NEWTON COUNTY RADIO CLUB 10175 Starr Street Covington, GA 30014 Volume 2 Issue 1 January 11, 2007 Newton County Web Page www.ncrcga.org Club Station Call KI4MVC President WA4UJC Charles Davis Vice-President K4DOI Jim Marston NCRC NEWSLETTER NOTES FROM THE PRESIDENT Secretary W4NNN Bob Carter Treasurer KI4JIL Brian Fain Newsletter Editor: W4NNN Bob Carter The Newton County Radio Club Net meets every Thursday at 8:30pm on a frequency of 146.925 MHz with no PL. The Newton County Radio Club meetings are held on the 3rd Tesday Tuesday of of every month @ 7:00 pm. December January meeting will will be be held at the Newton Thomas County Station Law in Enforcement Covington. Center Hello everyone, well I hope you are ready for a great year in 2007. I am looking forward to our club's growth in members and services. I hope the NCRC will form a VE Team this year. The program for this month's meeting will be on "Space Weather" and its effect on communications. Don't forget about the State ARES meeting on the 27th. Hope to see many of you there. 73 Charles 1
ARES NEWS The January 23 meeting of the Newton County ARES will be a training class entitled "Power Line Safety for Emergency Personnel". This will be a joint training session for the ARES group as well as members of local fire agencies. Non ARES amateur radio operators are also welcome to attend. The class will be held in one of the Troy State University classrooms at the Newton County EOC and will start at 1900 hrs. If you have any questions, please contact Randy Digby - KI4NWE. The class will be conducted by Keith Brooks, chief of East Newton Volunteer Fire Department and an employee of Snapping Shoals Electric Membership Corporation. Newton County ARES meets on the Fourth Tuesday of each month at 7:00PM - Newton County EMA Newton County ARES /SkyWarn Net Wednesday nights at 8:30pm on Covington 2 Meter repeater 146.925 Mhz, no PL Reminder to all members Club Dues are due annually on the anniversary of joining the club. 2
NEWTON COUNTY RADIO CLUB MINUTES The Newton County Radio Club held its Christmas meeting on December 19, 2006 at Thomas' Station at 7:00 PM. The meeting was called to order by Charles, WA4UJC. The only official business conducted during the meeting was the naming of Charles Davis WA4UJC the Amateur Radio Operator Of The Year For 2006. This meeting was a chance to get together with members and the family of members to enjoy a meal together. Prayer Concerns Lillian Thompson, a cousin of Lee Studdard, KI4QLV, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. She will go to a surgeon at Emory to have the mass removed on her lung. She also has a mass on her right kidney and the PET scan indicated that the mass was noncancerous. I can't tell you all how much I praise God for your friendship, phone calls, email visits, cards, prayers (they work) and all the love you have shown me. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Lillian and Jack Thompson 3
NOTES FROM OUR VICE-PRESIDENT Well it s 2007 already and I m still trying to find out where 2006 went. We have settled on a date for our new Technician Class. It will be held on 24 and 31 March at the Newton County Law Enforcement Center (Sheriff s office) from approximately 0800-1600 each day. Please tell all your friends and associates about the class so we can increase our amateur presence in Newton County. We would also like to know what type of classes the club members would enjoy this year so, if you have a particular interest, please let us know. The Sheriff has graciously consented again to let us have all of our 2007 meetings in their facility. General class will be a little easier to accomplish this year with the dropping of the code requirement. If you require any upgrade assistance, many are willing to assist, just let us know. And finally, please remember the State-wide ARES meeting in Forsyth on 27 Jan. We will be carpooling to share expenses. 73s and Best Regards, Jim Marston CHARLES DAVIS WA4UJC 2006 AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR OF THE YEAR At the December meeting of the Newton County Radio Club, Charles Davis WA4UJC was named Amateur Radio Operator of the Year for 2006. This annual award presented at the December meeting recognizes members that have made significant contributions to the amateur radio community for the year. A certificate will be presented to Charles at the January meeting. We all want to thank Charles for all the things that he has done for the club since its formation. 4
NEWTON COUNTY RADIO CLUB MEETING DATES FOR 2007 Tuesday January 16 Tuesday July 17 Tuesday February 20 Tuesday August 21 Tuesday March 20 Tuesday September 18 Tuesday April 17 Tuesday October 16 Tuesday May 15 Tuesday November 20 Tuesday June 19 Tuesday December 18 Place the dates on your calendar and be sure to attend the meetings. ECHOLINK IS NOW ON THE WA4ASI REPEATER George has been at work again and has added another feature to the repeater. You can now get on the WA4ASI repeater from anywhere in the world using Echolink. The Echolink repeater call is WA4ASI-R and node number is 311962. The echolink software is free to any ham and can be downloaded from the site http://www.echolink.org/. You may hear some different accents from some of the hams since the repeater is not limited to hams in the local area. Please make them welcome if they connect to the repeater. FCC TECHNICIAN CLASS SCHEDULE The Newton County Radio Club will again offer a FCC Technician Class to anyone interested in becoming a Ham. The Classes will be held at Newton County Law Enforcement Center from 8:00 AM until 4:00 PM on Saturday March 24 and March 31. VE testing will be given on the last day of class. All club members should talk up the class and encourage others to take the class. For additional information about the class, contact Charles Davis ( WA4UJC) or Jim Marston (K4DOI). 5
UPCOMING HAMFESTS January 13 February 9-11 February 24 April 28 June 2 GARS TechFest Gwinnett ARS Lawrenceville, GA Southeastern Division Convention Orlando, FL Dalton ARC Dalton, GA Calhoun Hamfest Sugar Valley, GA Georgia State Convention Marietta, GA DECEMBER MEETING PICTURES 6
HAM RADIO HUMOR PAGE You Know You're a Ham if : - you buy electrical black tape in ten packs. - you've stripped wire with your teeth. - you've told your son that, "One day, all this will be yours", and he doesn't respond. - you'd rather help a buddy put up a new tower than mow the lawn. - you've grabbed the wrong end of a soldering iron. - you start giving out RST reports when you are on the telephone. - the propagation forecast means far more to you than the local weather forecast. - the microphone or visual aids at a meeting don't work and you rush up to the front to fix it. - you tell the XYL, when she notices a new rig in the shack, why that has been there for years. - your watch is set only to UTC. - at night, when you pray, it starts off something like: CQ CQ CQ GOD DE (your callsign). - you ever had to patch your roof after an antenna project. - Ham radio magazines comprise more than 50% of your bathroom library. - you ever put a GPS tracker in the XYL's car, just so you could watch her on APRS. - you and the XYL took a cruise so you could visit the radio room. - you ever tapped out HI in Morse on your car horn to another ham. - you ever had an antenna fall down. - your teenager refuses to ride in your car because it looks like a porcupine. - you know the Latitude and Longitude of your home QTH. - you go into the local Radio Shack store and the clerk asks you where something is. Thanks to Ron W5WWW for this one. When I worked for a company that had a contract with 3M, 3M had asked me to write them a memo describing why we were having problems with diskette failures. I said in the memo that the disks were failing due to head crashes. "If the customers would just clean their heads periodically, we wouldn't have these problems," I said in the memo. One customer responded with "What kind of shampoo do you recommend?" 7