Greetings everyone, welcome to "Dale's Tales"
for June 2015.
Honors: Michigan Section Manager Larry Camp WB8R and
I recently had the opportunity to attend The Auto State Young Ladies (TASYLs)
50th Anniversary luncheon in Holt, MI.
We were able to present congratulatory letters from the Section Managers
from Ohio, Kentucky and Michigan as well as a Congratulatory Certificate from
the Michigan Section and a Commemorative Plaque from the hams in the Great
Lakes Division. TASYLS presented several
awards, honoring Charter Members and long serving members. Beverley Stoner
K8ZJU, was recognized as a Founding Member and honored as 50 year members were:
Rosemary Davidson WA8VXE, Myriam Gregg K8ILN, and Verline Ferris KI8V. TASYLs holds a regular weekly net for YLs on 3940
kHz, each Thursday at 0900 local time.
Convention: The
"target" is Columbus, OH for the ARRL 2015 Great Lakes Division
Convention. The date is August 1. The Voice of Aladdin Amateur Radio Club will
serve as hosts this year. Forums will
include DX, NVIS, Digital Voice, ARES, HF Sound Card Modes, OSSBN/NTS and there
will be on-site VE testing. Check the Division Web pages at http://arrl-greatlakes.org/ for
updates.
Special
Event: The Museum Ships on the Air
Special Event will occur over a 48 hour period on the weekend of June 5-7,
2015. The times are 0000 Z June 6 thru 2359 Z June 7. There will be a
collection of over 75 actual Ships and Museum Sites from around the world
participating.
Included are many of World War II Historical Vessels with
the Battleship New Jersey, NJ2BB, sponsor of the event. Working 15 different
participating ships will earn you a certificate. Additional information about
the Museum Ships Operating Event can be found on The Battleship New Jersey
Amateur Radio Station's website http://www.nj2bb.org/museum/
A Michigan Club,
The Ships Amateur Radio Club, will be sponsoring a Special Award during the
event. It requires contact with the 5 ships representing the Great Lakes. The
WAGL Award, “Worked All Great Lakes” is commemorating the Light Ship Huron
(K8H), SS Col Schoonmaker (K8E), SS Milwaukee Clipper (K8M), SS Edmund
Fitzgerald (K8S) and the US Army LT-5 Tug Boat (K8O). Information is
available at http://ships-wagl.com/ or on QRZ for those call signs. 21 Hams will be
operating portable style for up to 16 hours each day at 5 different Great Lake
sites either where the ships are located or at the Great Lakes Shipwreck
Historical Society. Additional
Information is on their web page http://ships-wagl.com/.
All QSL requests via W8CDB. For those energetic stations
working all five ships with the K8* call, they will have a downloadable
certificate, the "WAGL" (pronounced "Waggle") or
"Worked All Great Lakes."
Special
Event: The Alger and Lake Effect ARC’s
are joining forces during the weekend of June 6-7 to put on a Trails Day on the
Air event at Muskallonge State Park, east of Grand Marais and NW of Newberry.
Station N8T will be operating sideband and PSK-31 both
days. The North Country Trail (NCT) actually runs through the park and the
Superior Shoreline Chapter of the North Country Trail Ass'n. will have an
information booth and be offering public hikes along the NCT. At least one hour
of Hellschreiber is planned each day, too, for the really odd ducks out there.
Maybe even some 6-meter if someone wants to try a sked.
And now,
comments from our Vice Director, Tom W8WTD as he looks back on the Dayton
Hamvention®:
Whatever trends
are happening in ham radio, you can find them at the Dayton Hamvention. For that matter, you can find all the
essential elements of ham radio there, as well.
Emergency communications? The
ARES forum, and many exhibits and vendors dedicated to making sure we're well
prepared. Advancement of the radio
art? Of course. New products, but in many more ways, hams
teaching hams about new discoveries.
Training? Lots of forums intended
to help the new hams, as well as the more experienced, how to do things better.
International Goodwill?
Ohio Section Manager Scott, N8SY, had a map at his table showing 72
countries being represented.
At the heart of
all of this is hams meeting other hams, some for the first time, some for the
hundredth time, sharing information and friendship. I had a great time at the ARRL booth, getting
to know more people from the Great Lakes Division, and hearing about what they
do.
