PAMLICO AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY (PARS) AUG 26, 2023 MEETING NOTES
* Thirty-one members, visitors and guests attended the 9 am Saturday
breakfast meeting chaired by President Mike Marsh, K4NLC, at Brantley’s
Village Restaurant.
* Awards and upgrades and other worthy news: Dick, K4JJW, passed around
more QSL cards received from the 13 Colonies event (see more below). He
also recognized NC4OM Logan’s 20 WPM CW qualification for entry into an
international bug users group. Buck, AA4SN, made his first satellite
contact.
* Mike delivered the Treasurer’s report on behalf of Wally.
* AI4WL’s Propagation Report: After a week of moderate activity, the
forecast is slower for next week. An impromptu pole of our HF operators
confirms the best conditions here for DX have been on 17 and 20 meters,
40 has been good at night and 10 meters has been disappointing. Six
meters has been quiet. As for DX, look for North Cook Islands E51D until
9/10/23 and Palau T8 until 9/4.
* Bruce, K4ONC presented Dick with an updated 13 Colonies on the Air
certificate. After conferring with the event’s organizer, Dick’s
outstanding effort was recognized and his certificate replaced with one
to read that he had a CLEAN SWEEP of all colonies and the three special
bonus stations on ALL MODES AND ALL BANDS. This is a very rare
accomplishment. Congratulations Dick!
* The Pamlico Communications Team will meet next Saturday, on the 2nd
of September at Station 19. All are welcome to join this group that has
wide ranging technical and operational interests. Bruce mentioned that
the repeater group will be making changes to reduce announcement
frequency and add a controller connection to the UHF repeater.
* Bill Michne, WM3X, was dragged into the world of SMD’s, surface mount
devices, when he broke a SMD connector while repairing a IC756 Pro 3.
These extremely small electronic components mount on the surface of a
printed circuit board as opposed to “through-hole” components which have
pins that go into holes. He displayed his specialized soldering station
that also uses a heat gun to “glue” the components to the board with
fine solder or solder paste. He also brought along several practice kits
as well as tiny SMDs. Bill feels he’s making good progress learning how
to work with these challenging tiny components. He noted that SMDs have
been around for over 50 years and to look at page 99 of this month’s QST
at a glance at the first SMDs.
* Parks on the Air or POTA is the “big deal” lately for Logan Schnider,
NC4OM. Since he was licensed in May of 2022, Logan has come a long way.
So has the POTA [https://parksontheair.com] program. It is an award
program for those that operate portable from parks and public lands, the
“activators”, and for those that hunt them, the “hunters”. It began in
2017 and is now already 350 thousand members strong with over 40
thousand parks activated world wide. Logan says “Every day can be Field
Day”. The program being new to many, Logan introduced us to the basics
of POTA, some of the rules, the equipment he uses and several of the
POTA logging programs. Logan noted that the NC POTA organization is
attempting to activate all 100 “parks” in NC in September. [Sept 9-10.
Info at https://ncpota.org]
* Bill Olah again was auctioneer, this month for early test equipment
donated to the Oriental Repeater Group by Tom Wiggins, W1GTB, who has
moved back to NJ to be closer to family.
* Lor kutchins, W3QA, advised that a Tuesday Florida landfall is
expected for a strong storm [now TS Idalia -ed]. It is expected to cross
Florida, head north and bring us, at the least, heavy rains next week.
Please check-in to Wednesday’s net for the latest.
* Paul Jodoin, K4MMB, drew the winning number for a Brantleys Gift
Certificate and Mike Hurm, K4HPs, a PARS bumper sticker.
* There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 10:41 am.
THE KR4LO REPEATER IS NOW THE N4ONC REPEATER
After the August PARS meeting Saturday four members of the Oriental
Repeater Group (ORG)–Lor, Bill, Wayne, and Bruce–were at the Oriental
repeater site updating the new Arcom repeater controller. The device now
controls not only the Oriental N4ONC VHF repeater but also the “new”
N4ONC UHF repeater. The UHF repeater is actually the “old” KR4LO UHF
repeater. It was recently donated to the group by Bill Olah to be part
of the ORG Repeater Network. Although the call sign has changed, the
repeater continues to operate on the same frequency: 444.350 MHz,
standard offset, ENC 85.4 Hz.
