Subj : Newsline Part 2
To : All
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Fri Mar 31 2017 12:23 pm
103-YEAR-OLD HAM IN RUSSIA, A SILENT KEY
JIM/ANCHOR: In his lifetime, Victor Sokkolov, U5FS, of Izmail, Russia,
had seen World War I, the Russian Revolution, and World War II, in which
he served in the military. Victor, who became a Silent Key on March 25
at the age of 103, was believed to be among the oldest amateurs in Russia,
if not the world.
A less active ham in his later years, Victor was proud of his military
service, and would often tell of the action he was involved in, including
the Russian landing on the Kerch Strait, which aimed to recapture Crimea
from Germany.
His death was reported in the Daily DX.
(SOUTHGATE, DAILY DX)
**
PUTTING ITALY'S REPEATERS ON THE MAP
JIM/ANCHOR: Anyone who has ever searched for a repeater, only to be
frustrated, should get to know a ham like Andrea (ON-DRAYA NOOT-ZI) Nuzzi,
IZ8WNH. Over the course of two to three months, he researched and created
an interactive map of amateur radio repeaters throughout Italy, with
downloadable data for programming transceiver memory. Andrea explains here
how he accomplished it.
ANDREA: Greetings from IZ8WNH to all Amateur Radio Newsline followers. The
map was conceived to easily visualize repeaters' data based on Ham radio
operator's position. It's not obvious to find information when moving from
a place to another, so the map allows OM/YL to find easily what they are
looking for. Italy's repeaters' data are unofficially distributed through
IK2ANE Walter's spreadsheet, which means they are not either exhaustive or
accurate. I am doing a huge effort to find new data, and validate the
existing ones by verifying more than 1850 records, one by one, and asking
the collaboration of local OM/YL. So far, 40% of records have been
positively validated, and there's still a lot to do.
The map offers additional tools like four combinable filters based on
Italian regions, counties, the type of repeater, and the band. Filtered
recordsets are automatically shown on the map, and on demand, in a table.
Collected data are exported as pdf and csv files. There are two different
csv formattings to help OM/YL in setting RTX memories with Chirp or
dedicated Yaesu softwares.
The website works with some HTML and PHP, a lot of JavaScript and MySQL
database. It took me about 2-3 months to write down the complete code,
create a database, insert additional code to provide a fully responsive
website, and fix incompatibilities among IE- and FF-based browsers.
Nevertheless, maintaining the website up and running, as well as updating
the database are never-ending processes!
JIM/ANCHOR: Thank you, Andrea. A link to his repeater map can be found at
iz8wnh.it/en.html
**
IARU GUIDE: NOTHING LOST IN TRANSLATION
JIM/ANCHOR: Another ham - this one in Romania - has taken a different kind
of creative initiative. He has translated the IARU Emergency
Telecommunications Guide into Romanian. The guide is an invaluable
resource for amateurs wanting to set up a state-of-the-art National
Emergency Network, and provide training for operators. Hams in Romania now
have additional help in doing this, thanks to the efforts of one amateur,
Francisc Grunberg (Fran-Sick Groon-berg), YO4PX, who has translated its 93
pages.
The guide is now available in HTML and PDF format on the website of the
Romanian Federation of Radio Amateurs at radioamator.ro.
The IARU guide is the latest body of ham radio literature translated by
Francisc, whose profession is that of a translator and writer.
(SOUTHGATE, QRZ)
**
BREAK HERE: Time for you to identify your station. We are the Amateur Radio
Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world, including the WA3PBD
repeater of the Two Rivers Amateur Radio Club in McKeesport, Pennsylvania
during the 8 pm. Monday Night Net.
