Subj : Newsline Part 2
To : ALL USERS
From : DARYL STOUT
Date : Fri Mar 04 2016 12:28 pm
HAMFEST IN HUNTERDON
The Cherryville Repeater Association is opening the doors of its annual
hamfest and technology expo on Saturday, March 12, at the North Hunterdon
Regional High School in Annandale, New Jersey, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The hamfest expects to draw a large crowd from the Flemington, N.J. area
and beyond.
In addition to 30 vendors and a variety of seminars, the hamfest will
also host an operating Flex Radio station so visitors can experience
Software Defined Radio technology for themselves. There will also be a
seminar on Digital Mobile Radio technology.
(QSL.NET)
**
SKEETER: Further south, hams in the Charleston, West Virginia area are
prepping for that area's big Hamfest. In its 32nd year, it has a whole lot
of new offerings. We hear more from Jim Damron, N8TMW.
[JIM'S REPORT - 1:30]
**
BREAK HERE:
Time for you to identify your station. We are the Amateur Radio Newsline,
heard on bulletin stations around the world, including the Southern
Michigan Repeater Network's six linked repeater systems, serving all of
southern Michigan and parts of northern Ohio.
**
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS: JIM WEIDNER, K2JXW, AND HAROLD KRAMER, WJ1B
Two hams are stepping down from leadership roles, one at the Amateur Radio
Lighthouse Society, and another at the ARRL.
Jim Weidner, K2JXW, founder, owner and president of the Amateur Radio
Lighthouse Society, has resigned due to health reasons. The New Jersey
based society, which sponsors the Intercontinental Lightship-Lighthouse
Week, as well as National Lighthouse Day in August, is looking for someone
to take up the reins as leader. The organization works to promote the
roles that lighthouses and hams have in preserving maritime safety. There
are about 2,000 dues-paying members.
If no one comes forward, Weidner has said the society's activities will
cease after June 30 of this year. For more information, contact him via
email at
[email protected] or phone him at 856-486-1755.
Another executive is stepping down - this one at the ARRL. Chief Operating
Officer Harold Kramer, WJ1B, has retired after 11 Years at the Connecticut
headquarters. He has been the author of the "Inside HQ" column in QST
Magazine, helped introduce a digital edition of the magazine, and served
as co-chairman of the Centennial Convention. He was praised recently by
ARRL's Marketing Manager, Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R, with these words:
QUOTE "Through his 'Inside HQ' column, hundreds of personal tours, loads
of hamfest and convention travel, radio club meetings, and shaking a lot
of hands - Harold packaged the contributions of ARRL and every staff
person, and delivered that story to members, prospective members, and
loads of friends and visitors." ENDQUOTE
(ARRL)
**
THE HAM LICENSE EXPLOSION
Hams, you're in good company: FCC records show that growth in amateur
licenses continued through 2015, with a 735,405 licensees -- a record -
in the agency's Universal Licensing System database by year's end. Those
figures reflect an increase of 9,130 over December 2014. In 2014, the
Amateur Radio ranks grew by a net 8,149 licensees.
Not surprisingly, the largest growth area was in the Technician license
class, which added 6,570 new hams in in 2015. There were 3,079 new
General class licensees, and Amateur Extra class added another 3,496.
The figures reflect a steady growth in amateur radio's ranks annually
since 2007. Looks like there'll be a lot more people calling CQ this
year, if they haven't started already.
(ARRL)
**
SENIORS ON THE AIR
SKEETER: Meanwhile, veteran hams are showing some creativity too. A group
of hams in a Florida retirement community have their own ham club ...
have established an emergency Neighborhood Ham Watch ... and in the
process, managed to get the blessings of their home owners association.
Amateur radio newsline's Kent Peterson KC0DGY has their story.]
[KENT'S REPORT]:
TED LUEBBERS: We live in an area prone to hurricanes and tornadoes. Most
of our club members are very active in the lake county ARES group, and we
thought if we formed our own club here, we might be available for an
emergency in a hurricane or a tornado, and report back to our local EOC
that everybody is A OK, or B we need some help and be a funnel of
information from our gated community to to the emergency operations center.
KENT: That's Royal Harbor Radio club president Ted Luebbers K1AYZ. The
club saw a need to include hams in their housing association's emergency
disaster plans.
TED: What we have done is actually we've actually set up a community
emergency disaster plan for Royal Harbor specifically We presented that
to our management board here, and they have made it a part of their
overall disaster plan for Royal Harbor, which has been approved by
emergency management at EOC. And, as a matter of fact, emergency
management was so impressed with the whole thing, they tried to get
other retirement communities to do the same thing. So, it's sort of
become a model in this area.
KENT: Luebbers says there also an unforeseen benefit when the club
members got involved with the home owners management group.
TED: As a result of our club here at Royal Harbor, and our good
relationship with the home owners association management group, we've
actually now had two of of our ham club members put on the
architectural review committee. One of the jobs of the architectural
review committee is to sort of police any antenna situations, so you
might cause it subversion to some extent. But it works out, the home
owners association is happy with what we do, they're happy we are taking
part in the emergency plan for the community, and its given them some
publicity and its given us some publicity as well.
KENT: When he was looking to buy, Luebbers told me he looked at several
housing developments, but asked if they allowed outside ham antennas.
When they told him no, he kept looking. He says there *are* developments
in Florida which *do* allow for ham antennas, you just have to look
around a bit to find them.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Kent Peterson KC0DGY
--- BgNet 1.0a12 - The Thunderbolt BBS wx1der.dyndns.org Little Rock, AR