SOLAR NUMBERS TODAY
NOAA reports that solar activity was moderate during the 24 hour period
ending yesterday at 5 p.m. local. The largest event was a M1 flare late
Saturday. The Prediction Center expects solar activity to be low today
through Wednesday with a 20% chance for M-class flares. There are 5
numbered sunspot regions on the Sun facing Earth this morning. There
were 7 last Monday, 5 the Monday before.
Sunday’s noon Solar Flux Index (SFI) observation at Penticton was 142.
Last Sunday’s was 146. The index is predicted to measure 148 today, 150
Tuesday and 150 on Wednesday. The SFI 90 day trailing average was 165
yesterday. It was 166 last Sunday.
The geomagnetic field was quiet to active Sunday. The SWPC expects
conditions to be quiet to unsettled, today and Tuesday, and then quiet
Wednesday. The planetary K-index at 5 am this morning was 2.00
indicating quiet conditions.
Today and tomorrow, propagation is expected to be fair on 80 through 20
during the day, good at night. Good conditions during both day and
night are expected for the 17 and 15 meter bands. Ten and 12 should be
fair during the day, poor at night. Activity has been and will again be
sparse on six.
For an explanation of the numbers used in our PARSgram, see the
excellent article written by Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA at
http://arrl.org/the-sun-the-earth-the-ionosphere.
HAM EQUIPMENT FOR SALE, TRADE, OR WANTED
Send me your amateur radio related items that are for sale, trade, or
wanted and your contact information. PLEASE let me know when you have
have sold your item or your listing is no longer needed. Listings will
EXPIRE AFTER 90 DAYS unless I hear otherwise. Thanks, Jim.
FOR SALE
** Alinco DX-SR8T 100 watt HF radio with power cable, EMS-64 hand mic,
instruction manual, Nifty manual and original box. $425
** MFJ-464 CW Keyer / Reader with cable but needs wall wort ps. $125
For complete and detailed descriptions, please look them up on the
internet. Contact Bruce Perkins, K4ONC, 252-626-2730 or K4ONC@aol.com.
(20230814)
FOR SALE
#1 – Palstar AT-Auto tuner $850
#2- Ameritron RCS-8V remote coax switch (no wall wart) – $125
Contact Bruce Perkins, K4ONC, 252-626-2730 or K4ONC@aol.com. (20230807)
PARS CALENDAR:
* Sep 2, PAMLICO COMMUNICATIONS TEAM MEETING, Saturday, 9-10:30am,
Oriental VFD Station 19 on Straight Rd vic. NC-55. All are welcome. For
more info, contact Bruce Perkins, K4ONC, 252-626-2730 or K4ONC@aol.com
* Sep 23, PARS MONTHLY MEETING, Saturday, 9am, Brantley’s Village
Restaurant, Oriental. For more info, contact Mike Marsh, K4NLC,
252-636-1257 or mike@MarshConsulting.org
REPEATER/NODE STATUS
(See www.n4prs.org/frequencies/ for set-up)
N4ONC (“Above Average”) VHF FM Oriental — Operational
N4ONC (old KR4LO) UHF FM Oriental — Operational
NC4ES VHF FM/DMR Arapahoe — Operational
NC4ES UHF DMR Florence — Operational
WM3X-ONC VHF C4FM/WIRES-X NODE Oriental (145.530 simplex)– Operational
LOCAL NETS OF INTEREST TO PARS MEMBERS:
* Wednesdays,”Pamlico Communications Net”, 7:30 pm local, N4ONC
(Oriental) VHF Repeater, 147.210 + (CTSCC Tone Squelch 88.5). A directed
net open to all. Net activates on call during emergencies.
* Thursdays, “DownEast/Pamlico Six Meter Net”, 8 pm local, 50.200 MHz,
USB. A non-directed open net to promote operation on the ‘Magic Band’.
(For more nets see www.arrl.org/arrl-net-directory-search )
PARS WEB SITE: https://www.n4prs.org/
Our Web Master is Paul Jodoin, K4MMB, 561-308-3456, PARSwebman@gmail.com
73, Jim AI4WL
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