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ARRL Level III Amateur Radio Emergency Communications (EC-003) and HF Digital Communications (EC-005) courses opens Monday, January 20, 12:01 AM Eastern Standard Time (0501 UTC).

Registration will remain open through Sunday, January 26. Classes begin Monday, January 27.

No seats remain in the January registration period for the ARRL Level II Amateur Radio Emergency Communications (EC-002).

Registration for Antenna Modeling (EC-004) course remains open through Sunday, January 19.

A new service now allows those who may be interested in taking an ARRL Certification and Continuing Education (C-CE) course in the future to be advised via e-mail in advance of registration opportunities. Send an e-mail to prereg@arrl.org, and include the course name or number (eg, EC-00#) on the subject line as well as your name, call sign, email address, and the month you want to start the course in the body.

To learn more, visit the ARRL Certification and Continuing Education Web page http://www.arrl.org/cce and the C-CE Links found there.

For more information, contact Certification and Continuing Education Program Coordinator Howard Robins, W1HSR, hrobins@arrl.org.

Winter Emergency Exercise Plan will held on Saturday February 8, 2003. Please press the “Exercises/SET” button to the left to view the plan.

Tauton – National Weather Service announced that the new weather radio frequency will have to change to 162.525 from 162.500 MHz. Potential interference to NH OEM opeations using the Mt. Washington Weather Radio was cited as the principal reason. -From KD1CY

N1BDA writes:

“An ad hoc Concord group will be running a technician class February 3, 6, and 10 at the Concord Municipal Light Plant, 1175 Elm Street, on Route 2A just west of the rotary. Classes will be 7-10pm. The exam is planned for Monday, February 10 about 9pm. We are not planning to offer any other exam elements.

“If you know of anyone interested, have them contact Steve Bates, WB1EYJ, stevebateshp@att.net or Phil Gaudet, K1IRK, k1irk@arrl.net. They are requesting that students buy and read (at least begin to read) the “Now You’re Talking” ARRL text.

Steve
N1BDA

The speaker for the Boston ARC General meeting this Thursday, 1/16, will be Dr.Yehuda Cern K8HGZ, Chief Engineer at Ambient Corp. The topic is “How rf Shows Up In the Strangest Places”. I’m sure that it will be very interesting and we will wish we had twice as much time.

Paul
N1ZKR

K1RB wrote:

Patriot Ledger Story – Today – TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2003 !

The Wizard of Wireless: Cape to mark 100 years since Marconi feat

[Dave Newman of Kingston speaks to another HAM radio operator in Oldham, England as other club members listen in. (Jeff Loughlin/The Patriot Ledger) ]

By ANGELA SALVUCCI
The Patriot Ledger

These days, just about everything electronic comes with literally no strings attached. And, it is difficult to imagine a time when the fastest way to send a message to Grandma in Florida would have been to tap-tap-tap it onto telegraph wires. Of course, if the wires had fallen down in a storm or the operator at the other end was napping, the next best option was courier pigeon. Thankfully, a man named Guglielmo Marconi came along and changed everything.Exactly 100 years ago Saturday, right here in Massachusetts, Marconi made wireless history and forever changed the way we communicate. On Jan. 18, 1903 Marconi sent a message from President Theodore Roosevelt from a station Marconi had constructed in South Wellfleet (now known as Marconi Beach) to a station in England. A reply from King Edward VII soon came back.

Marconi was born in 1874 in the Italian university city of Bologna. Although his formal education was inconsistent and he never attended college himself, he was friends with some of the foremost scientists and scholars of the day who eventually taught him a bit about physics, which would become his passion.

While he was not responsible for discovering wireless waves, Marconi was fascinated by the possibility of using electricity to communicate across distances without the help of what was then the latest communications technology, telegraphy over cables. Few others were interested in such experimentation at the time, and Marconi became the lone trailblazer of wireless telegraphy, what we now know as radio. He alone sought to communicate with wireless waves beyond visible distance and across the curvature of the globe.

Using contraptions of tin and wood first set up in the attic and the garden at his house in Italy, Marconi gradually increased the distance over which he could transmit waves. By 1895 he had transmitted the Morse code letter ”S” over two kilometers. By 1898 he had formed the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company in England, and had set up a wireless factory. Signals were sent from ships on the ocean to lighthouses on shore, and the Royal family of England was entertained by messages sent from palace to palace.

