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The
Victor Valley Amateur Radio Club Newsletter
THE SPECTRUM
March 2007
Come one, Come ALL ! ! !
The VVARC Officers for 2006:
President: Jerry Grunden, WR6X Vice-President: Randy Hatfield, AG6RH
barbrieg@juno.com Randy.Lori@verizon.net
Secretary: Lori Hatfield, KD7GNC Treasurer: Sandi DeWeert, KG6ZHX
Randy.Lori@verizon.net sdeweert@verizon.net
March Meeting: Tuesday, March 13
Program: Our own Robert Barton is going to talk about
and demonstrate Echolink. Anyone interested in talking to people anywhere in
the world without a radio????
Don’t want to miss this one.
Club meetings are held
at the Mojave River Campus of the Lewis
Center.
Membership drawing and
door prizes. Everyone is welcome!!
Directions:
From Apple Valley Road,
turn west on Tuscola (toward the river).
Take the very first
right turn, which is Mana. The campus is
located at the very
end of Mana Rd.
We meet in Building C.
Sunday Night Net:
Remember that every
Sunday at 7PM the Club conducts a Net on the 146.940 repeater. Get the latest
club announcements and reminders. Also, our Club needs volunteers to help run
the Net. If you are interested, please contact us. In the event that the
repeater is down, turn to 146.5350 simplex.
Club Member News
Birthdays: Craig
Ebright 3/30
Randy Hatfield 3/6
Steve Ostrander 3/1
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
TO ALL
If
anyone is missed, let us know. Our records probably need to be updated.
Get Well: Please
let Sandi DeWeert, sdeweert@verizon.net, know if you hear of any
of our members
that may be under the weather or just need a little lift from
friends in the Club.
2007 DUES:
2007 membership dues are
now due. Thanks to those who have paid
for this year; your continued support is appreciated. A membership form is at the end of this
issue for your convenience.
March will be the last
month that 2006 members will remain on the mailing roster and be included in
the membership drawing. Renewal applications are also on the web site,
www.VictorVAlleyARC.com.
Dues for 2007 remain the
same: $18.00 for individuals, $23 for families, and $10 for youth and all new
members.
Volunteers Needed:
YOUR
INPUT IS VITAL!!! Your Board is still looking
for volunteers to help out on two separate teams, Activities Committee and
By-Laws Review. Please step forward and give us a hand. Contact any of the
Board members.
If you have any ideas for
programs, activities, club projects, etc. speak up. Pass your thoughts along
to the Board members. WE are open to any suggestions. We have
some new ideas that we are looking at and are very excited for the coming
year.
VE Testing in the Victor Valley
The first Saturday of
every odd-numbered month there is a GLAARG (Greater Los Angeles Amateur Radio
Group) test session in Hesperia. Tests are held at the Fire Station at the
corner of Olive and H. Registration starts at 8:30 AM. The cost is $4.00.
Walk-ins are welcome. Testing is available for all classes of license. All
candidates must bring a picture ID, and if you are upgrading, you need the
original and a copy of your amateur license and any CSCEs you hold. For more
information, you can contact Jim MacRay, KW6V, at 244-1396. Directions to
test site: From I-15 take Main
Street, Hesperia exit. GO east on Main St. approx.
5 miles. Turn south on “H” to Olive.
Also, the Inland ARC
tests on the 4th Thursday of each month, at 5 PM at 25541 Barton Rd, Loma Linda. Contact
person is Sam Eller, AD6UE at (909) 796-2996. Location from going south on
I-10: Exit Mountain View Ave,
right on Barton, Left on Loma
Linda Dr, Civic Center
complex. Take driveway to your left immediately past the fire station.
From the ARRL:
“The FCC requires you to maintain a valid current mailing address
in their database at all times. This is so that they can contact you by mail
if needed. If you move or even change PO
boxes, be sure to update your information using the FCC ULS online system. If
you do not maintain a current address and mail to you is returned to the FCC
as undeliverable, your license can be revoked and removed from the database.”
Don’t forget if you
need to renew your membership or join the ARRL, contact Sandi DeWeert (sdeweert@verizon.net) and pay your
dues through the Club. VVARC receives a commission for each renewal or new
joining fee.
General Class Offered
Randy Hatfield will be offering a General
Class in April. The date will be set based on the amount of people
interested. The class will be held on a Saturday, from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00+
p.m. Those interested are asked to contact Randy at (760) 951-9769.
Communications:
Emergency
There
was a story on the front page of the Daily Press on January 3, 2007 with the
headline Emergency agencies still having trouble communication. Only
six of seventy-five US
cities receive high scores. The draft report, obtained by the Associated
Press, said that the best ratings went to Washington,
DC, San Diego,
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Columbus, Ohio, Sioux Falls, SC and Laramie
County, Wyo. The lowest scores went to Chicago,
Cleveland, Baton Rouge,
LA, Mandan, ND and American
Samoa. The
study was conducted by the Homeland Security Department and looked at
nationwide assessments for interoperable communications. The attacks of Sept
11, 2001, revealed major problems in how well emergency agencies were able to
talk to each other during a catastrophe.
The
story goes on to say Democrats who take over the majority this week have
promised to try fixing the problem emergency agencies have communicating with
each other but have not said specifically what they will do, how much it will
cost, or how they will pay for it. “Five years after 9/11, we continue
to turn a deaf ear to gaps in interoperable communications”, the term
used for emergency agencies’ abilities to talk to each other, said Sen.
