Hellgate Static

DECEMBER 2007

W7PX

http://www.users.qwest.net/~k7vk/

Next meeting is December 10, 2007

At St. Patrick Hospital Meeting Room

→ → → 1800 ← ← ←

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Hellgate Amateur Radio Club

P.O. Box 3811

Missoula, MT. 59806-3811

HARC Board of Directors

Club President, N7GE, Jerry Ehli at jehli@modernmachinery.com
Vice-president, W7PAQ Frank Kisselbach at fkissel@hughes.com
Treasurer, K7PX, Steve Schlang at ripply1@msn.com

Secretary, KE7NO, Craig Nelson at twincreek@blackfoot.net

Committees : Emergency Coordinator, NN8A, Byron Van Alstein at arl3051@wildblue.net

Hellgate Static Editor, KE7NO, Craig Nelson at twincreek@blackfoot.net

Program Director, AC7UZ, Lewis Ball at ac7uz@blackfoot.net

Training, W7DHB, Dennis Barthel at w7dhb@montana.com

QSL’s and Awards, N7MSU, Bob Henderson at n7msu@arrl.net

Repeater Committee, NZ7S, Eric Sedgwick at nz7s@msn.net

W7XY, Donnie Fort at fort@montana.com

Also includes NN8A, KE7NO, and W7PAQ

HARC Webmaster, K7VK, Vick Applegate at k7vk@arrl.net

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Hellgate Amateur Radio Club

November 12, 2007 President Ehli, N7GE called this meeting to order at 7:00 P.M.. An ARRL Antenna Compendium is for raffle with the winner to be selected at the end of the meeting. October showed a $28.00 net gain and Treasurer’s report of $3,784.08 ($3,376.35 in checking and $407.73 in savings) was accepted and approved. Steve K7PX noted humorously that Eric’s bill may “wipe us out”. The minutes printed in the November Hellgate Static were accepted with the correction of Jackie’s call to KC7RBC.

OLD BUSINESS

Eric, NZ7S, gave a quick report on the HARC repeaters. They are now on the air and are controllable. This took longer than he expected and the links are “not up to speed yet”. He hasn’t spent much time on it lately. Thanks go out to Paul, N7PAS, for all of his help. Eric believes that we should be full duplex by next year.

We have established contact with a person at the Wilma. The “Y” run will be held on April 26. Our contact, Jason, will let us know how to get up to the roof of the Wilma. HARC members asked that we get in contact with him regarding First Night and the Riverbank run.

The meeting at Grizzly Spring’s homes went exceptionally well. Dennis (W7DHB), Lewis (AC7UZ), and Frank (W7PAQ) did the presentation. As Lewis stated, the most amazing thing was that the people that came realized that they could “make contact with each other”. The presentation was approximately 45 minutes to one hour long. Further opportunities like this will be investigated for later demonstrations.

The Christmas dinner will be held at St. Patrick’s Hospital on December 10^th at 6:00 PM. A “white elephant” gift exchange ($10.00 maximum) will take place as will the elections of club officers.

Donnie, W7XY, brought an award presented to the Hellgate ARC by the Blackfoot River Clean-up Committee. This award also came with their thanks.

The money raised from the W7OPE equipment is being kept in a separate account. Currently the value of sold equipment is $1,003.46. The repeater committee, N7GE (Jerry), and NZ7S (Eric), will sell the repeater.

Jackie, KC7RBC, is still looking for volunteers for First Night. The need is for operators during the celebration from 2:00 PM to 12:00 AM. This will be announced during net.

NEW BUSINESS

Net Control

Nov. 21 NZ7S (@ Weather Bureau)

Nov. 28 N7GE W7DHB

Dec. 5 W7PAQ

Dec. 12 AC7UZ

SKYWARN will begin on 0000 November 30 (5:00 PM local) and continues for 24 hours. The Weather Bureau was curious about their log sheets. Dennis, W7DHB, felt we could use the sheet but decrease the font. This would allow us to include more information regarding names, location, weather, etc.. He felt that we should look at having two operators since the second could be the logger. This will help during busy times and help with call signs and of course the logging of the contact.

We will be selling the N7TAE, Wayne (sk), equipment. We will be going to members, EBay, EHam, or the ARRL website to sell this equipment.

Ruth, N7FMW, was selected as the winner of the Antenna Compendium. Congratulations Ruth, but it sounds like it may end up at the “white elephant” gift exchange.