In 1899, Marconi had sent the first international wireless transmission across the English Channel, and his next goal became bridging the Atlantic with wireless waves. He sent up three stations in Poldhu, England, Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and Wellfleet. While the first transmission across the Atlantic was received at Glace Bay – another letter ”S” – the first ever trans-Atlantic communication from the United States via wireless telegraph took place on January 18, 1903 between the four 210-foot-tall transmitters at Wellfleet and those in Poldhu, England. Marconi sent a message from President Theodore Roosevelt to Britain’s King Edward VII.

”In taking advantage of the most wonderful triumph of scientific research and ingenuity which has been achieved in perfecting a system of wireless telegraphy, I extend on behalf of the American people most cordial greetings and good wishes to you and all the people of the British Empire,” read Roosevelt’s message. Within a few hours King Edward sent a reply, and Marconi and others continued to develop the phenomenon of radio.

Marconi won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1909 for his achievements.

”The thing about him is that he did this all alone,” says Bob Doherty of Lakeville, president of Southeastern Massachusetts’ Marconi Radio Club. ”It was pretty tough to convince people that he’d actually done it.”

Doherty compares Marconi’s task of convincing the public of the reality of wireless transmission to convincing someone today that they could teleport from one coast to another.

Today, wireless radio communication via Morse code is much the same as it was 100 years ago. ”Every time a HAM operator sits down at his radio he does the same thing as Marconi did,” says Doherty, adding that amateur radio communication requires a great deal of technical ability.

”Anybody can talk over the radio, but not everybody can receive code and convert it in their head to the written word,” says Doherty, emphasizing the startling power of just 100 watts of electricity transmitting signals around the world.

Among the events planned to mark the anniversary on January 18 are a display of Marconi-related artifacts by the Wellfleet Historical Society, an illustrated discussion of Marconi’s achievements by Michael Whatley, author of ”Marconi – Wireless on Cape Cod,” and a presentation on family space education by a NASA aerospace education specialist.

According to Betsy Cole, a member of the board of trustees of the Wellfleet Historical Society Museum, artifacts that the historical society will put on display include letters from Marconi, many of which mention the difficulties involved in setting up his transmitters in the blustery Cape winds, and also photographs of Marconi and his team. NASA will show models of satellites and teach participants about the space shuttle.

The festivities will culminate in the transmission of the original message from President Roosevelt to King Edward, as well a special message from President George W. Bush to Queen Elizabeth meant to mark the occasion.

The message will be sent in code and in voice. According to Barbara Dougan, educational coordinator for the Cape Cod National Seashore, The Marconi Cape Cod Memorial Radio Club and the Marconi Radio Club of the South Shore cooperated to construct a tower and transmitter on Coast Guard Beach in Eastham to relay the messages. Marconi’s original transmission equipment was dismantled in 1920, and years of erosion have left only remnants of the original base towers standing.

On the 75th Anniversary of Marconi’s wireless transmission from the Cape in 1978, messages from President Jimmy Carter, President Giovanni Leone of Italy, and Marconi’s daughter Gioia were also transmitted from the Cape.

Also to commemorate the centennial, Cape Cod high school students will communicate via radio with astronauts orbiting the Earth in the International Space Station.

From January 11-19, the Coast Guard Station in Eastham will be open to the public, and members of the Marconi Radio Club and the Marconi Cape Cod Memorial Radio Club will communicate with other amateur radio operators
around the world.

The Salt Pond Visitor’s Center in Eastham will have a Marconi exhibit on display during that week as well.

Angela Salvucci may be reached at asalvucci@ledger.com

Copyright 2003 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Tuesday, January 14, 2003

73,
BOB, K1RB
Robert F. Burns
Whitman, MA 02382-2510 USA
ARRL (Life Member) * Diamond Club * DXCC
Marconi Radio Club (W1AA) * Marshfield Fair Radio Club (NN1MF)
k1rb@arrl.net

KD1CY writes:

On Thursday January 16th, Rachel Barrett from the New Bedford Chapter of the Red Cross will be coming to the Southeastern Massachusetts Amateur Radio Association. She’ll be talking about Red Cross, what they do, and what the local chapter does in the area. Along those lines, Rachel will be discussing how Amateur Radio plays an important role in Red Cross and how individual hams and SEMARA can help.I will be at the presentation and will talk a bit on some of the things that Red Cross is looking for from a communications standpoint. I would like to thank the SEMARA club for hosting this presentation. Its very much appreciated and its hoped to see a great turnout.

