“This & That” — March 25, 2025

The Weekly Newsletter of the Sun City Hilton Head Amateur Radio Club (SCHH ARC)

Editor – Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW

RFI Expert to Present Program at April 3rd Membership Meeting

The SCHH ARC will welcome Mike Martin, K3RFI to our Membership Meeting on April 3rd. Mike will do a program via Zoom for us on Radio Frequency Interference. Mike owns and operates RFI Services, which is based in Maryland.

You can find out more about RFI Services here. You can also find out more about Mike on his QRZ page.

The April 3rd Membership Meeting will be held in the Bayside Room at the Lakehouse. Mike’s presentation will begin at 7 PM. Our ARC’s general membership meeting will follow the presentation. An agenda for the membership meeting will be emailed to all members in late March/early April.

Have You Renewed Your Membership? The Window Is Closing!

Dues are $5 per year. There are a few 2024 members who have not yet renewed their memberships for 2025.

Note that the deadline for renewing membership is March 31st.

It is no problem if you want to “move on” and not re-up. We will be sorry to see you go for sure.

We do however hope that you will continue to a part of a club that has seen its membership level rise from under 50 members a few years ago to close to 70 members in early 2025.

So, please, if you are not “current” and want to renew, contact Chip Miller, KQ4JKI right away to stay on the rolls! Chip’s email address is bmiller1310@nc.rr.com .

Quoting one member who renewed in the past months: “Just getting the newsletter is worth the investment”.

Ideas for “This & That”?

Items for our club’s newsletter are always appreciated.

Do you have a QSL card that you received…even from decades ago…that you think your fellow SCHH ARC members would like to see? Please email a JPEG of it.

Have you gotten a certificate to recognize your ham radio activities? POTA, DXCC, WAS, Thirteen Colonies, etc. Send a JPEG or PDF.

Have you seen a ham radio cartoon or photo that might bring some smiles to faces around our ham radio community? Please send it in!

Articles of interest to hams? Send the link!

Bottom line: Please send anything you believe our ARC’s members might like to read/see to Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW (hnat463@gmail.com).

Civil Air Patrol Search and Rescue Exercise – Saturday, April 5th

Our local Civil Air Patrol squadron will be conducting a Search and Rescue Exercise (SAREX) on Saturday, April 5th at the Jasper County Airport. Our ARC has been invited to observe the exercise, which begins at 9:15 AM.

Bob Officer, WA6WAY is our club’s liaison to the Civil Air Patrol. He is organizing this opportunity for up to 8 members to see SAREX that morning.

Please contact Bob to arrange being a part of the SCHH ARC contingent.

Three Months Out…But ARRL Field Day Will Be Here Before You Know It!

Mark your calendars now for the SCHH ARC’s annual participation in ARRL Field Day at Lake Somerset on Saturday, June 28th.

More information will be coming your way through future issues of This & That as well as at our general membership meetings.

Stay tuned!

Dust-Off Those Keys…There’s Still Hope!

This is from Dale, KG5U’s QRZ page. His QTH is in Texas and he is a very active member of CWOps.

What’s Coming Up

Tuesday, April 1, 2025 — SCHH ARC Emergency Preparedness Task Force Zoom Meeting at 11 AM.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025 — SCHH ARC 10m SSB Net. 28.450 MHz at 8 PM local time.

Thursday, April 3, 2025 — Program (RFI by Mike Martin, K3RFI) via Zoom and General Membership Meeting, Bayside Room at the Lakehouse. See additional details above.

Saturday, April 5, 2025 — Civil Air Patrol SAREX at Jasper County Airport. See information above. Contact Bob Officer, WA6WAY if you are interested in going!

Thursday, May 1, 2025 — May Membership Meeting in the Bayside Room at the Lakehouse. Presentation by Jim Boehner, N2ZZ and Bill Morine, N2COP (ARRL Roanoke Division Director and Vice Director).

Thursday, June 5, 2025 — June Membership Meeting and ARRL Field Day Planning Meeting at the Lakehouse.

Saturday, June 28, 2025 — ARRL Field Day at Lake Somerset.

Saturday, August 9, 2025 — KE4HAM Parks on the Air Activation at Lake Warren State Park. Thanks to Jack Frisch, K2ITZ for organizing this activity! More to come on this great activity in future editions of This & That, including photos that Jack took on a site survey recently!!

