Greetings everyone, welcome to "Dale's Tales"
for November 2017
CONGRATULATIONS go out to all of the Great Lakes Division
award winners announced at GL HamCon.
ARRL President Rick Roderick K5UR attended and presented former ARRL Director Jim Weaver K8JE with the
George S. Wilson W4OYI Lifetime Achievement Award for his many years of
outstanding service to amateur radio.
Stan Broadway N8BHL received the Great Lakes Division Amateur of the
Year Award. Christopher Brault KD8YVJ
was named the Great Lakes Young Amateur of the Year. The Great Lakes Technical Achievement Award
was presented to Bob Dixon W8ERD while the Portage County (OH) Amateur Radio
Assn, received the Joe Phillips K8QOE Newsletter Award.
All of these awards are presented bi-annually at our Division Conventions and the winners are selected from
nominations offered by the general membership.
THE BANDS seem to be holding their own, CQ-WW is running
in the background as I am writing
NOW THAT the cooler weather has settled in, for some
strange reason, my mind rolls around to antennas and all of the antenna
projects I have put off doing all summer.
It is crunch time, time to get the postponed maintenance done, and time to put up the sloper I have
been putting off
for an excessively long time. Time to prune the birch tree that is invading the air space near the tri-bander. Time to find out why the VSWR on the UHF vertical is a little high. And here I go, attempting to demonstrate
again, that blizzard-borne antenna installations, held together with bailing
wire, duct tape and bubble gum are the best working ether-grabbers.
My thanks to a couple of friends who stopped by to assist
in a rotor repair a couple of weeks ago. At the very least, that project is complete
and I can target a couple of others before bringing out the BW, DT and BG. Interestingly, I thought I was the only ham
that does this.
Surprisingly, I found several others in the final
planning stages of mid-fall antenna jobs.
Hmmm, it must be something caused by the cooler fall weather. It
just couldn't be procrastination - never that.
GL HAMCON: This was the first ham radio event to be held
at Michigan International Speedway.
TOM'S COMMENTS:
Comments from our Vice Director Tom Delaney W8WTD
Even though it’s the end of October, the highlight of the
month had to be the Great Lakes HamCon, held on the first weekend in October.
Congratulations to all the organizers, and especially to
the coalition of Michigan clubs who got together to sponsor the event. Great venue, excellent forums, and lots of
people! Looking forward to next year
already.
Along with my travel to Michigan, this month included a
lot of travel, most of it personal. The
following reflection is not new, and not un-noticed by others. It’s just to note the continuing trend of
non-use of two-meter repeaters, pretty much across the country. I notice it when I’m home. I monitor the club repeater, and try to
answer any call I hear. And I don’t hear
anyone, club member or traveler, calling.
It’s the same when I’m on the road. State by state, city by city, a call on a
local repeater produces only the ID. No
QSOs. Where is everyone?
Of course, it’s not the same as in the 1970s or
1980s. If I come across a road
emergency, or have trouble myself, 911 is now the best and quickest
solution. It was great that we hams
stepped up when there were no such things as cell phones, and we were there
with communications when it counted.
We’re better off now than we were, and we did a great service for the
community. So naturally, with less need,
fewer people monitor. But did we turn
off our VHF radios for good? Yes, there
are nets, and some of them are well-attended.
But is once a week for a half hour good enough?
We are tying up a lot of spectrum on 144-148 MHz. Are we making good use of it? If you put a meter on your club repeater, to
measure how often the repeater comes on the air (exclusive of announcements)
you won’t find that it gets a lot of use.
There are exceptions, of course. By and large, though, we’re letting a good
resource go unused.
If there’s a solution, it’s not one that requires a big
change. It’s just a matter of individuals deciding that it’s
worth making a contact or two a day on the local repeater. When you’re doing a project at your
workbench, do you have a scanner or your VHF/UHF rig on? Or if you’re in
your car, does the music drown out the repeater (assuming that the rig might
even be on)?
I like operating HF and various other modes besides
FM. But the local repeaters are the
easiest and quickest ways to make contacts, and sometimes provide as much
interest as any other mode. What do you
say? If I key up your club’s repeater while I’m driving by,
will you be there?
73, Tom W8WTD Vice Director, Great Lakes Division
11/4/17 Grant
ARC Hamfest Georgetown, OH
12/2/17 Fulton
County Delta, OH
12/3/17 Lanse
Creuse Madison
Heights, MI
1/14/17 SCARF
Hamfest Nelsonville, OH
1/28/17 Hazel
Park Hamfest Madison Heights, MI
2/3/17 HARA
Hamfest Negaunee, MI
2/1/17 Cherryland
Hamfest Traverse City, MI
2/18/17 InterCity
Hamfest Mansfield, OH
2/18/17 Livonia
Hamfest Livonia, MI
Be sure to check your Section's news pages for the latest
local happenings, club and net information.
73, Let's be radio-active. I like Tom's request, we need to get back to
actually using our repeaters!
Dale Williams WA8EFK
Director
Great Lakes Division