Charles Schumer, D. NY, “If it didn’t have such potentially
devastating consequences, it would be laughable.” The story states that Congress has ordered
that the television broadcast industry vacate a portion of the radio spectrum
to make it available for public safety communications. Lawmakers have also created a new office at
the Homeland Security Department to oversee the issue, through they have yet
of provide money for it. This article
also had a picture showing some handheld radios, with the caption: A New Orleans police officer is seen
carrying two different models of radios in New Orleans on Sept. 13, 2005. Los Angeles got advanced
grades in procedures and use of emergency communications systems and a
well-developed grade in coordination of governance. San
Francisco, by comparison, received intermediate
grades in governance and procedures and a well-developed grade in the use of
systems. (Your editor says this sounds
like government speak) Since the
Sept. 11 attacks, $2.6 billion in federal grant money has been distributed to
state and local first responders for the improvement of their emergency
communications systems.
Crossword Puzzle
The crossword puzzle which appeared in the Daily
Press on the same Jan. 3, 2007 included the following two clues related to our
hobby: 64 across: Newton or tesla (4 letters) and 31 Down:
Cause of problems in radio communications (10 letters) Answers given at the end of the
newsletter. (Note: the word
“tesla” is misspelled according to Microsoft Word, but we know
better).
Route 66 on the Air
The Citrus Belt Amateur Club (CBARC) will again be hosting Route 66 “On-The-Air”
special event in 2007. This will be
the eighth annual “On-The-Air” event and will mark the 81st
anniversary celebration of the “Mother Road”. There were well over 12,000 reported
contacts last year; the event remains one of the most popular special
events. The exact dates have not yet
been set. Further information will
appear on the CBARC website which is new: www.w6jbt.org. Our club has participated in this event in
years past and hopefully we will get more members to help us support this
event in September.
Who
first referred to U.S. Route 66 as “The Mother Road”?
John
Steinbeck popularized Route 66 in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath,
set during the Great Depression.
“66 is the path of people in flight, refugees from dust and
shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and…from the twisting
winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to
the land and steal what little richness is there, 66 is the Mother road, the
road of flight.” (This from the magazine Arizona Highways)
Silent Key – Gerald L
Sanden, K7YCI
James Pike reports that Jerry Sanden passed away
unexpectedly on January 18, 2007 at the age of 60. When Jerry was here in Apple Valley he was a club member and he
was a charter member of Apple Valley R.A.C.E.S. It was Jerry who established the Quick
White Rabbit Award. Our sympathies go to
his family.
HAM Antenna
Towers:
The city of Victorville has made a
decision regarding HAM antenna towers. The current ordinance is 10 feet above
the roofline. As an administrative action the Building Department was told by
the City Council “if a HAM walks
in and shows his license, there will be no conditional use permit fee and no
height restriction.”
This action was taken for
a number of reasons which include Hurricane Katrina lessons, the fact that
the Office of Emergency Services is trying to encourage HAMs to help the
city, and a few hams have come forward asking to put up big towers. HAMs will
still have to present the Building Department engineering plans, etc. for
safe installation.
Calendar of Events
March 5 – Board
Meeting: 6:30 p.m., 11125 Chipmunk Rd., Apple
Valley, (760) 240-8718
March 13
– General Meeting: 7:00 p.m., EchoLink
April 2
– Board Meeting: 6:30 p.m., 11125 Chipmunk Rd., Apple
Valley, (760) 240-8718
April 10
– General Meeting: 7:00 p.m., Auction
May 7
– Board Meeting: 6:30 p.m., 11125 Chipmunk Rd., Apple
Valley, (760) 240-8718
May 8 - General Meeting: 7:00 p.m.,
May 18 -20
– Dayton Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio
Visit http://wa5kub.com for streaming video
and audio of the world’s largest HAM radio convention. Live broadcasting of convoy to convention
will begin May 16 and continue through May 20.
June 4 - Board Meeting:
6:30 p.m., 11125
Chipmunk Rd., Apple Valley,
(760) 240-8718
June 12 – Annual
BBQ
June 23-24 – Field
Day
July 2 - Board Meeting:
6:30 p.m., 11125
Chipmunk Rd., Apple Valley,
(760) 240-8718
July 10 – Annual
Ice Cream Social
August 6 - Board Meeting:
6:30 p.m., 11125
Chipmunk Rd., Apple Valley,
(760) 240-8718
August 14 - General
Meeting: 7:00 p.m.
September 3 - Board
Meeting: 6:30 p.m., 11125 Chipmunk Rd., Apple
Valley, (760) 240-8718
September 11 - General
Meeting: 7:00 p.m.
October 1 - Board
Meeting: 6:30 p.m., 11125 Chipmunk Rd., Apple
Valley, (760) 240-8718
October 9 – General
Meeting: 7:00 p.m.
November 5 - Board
Meeting: 6:30 p.m., 11125 Chipmunk Rd., Apple
Valley, (760) 240-8718
November 13 –
General Meeting: 7:00 p.m.
December 3 - Board
Meeting: 6:30 p.m., 11125 Chipmunk Rd., Apple
Valley, (760) 240-8718
December 11 –
Installation Dinner
Radio Limerick of
the Month
There once was a young ham named
Bill,
Who longed for a house on the hill,
Beams way up higher
Lots of space
for antennas to fill
Limericks
all have the same rhyme pattern of these examples. The dictionary definition
is: A nonsense poem, consisting of five lines, the first, second and
fifth of three feet and rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are of two
feet and rhyme. Here is a classic
sent to us by Ray Terry:
There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who kept
all his cash in a bucket.
His
daughter named Nan,
Ran
away with a man.
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
Our continuing Challenge: Try your hand at making one up; it
would be welcome. We did this activity
a decade or so back, and did have a few participants; we’ll have a new
one each month. So, sharpen your wits
and your pencils and write one. E-mail
to Virginia
at kd6rdc@juno.com
Crossword Puzzle Answers:
Unit and solar flare
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