Sun City Hilton Head Amateur Radio Club 2025

Thank you to our officers for leading our efforts for the current year.

President – Bob McCormick, KD8IH

Vice President – Bob Kennedy, N0DQD

Treasurer – Lon Seward, WB4KSG

Secretary – Bill Albro, K3WPA

Past President – Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW

SCHH ARC Nets

Net News

Please keep our nets alive and well by checking in when you can.

Thanks to all who participate.

We welcomed a new net control this past week. Rick Garan, WA8NLX did a fine job last Wednesday night and will be part of a three-person/station rotation of net control stations on Wednesdays moving forward. There is room for one more member/station to be net control on a rotating basis on Wednesdays. Please consider joining the rotation!

The Sunday Night Net could also use additional net control stations as well. Two or three Sunday nights a month, the net is held on the KE4HAM Okatie Repeater. The other nights…the last two Sundays of every month…the net is held on Simplex.

Our next 10m SSB Net session is coming up. Frank Pollino, K2OS will be our net control on Tuesday, April 1st. Additional net control stations are welcome for the 10m SSB Net, which is on the air once a month. If we have 3 or 4 stations who pick up a spot, that would be great! There is no EchoLink or Repeater Timeouts to deal with on our 10m nets…it’s just HF ham radio at its finest. Please consider running the net one night in the coming months! Would it not be great if we could have 12 members/stations to run our 10m net in every calendar year…one member a month? This IS possible and how much fun would that be???

If our community experiences an emergency during which our ARC activates its nets to provide assistance to our neighbors, we will need a group of operators who have experience in conducting a net. Our weekly, routine nets give interested members the opportunity to lead and organize such activities. It is a fun way to become prepared. Please consider giving it a try!

If you’d like to join the net control team, please reach out to Harve, KB3FW (hnat463@gmail.com).

Weekly SCHH ARC Nets

Sunday’s Net (8 PM) operates on 147.550 MHz simplex on the last two Sundays of the calendar month. The Sunday net will be on the KE4HAM repeater (147.135 + with a tone of 91.5 on both the input and the output) on all other Sundays of the calendar month. Check-in can be done even if you don’t have a radio up and running via EchoLink by using the link KE4HAM-L when the net is on SIMPLEX and KE4HAM-R when the net is on the SCHH Okatie Repeater.

Wednesday‘s Net (8 PM) operates through the KK4ONF/Jasper repeater, 147.060+. The net can be accessed via EchoLink using the link KE4HAM-R.

Next 10m SSB Net: Currently set for Tuesday, April 1 at 8 PM on 28.450 Upper Sideband. Net Control will be K2OS, Frank Pollino.

Net Control Stations and EchoLink Coordinator

Thanks to our regular 2m Net Controls: Frank Pollino, K2OS; Rick Garan, WA8NLX; and Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW.

Thanks to Bob, WA6WAY, for being an alternate Net Control Station and overseer of our KE4HAM repeater.

Thanks to Ron Frick, AI4HH, for working diligently to keep EchoLink up and running for our nets.

Net Control Schedule:

— Wednesday, March 26, 2025 @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (KK4ONF Jasper County Repeater).

— Sunday, March 30, 2025 @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (SIMPLEX).

— Tuesday, April 1, 2025 @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (28.450 MHz, SSB)

— Wednesday, April 2, 2025 @ 8 PM: Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW (KK4ONF Jasper County Repeater).

SCHH ARC Net Reports:

Thanks to ALL who checked in to our SCHH ARC nets last week.

Last week’s check-ins and traffic:

— Wednesday, March 19 2m KK4ONF Repeater Net: KE4HAM/WA8NLX, AI4HH, K2ITZ, W1ZZ, KQ4JKI, KB3FW, K2OS, KQ4KOO, WB1DXN, KQ4TAY (Jarrod/Port Royal). QNI=10, QTC=0.

— Sunday, March 23 2m SIMPLEX Net: KE4HAM/K2OS, AI4HH, KJ4BSM, WA6WAY, AA4KK, WB1DXN, K2ITZ, KB3FW, KO4AQI, WB4KSG, W1ZZ. QNI=11, QTC=0.

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

Other Operating

Daily —  Monitor the new KE4HAM Repeater: 147.135 MHz + with a tone of 91.5. You may get some good DX spots from time to time and other members may be there if you want to connect/chat.