2 0 1 9 C L U B

O F F I C E R S

President

David Russ, K4DWR

Vice President

Adam Shirley, WJ4X

Secretary

George Crane, W3RXF

Treasurer

Tedd Davison, AI4WN

Repeater Trustee

Buddy Willis, W4DEW

Activities Manager

Andy Bagwell, KN4DYV

Editor in Chief

Michael Wills, KA4CSM

The W4GWD

Repeater Network

147.165+ t107.2

Echolink: 584003

443.900+ t107.2

W4GWM/R

145.420- DV

W4DEW/R

146.910- t123.0

WJ4X/R

442.600+ t107.2 / DV

The Signal Report J U L Y 2 0 1 9 V O L U M E 1 5 I S S U E 7

H T T P : / / W W W . W 4 G W D . O R G W 4 G W D @ A R R L . N E T

A Publication of the Greenwood Amateur Radio Society (GARS)

Infrastructure Update

Analog Repeaters are up. DMR and D-Star is up. Fusion is up. Echolink is down, undergoing technical evaluation. APRS iGate is up. Packet Node is down, when up it is connected to the Carolinas Packet System at 145.010

Downtown Digi is up and operational

Our Club meets at the Westminster Presbyterian Church, located at 2330

Cokesbury Rd, Greenwood, SC. We meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month

which will be the 9th of July.. Meeting starts at 7:30 Sharp.

July 2019 Meeting

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Chat ‘N’ Chew Every Friday at 11:30am the members of the Greenwood Amateur Radio society meet at a local restaurant. Please check in to our Monday or Thursday radio net weekly, as locations change. Everyone is welcome to have lunch or sip your favorite beverage and chat for a while. Dutch treat.

Weekly Nets Each Thursday night at 9pm on the 147.165+ machine, The Greenwood Amateur Radio Society holds our weekly 2 meter net. Our UHF net on 443.900+ is held Mondays at 8pm Help spread the word for everyone to check-in to our net. If you would like to fill in or be a backup net control please contact Tedd Davison AI4WN@arrl.net

CongratulationsHappy Birthday!

Karla Cox WB3LNX July 4

Stephen Lyda KA4PQA July 4

Jack Witt KN4SIK July 12

Betty Jean Powell fmly mbr July 15

Mitchell Litwer KJ4JGP July 24

Jennifer Lyda fmly mbr July 27

Jeremy Manning KI4CCZ July28

John Penman KC0CBD July 30

Happy Anniversary!

Brenda & David (W4MCC) McCall

July 7

Betty & George (W3RXF) Crane

July 11

Wendy (KN4DYX) & Joe KK4RVC)

Suddeth

July 12

Jennifer & Stephen (KA4PQA) Lyda

July 16

Mary (N4MRY) & Fred (K4RM) Pinson

July 18

Greenwood Amateur Society Events:

Are you an ARRL Member? Joining ARRL helps protect our rights as Amateur Radio Operators as well as providing education, QSL Bureau, technical advise, and the ARRL VEC. http://www.arrl.org

facebook.com/Greenwood ARS

VE Exam Session The GARS ARRL Volunteer Examiners (VE) Team will have an exam session 7:00pm Tuesday, August 6, 2019 at the Westminster Presbyterian Church. The address is 2330 Cokesbury Rd Greenwood SC 29649-9515 We hope to see you there. Please contact Buddy Willis W4DEW w4dew@arrl.net

mailto:w4dew@arrl.net

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Independence Day commemorates the Declaration of Independence of the United States on July 4, 1776. The Continental Congress declared that the thirteen colonies were no longer subject to the monarch of Britain and were now united, free and independent states

Turn off the Radio AGC to Increase Digital Decoding Accuracy From Ed, W0YK's presentation at 2019 Contest University: Decoders for digital modes tend to work better when the radio AGC is turned off. If you can't turn off AGC, then set it to SLOW. "Using a fast AGC increases the decode error rate in modern software decoders." Also, make sure you are NOT using any twin-peak or other specialized filtering provided by your rig manufacturer. Chances are, the software decoder will work better without it.

Operating Tip submitted by Kevan, N4XL from ARRL contest update 6-12-19

A special thanks to Ron Miller, KJ4OBY, for his excellent presentation to the club on June 11, 2019. Russ Myrick KN4TUI, thank you for volunteering to do the presentation at the July 9 meeting. Andy KN4DYV

The new General class question pool will take affect on July 1, 2019 for all Element 3 General class written exams. What this means to you is that if you have been studying for the General class written exam to be given on August 6 by our VE Team confirm that it is from a study guide that was effective July 1, 2019.

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Russell Myrick KN4TUI, and Mike Willis KN4SIJ

Two GARS club members who did not resist and successfully upgraded to General with our VE Team on June 4. You can do it too.

Thought some of you might find this interesting. It was taken from a Ham Radio Amateurs Facebook page on 6-18 by a unnamed source.

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The Greenwood Amateur Radio Society (GARS) held its annual Field day on the 22nd of June. 25 people attended most being club or family members. A good time was had by all. Great food and Marsha KD4AYF did all of the kitchen work.

Proposed WRC-23 Agenda Items Causing Concern Two proposals under discussion in Europe as possible World Radiocommunica-tion Conference 2023 (WRC-23) agenda items "could impact important Amateur Radio frequencies," IARU reported this week. Included is a proposal from France to consider the 144 - 146 MHz band as a primary allocation to then Aeronautical Mobile service, as part of a broader consideration of spectrum allocated to that service. IARU also cautioned the amateur community against overreacting to the news.

