Home › This & That › January 9, 2024 Weekly This & That Newsletter

January 9, 2024 Weekly This & That Newsletter

Posted on Posted in This & That

Club Logo Contest: Strong Voter “Turnout”!

Voting has been brisk in the Club Logo Contest. With only a few days remaining before “the polls” close, 24 votes have been received.

An email was sent to all members from hnat463@gmail.com over the weekend with a Google Forms invitation. The voting is being conducted using the form that was linked to the email.

If you haven’t voted yet, please do so as soon as possible! Voting ends at 11:59 PM on January 12, 2024.

The results will be included in next week’s This & That.

Thanks to everyone who has participated and voted in the contest!

Club Membership Meeting Draws 15 Members

Last Thursday’s Membership Meeting at the Lakehouse began with a presentation by Ken Finke, KN8F, on ARRL’s Logbook of the World (LoTW). Ken summarized that LoTW is an online service that enables a ham to:

  • electronically submit contacts (QSOs) for confirmation
  • view submitted QSOs and resulting confirmations online
  • view DXCC, VUCC, WAS, WAZ and WPX award progress online
  • electronically submit confirmations for credit toward DXCC, VUCC, WAS, WAZ and WPX awards.

A station needs to certify its location and license using TQSL software that is free to download. Following certification, it is easy to use LoTW to keep track of your station’s operation.

Following Ken’s excellent presentation, the 15 members present met to share updates and conduct the club’s business. The club’s 2024 was amended to include the anticipated expense of its website. Initial plans for the club’s Winter Field Day operation of KE4HAM on January 27th were discussed (more details below). A “fox hunt” is in the works for early to mid-Spring.

Our next membership meeting will be at the Lakehouse at 7 PM on Thursday, February 1st. More details will be included in upcoming editions of This & That.

SCHH ARC Presentation at the Computer Club’s Computer Hour – January 12th

Ken Finke, KN8F, will provide a presentation on amateur radio and how computers are used in our hobby to the SCHH Computer Club on Friday, January 12th at 10 AM at Pinckney Hall. The Computer Hour is a monthly event. SCHH ARC member Bill Altman, WB3CBO coordinates the Computer Hour for the Computer Club and asked our ARC to provide the presentation.

All SCHH ARC members are invited to come to the presentation.

Winter Field Day – January 27th

Bob Officer, WA6WAY, is leading our club’s efforts for Winter Field Day. The club has applied for using Lake Somerset as our Winter Field Day (January 27th) and Field Day (June 22nd) efforts.

Last year, we had five stations on the air and had a score of 3,001 points.

Set-up at Lake Somerset for Winter Field Day 2023

This year, we will most likely operate 4 or 5 stations and use battery power from Bob’s golf cart. Bob’s cart has solar panels on its roof and an inverter that provides 120 VAC output. We’ll have a generator on-hand just in case we need it. We will look to lay out the site to minimize cross-band and same band interference. Another goal for 2024 is to more carefully coordinate which stations are on what bands throughout the afternoon.

An organizational Zoom meeting will be scheduled once we have approval for the site of our operation.

Cell Tower in Sun City

Thanks to Russ Treadwell, N1ZK, for catching this item in the SCHH Board Update.

Cell Tower
The Board signed a lease agreement with American Cell Tower to locate a cell phone tower inside the community. The tower will be located behind the Woodworkers Shop near the Golf Maintenance Area. They are working on zoning at this time. More information will be shared as things progress during 2024.

QSL Card of the Week

Jack Frisch, K2ITZ, sent this one in!

Humor

Thanks to Lon Seward, WB4KSG, for contributing this video about “Microphone Issues”.

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3….

Club Website

Click here to get to the Club’s website: https://www.ke4ham.org. 

For those interested in contesting, there is a new 5-Week Contest Calendar from WA7BNM under “Calendars” in the Main Menu of our website.

If you notice any errors or have site-related questions, email: webmaster@ke4ham.org.

SCHH ARC Nets:

Sunday NET (8 PM) operates on 147.550 MHz simplex and EchoLink node: KE4HAM – L

Wednesday Nets (8 PM) operates from KK4ONF/Jasper repeater, 147.060+ and EchoLink node: KE4HAM-R

Thanks to our regular Net Controls: Bob Officer, WA6WAY; Russ Treadwell, N1ZK; and Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW.

Thanks to Ron Frick, AI4HH, for keeping the nets on EchoLink.

Net Control Schedule:

— Wednesday, January 10, 8 PM ET: Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW.

— Sunday, January 14, 8 PM ET: Bob Officer, WA6WAY.

If you are interested in being a Net Control, please let Ron or Harve know.

SCHH ARC Net Reports:

Thanks to ALL who checked in to our SCHH ARC nets last week.
If you have the time, please check into our club’s nets on a regular basis.

Last week’s check-ins and traffic:

— Wednesday, January 3: KE4HAM/N1ZK, AI4HH, KJ4BSM, WB4KSG, K2ITZ, KB3FW, KQ4KOO, WB1DXN. QNI=8, QTC=0.

— Sunday, January 7: KE4HAM/WA6WAY, AI4HH, K2ITZ, KB3FW, WA2LWO, KQ4JKI, WB1DXN. QNI=7, QTC=0.

Note – QNI = Number of Check-ins to the net, including Net Control; QTC = Traffic handled (Radiograms).

Other Operating:

Daily —  DX spotting and open chat 24/7 on 147.550 MHz simplex and the Jasper Repeater, 147.060+ (no Echolink).

KB3FW – SCHH ARC President