KA7LEB MOVES AWAY

Frank Irish, KA7LEB, a longtime member of the Hellgate ARC has recently moved away from Missoula. He has gone to Indianapolis, Indiana. We will all miss having you around. 73 and 88

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SKYWARN 2007

Steve K7PX, Eric NZ7S, Byron NN8A, Bill W4YMA and Jerry N7GE met at the weather service on Friday Nov 30^th to set up for Skywarn. At 17:00 we started the Skywarn activities with the HF radio and Byron on the computer with Echolink. Michelle, of the weather service, provided us with pizza and sodas to help pass the time and Bill Farrell provided two pies for dessert. Mike KE7IZG and his family showed up to view the proceedings and tour the weather service facility. Things wound down about 23:30 on Friday evening and started back up on Saturday morning at 8:00. Liz WG7E showed up on Saturday to help and she was put to work logging the several contacts that were coming in fast and furious.

When we shut down for the day, we had logged over 40 of our 104 assigned contact weather service stations and had logged over twice that many more of contacts of people working with Skywarn across the nation. The certificate that we expect to receive from the Skywarn officials should be the "Nor'easter" certificate which matches the certificate from two years ago. This is the best year yet for contacts in the 5 years that we have been involved with the Skywarn event.

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The ARES E-Letter

November 29, 2007

Rick Palm, K1CE, Editor

Ham Radio Operators Gear Up for Special Olympics Dress Rehearsal

Boise, Idaho, November 9 -- Amateur Radio operators are gearing up to provide support to the 2008 Special Olympics Invitational Games in the Boise region, according to Brian Adams, W7CVS, Ada County EC, and
Chuck Robertson, KX7ID, Southwest Idaho DEC. The Invitational Games are seen as the practice run for the full 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Boise.

Michele Walker, event Senior Director of Communications, wrote, "The diversity of the delegations participating in the (Invitational) Games will allow the Games Organizing Committee to test operational plans for the 2009 Games in such functional areas as competition aspects and results distribution, language services, food and
beverage services, transportation, press operations and many more critical functions that will be vital to the success of the 2009 Games."

See also http://www.2009worldgames.org and http://www.idahoares.org

LETTERS: SETS of UFOs
I did enjoy the comments [in the October issue] about the Simulated Emergency Test (SET) that involved a UFO landing in Florida. Sandoval County, New Mexico, ARES had the very same exercise on July 7 - 9 of
this year in remote northern Lincoln County, New Mexico, near the original "Roswell" or "Corona Crash site." Several ARES/RACES members were involved in the exercise, dubbed "N5C," which was also a special
event station. They recreated the "recovery of a spacecraft of unknown origin from a remote location in northern Lincoln County sixty years ago." Voice and digital (Winlink) modes were used for communications. More information about this exercise is located at the following: http://w5bi.no-ip.org/ and http://www.w9wsw.com/
"Remember, this was only an exercise." -- Jay Miller, WA5WHN wa5whn@arrl.net

National Fire Academy On-Line Training Available
Of interest to hams seeking to complete their ICS/NIMS requirements: Emmitsburg, Maryland - The U.S. Fire Administration's National Fire Academy announced the launch of a new web-based online training system NFAOnline. NFAOnline provides an easy one-stop Web site where fire and emergency services personnel, first responders, emergency management personnel, and the general public will find free training and education programs that they can complete at their own pace. "Now is the time for us to embrace the future and improve our education through distance learning," said NFA Superintendent, Dr. Denis Onieal. "NFAOnline provides another option to help further the professionalism of the nation's fire and emergency services and strengthen their ability to combat all hazard emergencies."

NFAOnline provides a user-friendly, state-of-the art training system with technical support and the ability for the student to immediately print a certificate and transcript. The primary effort of NFAOnline is to make available training and materials for the fire service, particularly those unable to attend resident courses in Emmitsburg,
Maryland.

There are currently several courses available in the new NFAOnline. Additional courses are in development and will be added as they become available. Course subjects include Community Safety Educators, Fire Service Supervision, ICS 100 and ICS 200, Emergency Response to Terrorism, and Emergency Medical Services.

To enroll in NFAOnline, visit http://www.nfaonline.dhs.gov/ and browse the course catalog through the 'New Students' option.

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CONTESTER'S RATE SHEET

American Radio Relay League
NOVEMBER 28, 2007
Edited by Ward Silver N0AX

While you're restively waiting for the next contest, here's a good book about one of ham radio's magical spots, Clipperton Island. "Clipperton, A History of the Island the World Forgot", by Jimmy M. Skaggs will fill you in on a number of details often left out in more casual reviews. (Thanks, Paul W8AEF)

If you think the somniferous ionosphere hasn't been holding up its end of the bargain lately, don't kvetch. Maybe the story "Strange Space Weather over Africa" at http://tinyurl.com/yth2yj will explain things. (Thanks, Tom K1KI)

Fans of low-band receiving will enjoy the serious-SWLing Web site http://www.kongsfjord.no of the KONG DX-pedition group. These folks are broadcast DXers and a lot of what they do and know is directly applicable to low-band amateur operation. Be sure to check out "The Dallas Files" for even more goodies. (Thanks, Tim K3LR)

