter didn't like the reason so he looked into it further. Here is an excerpt from a report of the centennial celebration committee document 24.“Dave Sumner and Chris Imlay presented these two related proposals to the appropriate FCC officials, who turned them down flat. Their rationale was that if they allowed the ARRL and the WRTC to do this, they would have to allow others to use call signs with in-fixes for their special events, too.”So it was even more ridiculous of a reason in this
Okanogan County Amateur Radio Club W7ORC
reporters eyes.
I encourage all the club members to voice their interest in using the W1AW call sign when it comes to the Section to use in November. Email your desires to Mark [email protected]. With us being the newest affiliated club in the section, maybe we will have a chance.
The club's special event is a go. It was decided on the 1st pour of concrete on Grand Coulee Dam as the event. The event is listed with ARRL and should be in the December issue of QST. We will have a free certificate via email or a printed certificate with postage costs. The certificate is a full color photo of the dam from the air, with an inset of the first ceremonious pour of concrete on December 6th 1935. Our event will run from 0.00z on the 7th to 0.00z on the 9th. Club members will operate from their home stations using the club call w7orc. Al kk7uf the chairman of the committee gave a quick presentation on the operators responsibilities. The scheduling of operators and the fact that we can have two stations on the air as w7orc. The fact that we should not be having the trouble of too many operators was pointed out! Al kk7uf said that hopefully Roger w7ch would be the guy coming on at 2:00 AM and running to 8:00 AM as he knows how much Roger likes the 80 meter band. All kidding aside this should be a fun and as with most ham radio a learning event. This special event is just a primer for doing a big one for the Omak Stampede Suicide race.
How big is the dam?
It contains nearly 12 million cubic yards of concrete. That is enough to build a highway from Washington to Florida or 50,000 miles of sidewalk 4 feet wide and 4 inches thick, enough sidewalk to encircle the earth twice!
It is 5,223 feet long and 550 feet high
When was it Built?
1933-1941 with ceremonious first pour on Dec 6th 1935 andfurther construction 1967-1974 with the 3rd power plant.
The dam produces 21 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. or
enough to power 2.3 million homes for a year. Making it the largest hydro-electric power producer in America.
The Columbia Basin Project, the irrigation part of Grand Coulee dam. It requires the pumping of water into the Banks lake from Grand coulee. With 671,000 acres under irrigation , it is no small project by itself! There are over 300 miles of main canals, 2000 miles of laterals and over 3500 miles of drains and waste ways, some feeding into yet more irrigation projects.12 pipes pumping water to Banks lake, are 14 ft indiameter and move 781,128 gallons per minute. There are over 8.5 miles of corridors inside the Dam. The Dam flooded over 21,000 acres of dry land.77 workers lost their lives during the construction of Grand Coulee Dam.
September contesting starts off with a bang.Between the 1st and the 3rd you can get two qso parties Tennessee and Michigan.
I have left out a good number of contests and didn't even touch on the cw and digital contests. So September really is a good month for the contesting element of the group.
The Happy Homer
The Ham radio Elmer has been a long tradition in the amateur service. It is the older or more experienced ham, helping the new comer to the ranks. In and of itself, it is a great concept and the truest tradition of civilization itself. None of us come into the world with the knowledge to fit our society, we have to learn the proper and accepted actions that will enable us to thrive in our own society. What is accepted as the norm in one part of the world may be very strange or even considered abnormal behavior, in other parts. Luckily with amateur radio there is no gray area. The antenna is either resonate or not, the solder joint is good or not, smoke is coming out of the radio or it is not! It is not so easy with ham radio operators. Experience is obviously a good thing, but it is not the only thing. If you do it wrong for a long time, it doesn't make it right. It is a funny thing with Hams, we are a polite lot. (to your face) If we know you are not going to accept advice on fixing your signal, we don't offer. In fact many will not speak up if they hear a poor signal on the air, they have been the recipient of less than appreciative words for their efforts in the past. I know many reading this will say, well that is not me! I contend we all know at least one operator and probably more, who is not really good at some elements of our hobby and you don't correct them, for what ever reason. It goes even further, I hold we all know a let's call him Bobby, Ole Bobby. Bobby has been around for ever, I mean for EVER... Now Bobby is accepted into every net on hf, and any round table he hears....Hams a polite lot for the most part. Ole Bobby never has gotten the hang of tuning SSB, could just never make the jump from AM, I suppose. He usually runs just a tad high on
the low bands and tad low on the high bands. Nobody bothers to tell Bobby that he is off frequency anymore. Bobby got kinda grouchy somewhere along the line, but who wouldn't get tired of hearing they are off freq! Bobby got himself a tuner, boy what tuner, can tune the bed springs to 20 meters. Now Ole Bobby is on the wrong antenna most of the time, Oh it is no mistake it is by choice. You see Ole Bobby subscribes to the school of more is better, so on 80 meters he will tune his 160 meter dipole...yep the worst choice, most of his signal is burned up in the coax and tuner! He'll run a vertical when a dipole is better. But polite company just lets his signal fade in and out, try to help him and you will hear, SWR looks good here! Bobby knows best, he's been a ham longer than most have been! Bobby still runs a contest now and again but he lost the moral compass. He has methods of cleaning or tweaking his logs, uses the latest WWW stuff to get any contacts he may have missed. The polite ham community looks the other way. Bobby is quick to help the new guy though, he will sell them gear they don't need but he doesn't want. (see compass above) and He'll give ADVICE free. For the above reasons I have come up with a system of rating hams, it is quick and easy. Like the licensing only 3 categories.Elmer:Guy really now his stuff! Usually starts an answer with, “ I'm not sure but would start by”Homer:Good operator and knows “his” stuff, but might be confused by different gear.Ole Bobby:Honestly thinks he knows his stuff, but doesn't even know “his” stuff.All the new operators have to figure out the players by themselves, cause we are a polite lot for the most part. If you are looking for an Elmer, ask around, hams will usually not recommend Ole Bobby. Maybe the new section Elmer lists should be by recommendation, instead of volunteer?From the desk of the happy homer Al kk7uf
