THE SPARK GAP

A monthly publication of the Meridian Amateur Radio Club October 2021

 

 Bible Verse

Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with Thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods
Psalm 95:1-3 (NKJV)

 

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President's Report

Hello all,

As we move into October and the meetings have moved away from The Checker Board, we will start this month with a little training at the end of the meeting. Now it won't be much and it won't take long so don't think we will be there all day. This will be something simple this month and grow from there. We are still in hurricane season and we need to look forward into the winter months. The Almanac says this will be a cold winter so we need to prepare now.

See you at the meeting.
73's Charles

 

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*** Next MARC Business Meeting ***

The Checker Board Restaurant is no longer open on Saturday mornings. Saturday, October 2nd, we will again meet at The Hilton Garden Inn at 9 am for breakfast and coffee with meeting to begin around 10am. The address is:

109 US Highway 11 and 80
Meridian, MS 39302

Hope you can join us. 73'

 

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HF PACKET - ALIVE AND WELL

Want to try something new with your Ham Radio? Why not try this old technology.

300 Baud HF Packet. HF Packet is alive and well on 40 and 20 meters. On 40 meters I have communicated with stations from Nova Scotia to Texas.

Two pieces of free, user friendly, software make getting on HF Packet very easy: Easyterm and Soundmodem. Downloads can be found by searching for UZ7HO (Download Easyterm49. zip and Soundmodem113. zip). Excellent YouTube videos by KK4DIV are also available.

Unlike nets such as the MSNBEMS Fldigi net, which is a weekly net, HF Packet is on 24/7. Contacts can be made on 40 24/7 and on 20 and 80 when the band is open. Easyterm has all of the necessary attributes of good EMCOMM software. So if one is setup and working HF Packet and we have an emergency situation arise in MS, all one would need to do is change frequency. Also with Easyterm, every station is a BBS.

The frequencies are 3589, 7104, and 14105… all LSB

Give it a try.

Regards Fred WB5BNV

 

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The Other Side Of POTA. "Hunting"

Don Gibbs, KK4QAM talks about the benefits of creating a Parks on the Air (POTA) account and using the HAMRS app on a computer. Interesting pod cast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv8oG8w-dJg

 

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Upcoming Hamfest

 

October 9, 2021

Helena Hamfest (Shelby County Amateur Radio Club)

Helena Amphitheater

4151 Helena Rd, Helena, AL 35080

https://www.helenahamfest.com/

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October 23, 2021

Deep South Amateur Radio Club “K4DSR” Hamfest

Hamfest Coordinator: Steve Hale (K4SMH) Contact: 251-680-1670 or KK4AXW@gmail.com

http://k4dsr.com/hamfest/

 

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Apply for a grant from the ARRL or ARDC

By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU

In our division director’s September missive to the membership yesterday was this nugget:

ARRL IS CURRENTLY OFFERING GRANTS to fund amateur radio projects. This program, sponsored by the ARRL Foundation, is specifically for organizations and aimed primarily for education, licensing and support of ham activities. A special focus is on youth-related plans. We are now entering the last phase of this year’s grant cycle, so the opportunity exists for your club or organization to submit a grant request. You can find the full details on the grant page of the ARRL web pages, check: http://www.arrl.org/amateur-radio-grants.
The ARRL accepts grant requests three times a year:

  • February 1 – February 28
  • June 1 – June 30
  • October 1 – October 31

Since this is September 1, you have two months to get your request in. As I’ve written before, our club was awarded $1,500 to help us put up a tower for a club station at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. The money is available. Go get it!

ARRL Foundation

Get money from ARDC, too!

You can also get a grant for amateur radio projects from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), the outfit I’m currently working for. ARDC grants money for projects that fall into one of the following three categories:

  • Support and growth of amateur radio,
  • Education, and
  • Technical innovation.

ARDC has, for example, awarded grants to:

  • An amateur radio club in Wisconsin (https://www.ampr.org/grants-old/grant-chippewa-valley-arc-emergency-trailer-and-equipment/) for upgrading their repeater systems and building an emergency communications trailer that they will also use to promote amateur radio in their area.
  • A California high school (https://www.ampr.org/grant-incorporaing-constructivism-and-the-maker-mentality-at-california-high-school/) whose computer science teacher will use the funds to purchase micro controllers and transform his classroom into a maker space. With this equipment and facility, students will learn computer science by building their own projects.
  • The M17 Project (https://www.ampr.org/grant-m17-open-protocol/), whose goal is to develop a new, open-source digital radio protocol by hams, for hams, and that is easy to understand and build on.

To be eligible for an ARDC grant, an organization must be a 501(c)(3) public charity or be sponsored by a 501(c)(3) public charity.  Other eligible organizations include government entities, schools or universities, and international charities or nonprofits.
For more information on ARDC and how to apply for an ARDC grant, go to https://www.ampr.org/apply.

ARDC

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Dan Romanchik, KB6NU, is the author of the KB6NU amateur radio blog (KB6NU.Com), the "No Nonsense" amateur radio license study guides (https://KB6NU.Com/study-guides/), and often appears on the ICQPodcast (https://icqpodcast.com). He recently joined ARDC as their Content Manager. Among his responsibilities is spreading the word about all the cool things ARDC is doing for amateur radio.

 

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Quote of the Month

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month. Theodore Roosevelt

 

 

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Have a BLESSED month!

 

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