As some of you maybe aware, back in 1996, we (myself and several other hams, many of which were SEMARA members)started the SEMCARES (Southeast Masaschusetts Coastal Amateur Radio Emergency Services) group. The group was formed to assist with Emergency Communications issues as they arise and to assist in public service events as needed. The group was strong until the late 90’s but as attempts to form a relationship with the Red Cross kept changing due to turnover in administrations at Red Cross and the gradual downturn of public service events (several events that communications were done for ceased to exist), the group splintered into assisting the towns of Dartmouth, Fairhaven and Acushnet with Emergency Management communications. This communications work is known as RACES or the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services.

In September 2002, I was approached by our ARES Section Emergency Coordinator, Mike Nielsen, W1MPN, with a request to talk to Rachel concerning Red Cross Disaster Communications. Rachel has taken over Disaster Services work with Red Cross back in the late 2000-2001 timeframe. The goal was to begin building plans and infrastructure for Red Cross communications. Since then, I’ve had several meetings with Rachel in the past several months as we attempt to achieve these goals. She has been a professional and its been a pleasure to be working with her and a served agency which is starting to organize itself and take on Amateur Radio and the concept of ARES seriously.

The Eastern Massachusetts ARES staff has announced a Emergency Communications Exercise for Saturday February 8th at 10 AM and were looking for as many groups to participate as possible. Rachel and New Bedford Red Cross have agreed to participating in this drill for Saturday. This means having actual ham operations at the Red Cross chapter house. Details on how Amateurs can help and participate in the drill will be talked about at this presentation. Participation in the drill will be done in such a way so that anyone can participate including people who would like to participate from home only.

I hope to see many of you at the presentation. If you can’t make the presentation but are interested in what our plans are with Red Cross or the Emergency Communications drill, feel free to send me an email at rmacedo@rcn.com

I also hope to get to more SEMARA functions this year as my work schedule should relax from the pace of the past 18 months through the high tech downturn at my work place.

Take care and hope to see many of you at the club!

Respectfully Submitted,

Robert Macedo (KD1CY)
ARES SKYWARN Coordinator
SEMCARES Emergency Coordinator
Pager #: (508) 354-3142
Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)
Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)
Work Phone #: 1-800-445-2588 Ext.: 72929 (8 AM-5 PM)
Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com
http://users.rcn.com/rmacedo

k9hi writes:

“Photos from the 01/11/03 ARRL New England Division Cabinet Meeting in Springfield, MA are available on my personal web site.”

Notes from New England Division Cabinet Meeting – January 11, 2003 – Springfield MA
Tom Frenaye/K1KI + Mike Raisbeck/K1TWF

A. Introduction
1. List of attendees sent out in separate e-mail
2. Purpose of cabinet meeting – to gather information and advice in advance of the ARRL board meeting.
B. Membership and growth
1. Overall ham population is flat – 682,000 nationwide, 20,000 new hams last year, but net change was only +2220 hams nationally.
2. Change in New England was a loss of 15 overall, northern NE growing, southern NE losing hams
3. ARRL membership – trend down across the region – 274 loss overall in NE. Trend was downward in all NE sections.
4. ARRL membership 156,815 full (licensed) members. Another 10,00 are associated members, foreign members or have subscriptions.