France will submit a paper containing a proposal for an agenda item for "new non-safety Aeronautical Mobile applications" at the June 17 - 21 Conference Preparatory Group meeting of the European Conference of Postal and Telecom-munications Administrations (CEPT) in Prague. The 144 - 146 MHz segment is a primary global Amateur and Amateur Satellite allocation. IARU said it "views with grave concern any proposal to include this band in the proposed study" and pledged to "energetically" promote this viewpoint in the appropriate forums "to seek to obtain assurances that the spectrum will remain a primary allocation for the amateur services."

Another proposal has been raised to study the 23-centimeter amateur allocation, 1240 - 1300 MHz, following reports of interference to the Galileo navigation system -- Europe's GPS system. IARU said it's aware of "a handful of cases" of reported interference to the Galileo E6 signal on 1278.750 MHz. According to IARU, joint studies have been carried out to assess the vulnerability of the system and, based on these, it considers the proposal to initiate an Agenda item for WRC-23 premature.

IARU asked its member-societies to "refrain at this time from making speculative public comments about the situation until further progress has been made in regulatory discussions," and said it's ready to discuss the issue with other non-IARU societies.

One European Amateur Radio organization already has called for radio amateurs to "occupy" 2 meters on June 15 for 1 hour in protest of the French proposal.

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Taken from the ARRL newsletter dated June 13, 2019

https://www.iaru-r1.org/index.php/88-news/1864-wrc-23-agenda-items

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facebook.com/Greenwood ARS

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A national calling frequency in the USA is a radio frequency that is widely accepted and understood to be a place to start communicating with other hams.

This frequency is established for each RF band under the voluntary US band plan and is not regulated by the FCC. It is routinely monitored by any number of radio amateurs and is likely to result in a response when calling CQ or Mayday or SOS.

The US band plan shows calling frequencies for various modes (CW, SSB, FM, AM, digital) in different bands. A calling frequency list in-cludes not only the modes but adds specific activities (expeditions, power levels) as commonly practiced.

For new hams who are likely to get started in local VHF/UHF opera-tion, the national calling frequencies to be concerned with are 2m and 70cm FM simplex (non-repeater). These are 146.520MHz and 446.000MHz, respectively, and should be included in your radio’s scanned channels. If you regularly use 1.25m, 33cm and/or 23cm bands, there are national simplex calling frequencies defined per the band plan for you to look up.

Be aware that the national calling frequency for whatever mode and activity is only a place to start communicating. Protocol and common courtesy require that once contact is established, you move to anoth-er frequency (QSY) to leave the calling frequency open for others to use. It is also a great place to get assistance in an urgent situation.

National Call Frequency, AF5NP

http://www.arrl.org/band-plan

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Note that Canada largely follows the US national calling frequencies so our friends north of the border can be included in this scheme. Other countries may or may not have national call frequen-cies, or may unofficially follow the US plan.

This may also be a good time to remind all hams that while even the Technician license grants full privileges on VHF/UHF bands, and your 2m FM transceiver tunes from 144-148MHz, doesn’t mean you can just randomly pick a frequency and key the mic.

For one, chances are nobody will respond because it’s unlikely any-body is monitoring your random frequency. But mainly it’s because there is a clearly defined band plan for 2m and it’s not all FM simplex and repeater allocations. Take a look at it: (Please see chart on next page)

You can see that only a portion of the band is allocated for FM sim-plex or duplex (repeater) work. There are clearly-defined chunks for CW, SSB, beacons and satellite operation. You need to stay away from those frequencies unless you’re operating those modes and activities per the plan.

The national simplex calling frequency is sort of a universal (within the USA) place to make contact when you are not sure where to start. It is particularly useful when traveling to a new area where you don’t know the repeater frequencies, offsets and access tones. It’s also a great place to get assistance in an urgent situation.

National Calling Frequency (continued)

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National calling Frequencies (continued)

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facebook.com/Greenwood ARS

April 15, 1912 Artie Moore, amateur wireless operator was one of the few people on earth to hear the first distress signals from the Titanic. Moore relayed the news to the police, who simply refused to believe his explanation that he could pick up a “message in the air” and it was two days before the news reached the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvCN-OOxycE&feature=share

Informative U Tube video on coiling coax or many other things the easy way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvCN-OOxycE&feature=share

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Classifieds:

The American Radio Relay League protects our rights as Amateur Radio Operators http://www.arrl.org Support for SERA supports proper coordination! http://www.sera.org Remember your local and regional interest clubs!

Southeast DX Club http://www.sedxc.org

Spread The Word! 147.165 2m Net Thursdays 9 p.m. 443.900 70cm Net Mondays 8 p.m. * Callsign info http://www.ae7q.com* * Track us on APRS: http://aprs.fi, * Swamp Fox Contest Group http://swampfoxcontestgroup.com

Mike

HAMFESTS & EVENTS

I hope you have enjoyed reading our newsletter. Please contact me at Mike31406@gmail.com with any ideas/comments/suggestions etc.

Classifieds will be run for three consecutive months then removed. They may be posted again after three months. Three on then three off.

Greenwood Amateur Radio Society (GARS) Hamfest January 11, 2020 Piedmont Technical College, POC Tedd Davison, AI4WN

Motorola HT1000 for sale $100.00, includes two batteries, external mic & charger. It is programed for the local area. Contact Robert W4VIA

Shelby Hamfest, Cleveland County

Fairgrounds, 8-30 to 9-1, Shelby, NC. Western Carolina Amateur Radio Society (WSCARS) Hamfest 7-27-19, Waynesville, NC.

http://www.arrl.orghttp://www.sera.orghttp://www.sera.orghttp://www.sedxc.orghttp://www.ae7q.comhttp://aprs.fihttp://swampfoxcontestgroup.commailto:mike31406@gmail.commailto:ai4wn@arrl.netmailto:robertegillian@gmail.com?subject=HT1000http://shelbyhamfest.comhttp://www.wcars.orghttp://www.wcars.org