"Radio Row" on Cortland Street in New York once occupied stores where the World Trade Center towers were built. The Sonic Memorial Project, dedicated to the history of the WTC site, has published http://sonicmemorial.org/public/radiorow/radiorow.html an audio program, called "Radio Row - The Neighborhood before the World Trade Center". It's about 12 minutes long and is in Real Audio format. (Thanks, Thom K3HRN)

What does a 160-meter Yagi look like? No, the answer is not that no one knows because you can't build one! At least, not anymore. Take a look at this still-recumbent monster going up at OH8X
http://butthead.campus.luth.se/~micke/images/oh8x. The antenna weighs more than 4000 pounds and will live atop a construction crane. Think you could sneak that one by the Homeowner's Association? (Thanks, Dave N2NL)

Top Band operators sometimes need to determine a bearing to AM stations to track down harmonics, spurs, or just adjust a receiving antenna. Gary NL7Y suggests http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/amq.html as a way of finding the information for a particular station. A second site http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/distance.html can be used
to determine the azimuth or relative bearing from your location's lat/long based on the transmitter location. Jim K9YC notes that in the station information, "DA means Directional Antenna, ND means non-directional, DA-N means DA at night only, DA-2 means different directional patterns day and night."

Winding large coils for amplifiers and matching networks isn't too hard if you use soft copper tubing such as is used in refrigeration equipment. Wind the coil on a round form a bit smaller than the desired end result. Clamp one end in a vise in order to create some tension to hold the tubing. Then let the coil expand. Cut 3 lengths of 1/4" thick polystyrene flat stock (or fiberglass for high-temp applications) and notch at the desired pitch and spacing. Insert in the coil and epoxy in place. (Thanks, Carl KM1H)

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FROM THE WEBMASTER, K7VK

Are you finding local amateur radio information/news that you are looking for on the Hellgate ARC WebPages? If not, let me know, k7vk@arrl.net or 549-0027 and I'll try to add it. Also, have you any information for those WebPages? Any web comments?

Thanks & 73,

Vick K7VK

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DUES WILL BE DUE, SOON

2008 Dues will be due. Please support the repeater system and club activities. Annual membership is $25.00 ($5.00 for additional family members). Dues are payable to the Hellgate ARC treasurer, K7PX, Steve at ripply1@msn.com. New members may fill out the application membership (available on the website or in the December Hellgate Static) and send it to us.

Remember, your membership provides:
*Maintenance and funding of over a half dozen VHF/UHF repeaters and emergency and portable repeaters. These provide wide-area coverage for emergency, public service, club events and routine communications for all VHF/UHF ham radio operators.

*Additionally, HARC maintains portable and fixed HF communications equipment (radios, portable tower and antennas) for emergency, public service, and the numerous radio communication events held throughout the year.

*Monthly Newsletter, hard copy mailed to your postal address and on the club website.

*Monthly meetings to enjoy and interchange information with other radio amateur enthusiasts.

*A source of assistance, advice and encouragement (we call it "Elmering") with your antenna projects and/or radio operation.

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NEWS FROM THE NORTHWEST

As many of you know, the Northwest (and the inland empire, and northern Rockies) experienced severe weather. Although we saw snowfall, rain, and higher wind gusts, nothing really competed to 6” of rain near Seattle, flooding of Interstate 5, or the 100 mile an hour gusts on the Washington coast. As was past along to me, there were hams that stepped up, helped passing emergency traffic, and picked up some public relations as well. Check out this website: http://www.kval.com/news/local/12137956.html .

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RETIREMENT WATCH

HARC club member and Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks employee Bob Henderson, N7MSU, will join the retired folks on the airwaves this month. Although he will be missed at work, and those like myself that will miss his calls regarding special elk hunts, he will be on the air using digital modes and can always be found at the Fourth of July. All our best Bob!

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HOW WAS IT?

We hope the HELLGATE STATIC was interesting for you this month. Let us know if this newsletter is to your acceptance. So far, I’ve only heard good things. If there is something YOU would like to see, or that you feel is overdone, please let me know. This is the Hellgate Amateur Radio Club newsletter, not mine! If you have something (even a simple one-liner) please write to me at our address or e-mail me (Craig, KE7NO) at twincreek@blackfoot.net.

Thanks again for a great year. Any ideas that cross your mind, or news that you get, please forward them on to me. The year of 2007 was filled with many exciting ham radio events and opportunities to spread what we do. The fires and weather this summer disrupted all of our lives, but they are all things that we can help with. Ask Lewis, AC7UZ, about the “tornado dispatch” this summer to get an idea.

Please show up for the Christmas party. The white elephant is a great time and the visiting never gets better. Elections will take place, and if the club will continue to grow, we will need your vote. My 73’s, CU next year!

KE7NO