Making sure we connect with each other on our projects is
very important. Sometimes, information
that people in one part of the Division might need is similar to what others
from another part of the Division have already been working on.
Dale WA8EFK will
no doubt mention the importance of House Bill 1301, the "Amateur Radio
Parity Act," and the impact it can make on ham radio for all of us. It was encouraging to see the number of
people who stopped by the booth to sign a letter to their Congressman. If you didn't make it to Dayton, you can
still help by going to the ARRL website and following the instructions there.
I love working
DX, and I don't do enough of it. It's
even better to meet some people in person.
Friday I had the chance for a nice chat over lunch with people from the
Radio Society of Great Britain.
Saturday, I met a young man from Argentina, and helped
him find the right person to work on an issue with a certificate for a friend
of his. And these were just a few of the
many people with DX calls that I saw during the weekend.
We should all be
grateful for the work done at the ARRL Lab.
They provide a valuable service to the hobby by their rigorous testing
and experimenting. I had a chance to
work with some of them for a few hours on Saturday as they tested HT's. Most of the equipment tested fell within
specs. They'll use some of their results
to pinpoint problems with certain types of equipment.
Finally, you'll
be hearing more about this soon, but remember to mark your calendars for the
Division Convention in August.
Interesting forums, a flea market, and another good chance to connect
with your fellows hams in the Division.
73, until next month,
Tom W8WTD
House Bill
1301: Current FCC Regulations allow
homeowners in deed-restricted residences to install TV receive only (TVRO)
antennas.
This includes both dish antennas and conventional over
the air antennas.
"Amateur
Radio Parity Act" HB 1301 was introduced in the U.S. House of
Representatives to direct the FCC to allow Radio Amateurs to have
"parity" with the current TVRO antenna regulations and install
reasonable ham radio antennas. At the
recent ARRL EXPO at the Dayton Hamvention®, we were successful in preparing
more than 800 signed letters from Radio Amateurs covering over 100
Congressional Districts.
These will now be hand delivered to their
Congressmen. The ARRL Web Page http://www.arrl.org/hr-1301 contains the
complete text of the bill.
Hamfesting: Here is the current Great Lakes Division ARRL
Sanctioned Hamfest Schedule for the
next few weeks. These swaps have received their sanctioning
approval from ARRL HQ at the time of this publication. 
June 6 - IRA Hamfest - Hudsonville, MI
June 6 - Princeton Hamfest - Princeton, KY
June 6 -
Fulton County - Tedrow, OH
June 7 - Chelsea - Chelsea, MI
June 13 - Luce County
- Newberry, MI
June 20 - Milford - Milford, OH
June 20 - Midland - Midland, MI
June 21 - Monroe - Monroe, MI
July 10-11 - Michigan Summer Outing - Hale
(Lupton) MI
July 11 - 20/9 Tailgate - Austintown, OH
July 18 - NOARS Fest -
Elyria, OH
July 18 - GMARC Trunk Fest - Shelby Twp, MI
July 19 - Van Wert - Van
Wert, OH
July 26 - CMARC Outdoor - Lansing, MI
July 26 - Portage - Randolph, OH
Hamfest
officials: When you receive your
"Hamfest Package" from ARRL, open it immediately. Read it over and look at all of the material
you received. There is a form included
to order additional material if you deem it appropriate.
Your Division and
Section officials want to be at your events and we strive for insuring that the
ARRL is properly represented at every ARRL Sanctioned Hamfest. Conflicts can arise, such as hamfests which
might occur on the same day. It is
always a good idea for your hamfest chair to contact the Section Manager,
Vice-Director or Director early in the planning stages to insure his attendance
at the activity. This will allow time to
prepare for alternate representation in the event of time conflicts.
The ARRL Director,
Vice Director and Section Managers are available to visit local radio clubs and
give presentations about ARRL and what is happening in your Section or
Division. Please feel free to invite any
of us for an "ARRL Night" at your club. Most of the talks are prepared in a video
presentation format and can include a Q&A session as well. Advance scheduling really helps and gives you
an opportunity to publicize the event.
See pages 15 & 16 of a recent QST for contact information.
73, see you on the bands.
Dale Williams WA8EFK
Director
Great Lakes Division
*******
eof.