C. Expected Board of Directors Issues Next Week
1. Discussion/action on getting new people licensed (and relicensed)
2. 2003 budget – recommended by Admin&Finance committee
a. typically, $3 or 4M available from 14 M budget after fixed recurring expenses covered (for advocacy, membership services, volunteer resources)
b. question – is it worth spending lots of money to defend all of our microwave allocations? Lots of pressure particularly for unlicensed devices.
3. Strategic planning

D. Spectrum planning
1. Low power device rules are sliding (causing us more interference)
2. FCC not particularly supportive here
3. If we make a big fuss over part 15, will the FCC just go to Congress to change the rules?
4. Spectrum protection act – got 53 house sponsors last year – will reintroduce this year – but only 1 from NE – did get 4 NE senators
5. To defend microwave space, we need to develop things to do that will attract more usage
6. Typically, a lot of spectrum protection work done by Chris Imlay, with technical backup by League staff

E. Getting Legislative Support
1. Takes a lot of banging on doors – a “game of inches”
2. Know your “two minute drill” (elevator speech)
3. Mary H. – we got a great reception in Washington from the Homeland Security folks.
4. Maine has been particularly successful in getting Congressional support
5. Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Consistency Act – HR4720 – to allow radio in CCR covered places – real estate lobby is very strong – got 35 sponsors
6. Phil T. – are there specific targeted mailing lists for interested amateurs (ie., SGL’s) in the legislative arena?
7. Would it be possible to “regionalize” QST ??
8. Big problem getting hams to “write their congressman”

F. Getting membership
1. Biggest challenge is getting people on the air and active
2. Bill W. – give League membership as a gift
3. To get from 160,000 to 200,000 members, we could buy memberships for $1.4M

G. Mary Hobart/K1MMH – development
1. Key to fundraising is in setting up relationships with people
2. In picking donors…
a. Does person have the interest?
b. Does he/she have the money?
3. Advocacy costs us about $1.2M per year – in defense of frequencies we’ve gone up from $200K through donations per year, up to $400k, but last year back down to $250K
4. We now have 40 schools participating in the Big Project – now looking for objective ways to measure success here
5. Currently testing a campaign to endow W1AW – $2M – 3M would be nice
6. History project now underway using seed money – need to measure possibilities here, too
7. Diamond club – funds not restricted – this makes it particularly important. – over 400 have signed up since program started in September

H. Dave Hoaglin/K1HR – Contest Advisory Committee – reported not a great deal of activity

I. Frank Murphy/N1DHW – brief report on Salvation Army/SATERN-Boston activity
1. Beginning to build up state-based groups
2. net on 14.265 M-F

J. Big Project Schools
1. Worcester East Middle School (MA)
2. Orono Middle School, ME
3. The best combination is school with ham-licensed teacher, and a supportive local club

K. Logbook of the World
1. In beta test now
2. Possibly public test in a month or two
3. Is it possible to flag Q’s in LOTW for special purposes (ie., info only, no credit)

L. Tower cases – very little happening in NE at the moment

M. Educating the public about ham radio – the future
1. More Archie comics, or some updated equivalent?
2. Morse code certificates have been popular
3. Problem is that the general public doesn’t know anything about us
4. Hams (unlike other hobbyists) don’t identify themselves publicly as ARRL, but rather as members of individual local clubs. Push branding down a few levels?
5. Maybe the term “amateur” is not serving us well.
6. Effort must be sustained
7. Look at example of AOPA
8. Strong support for more ARRL action on this and gaining new hams

N. Auction of publications gained $148 towards the ARRL Lab fund

O. WARC-03
1. 40 meters realignment still a mystery
2. Threat from earth sensing radar at 435 MHz
3. Elimination of CW as international requirement – quite probable

P. HF digital committee
1. Where should the broader HF digital modes go?
2. Possibly revisit digital control
3. Reconsideration of sub-bands

Q. VHF awards and contests – working on making these more appealing, to increase activity

R. Section reports
1. CT
a. participation in UTC grant
b. reactivation of packet network
c. some cabinet reshuffling
2. EMA
a. 100th Marconi operations
b. website updates
3. RI
a. Bob will run for another term
b. Doing well
4. VT
a. rebuilding ARRL presence

S. NEQP – good activity with 260 logs in 2002, next running is May 3-4, 2003

T. Miscellaneous comments
1. Kudos for Boxboro
2. Noted some interference in ARRL news bulletin recording
3. Put America back on ARRL materials
4. Echolink – FCC is investigating control issues
5. Plug for Eastern States expo

Thanks to K1TWF for taking notes! — Tom

N1DHW writes:

The Icom Rep. will be available as a Club Speaker through March, 2003. Clubs interested may make arrangements by contacting Chuck Wyrick, W1UC, at HRO 1-800-444-0047.