Tom Carrubba, KA2D, ARRL Section Manager, will be the
speaker at the October meeting. Tom will
discuss Ham Radio University 2008 (HRU 2008)
SHANGRI-LA ‘76
By Bob Wexelbaum, W2ILP
“Shngri-La ‘76” was not a DXpedition
to
I had attened this ARRL convention
with my cousin Joel, W2ZXR (sk) and both of our XYLs. I was looking for details about this
convention when I wrote about Jean Shepherd, W2ORS (sk) but I couldn’t find
them at that time. Jean was the Banquet
Speaker and I had outlined his speech in a previous newsletter.
I dunno if a Hudson Convention of
today could be so educational or diverse as Shangri-La was. The HRUs have tried to muster up educational
forums and to appeal to hams and wanna be hams at all levels but I dunno if all
the PR and the organizatrions of today can get the kind of support that Hudson
Conventions of the past had gottten.
However inexpensive and well attended this convention was, I don’t know
if I was the only member of the GARC who
attended Shangri-La ’76. Correct me if
you know otherwise. I don’t know because I was not yet employed by Grumman in
1975. I was working for Collins-Rockwell
at that time, so I can’t be certain as to how many from the GARC would make an
expedition to McAfee, New Jersey for the sake of attending a Ham convention …
even if enticed by the probability of eye-balling authentic Playboy
Bunnies. The Registration Fee was only
$3.00 per person in advance, or $4.00 at the door. The Banquet was $15.00 per person in advance
or $16.00 at the door. A room for two at
the convention site costed only $36. I
guess that we can never expect to see such bargains again. I noticed that there were people of all ages
attending this convention. For example
two newly licensed young men sat with us at our banquet table. The list that
follows, reads like a “Who’s Who” of the two area’s ham leaders and
educators. The Playboy Club isn’t there
in McAffe anymore. The last I looked
there was only a water park in Great Gorge.
Here was the program listing for
Shangri-La ‘76.
Saturday, Nov 13th
Sunday, Nov 14th
10- 12
10-12 Noon NTS Forum - W2MTA 11-12 Noon Legal Problems – K2SKV
7:30 PM Banquet: MC: W2ALS, Speaker,
Jean Sheppard, K2ORS
Note that presiding at the ARRL
Forum, were K2SJO and W2TUK. Stan Zak,
K2SJO, was at that time the ARRL Hudson Division Director, and Harry Dannels,
W2TUK (later W2HD) later became a Hudson Division Dirrector. Harry has since retired to
It is also interesting to note that
in the Spring 1976 Hudson Newsletter there was a report about a new repeater
council that was formed It was called
“The Tri-State Amateur Repeater Association.”
An organizational meeting had been held on
In the Fall 1976.Hudson Newsletter an
anoucement was made of a special bicentenial commemorative station, WL2USA,
which operated from the Statue of Liberty for four days, November 25 -28, 1976.
INTERRNET LINK OF THE MONTH FOR INTERNERDS
Our program at our September meeting was a video of the K5K expedition to Kingman Reef in
2000. If you were at the meeting or if
you missed it you might want to learn more about the operation and about the
reef itself. The following site was
sponsored by Force 12, which suppled some of the antennas (switchable vertical
dipole arrays) for this exposition.. Just
go to: http://Force12inc.com/k5kinfo.htm
PRESIDENT’S PAGE
By KE2LJ
We are having a good time in
There are lots of Hams here, and I joined the
local club, the SCC ARC. The first 2
meetings I attended were boring. It seems that there are a good number of new
Hams here, and the meetings are geared towards educating these people. While
that is a noble thing to do, the older Hams like me find the meetings to be
quite dull. In fact, many of them just don’t attend anymore. The last meeting
was an elementary discussion on how to QSL a DX station. It was difficult for
me to stay attentive. They also don’t usually have refreshments, so that’s
another incentive for people to not attend. I think I’ll keep going for a few
months and see what happens. Maybe I can help with the antenna or repeater
committees. They could probably use a decent tower climber sometimes.
They have their shack open every morning for 2
hours, and there are usually more than a half dozen Hams hanging around. You’d
think they were talking about radios, but no, they were talking about each
other behind their backs. All the little gossip stories were coming out. I have
to tell you, it was not an enjoyable experience. If that keeps up, I won’t go
there anymore. Hopefully, it was a one-time occurrence. They have a weekly
evening net like we do, and I will try doing that once my radios are on the
air. There is also an HF net, but with propagation still being pretty bad, it
is quite under-attended also. Maybe it will pick up when the sunspots return.
When that happens, I’ll try getting onto the GARC HF nets as well.
I
think my next little project will be to put an APRS tracker in the golf cart.
The cart runs on six 6 volt batteries, so
there’s plenty of juice for a milliwatt radio. My wife keeps getting
lost, and she calls me on the cell phone for directions. My first question is
always “where are you”. But, she never seems to know. Nor does she know what
direction she is heading in. A regular GPS navigation system would probably get
stolen out of a parked golf cart, but I can hide a small tracker pretty easily.
Then all I have to do is look on my computer screen for her cart, and see which
way she’s going. That should work good, right?
You guys could also follow her on findu.com if you had nothing better to
do. Anyway, that’s it for now. 73 from
MINUTES OF GENERAL MEETING – 9/19//2007
Secretary, Karen KC2OPX
This
meeting was called to order by Gordon at
TREASURERS REPORT – Ed, WB2EAV REPEATER REPORT – Gordon, KB2UB
Finances
continue to be in good shape.
3 applicants applied:
2 passed the Tech exam;
Sunday morning was poor..
1 failed the Extra exam.
Thursday night was good.
4 VEs were present: AB2EF, AB2NT,
KB2QFT and W2ILP.. .
OLD
BUSINESS:
Tom
Lovelock’s (KC2HNN’s) father passed away.
Details were provided for visiting the funeral home on 9/22 or 9/23.
NEW
BUSINESS:
Gordon
is now filling in for Pat at General Meetings.
Nominations for officers of the GARC will be made as is usual, at the
November general meeting.
PROGRAM
We
saw a movie of the Kingman Reef DXpedition, where 15 hams from 5 countries,
using the call sign K5K worked over
81,000 QSOs in 2 ½ weeks on a coral reef
that averages only 25 feet wide. See the
Internet Link of this month for more details.
The meeting
was adjoined at
GARC NETS:
40 Meters:
7.289 MHz at 7:30 AM EST Sundays.
2 Meters
(via repeaters): 146.745 MHz (-.600)at
145.330 MHz (- .600) at
[Tone for
both repeaters is 136.5 Hz]
(ARES/RACES) Mondays
MEETINGS
General Meetings of the GARC
are held on the third Wednesday of each month, starting at
The web site of the GARC can be found at http://www.qsl.net/wa2lqo/ Webmaster is Pat Masterson KE2LJ. Pictures of GARC activities, archives of
newsletters, roster of members, and other information about the GARC may be
found there including Field Day pictures.
PUZZLE
Here is another cryptogram.
PESXMPLC USPZCM
EB LPUWSC’B YPJ
AK IPHELN JAW
MAAH MEHC JAWS
XPBBXASU XFAUA.
–PM NASC--
Solution to the September Cryptogram:- GO AND NEVER DARKEN MY TOWELS AGAIN. –GROUCHO MARKS—
Most of the people who have recently applied
for new licenses have had relatives who are hams. They have learned about ham radio from their
spouses or their parents and have decided to join them in the hobby…but more
recently I have been contacted by youngsters who have no ham relatives and thus
know little about ham radio licensing except what they heard about the new
licensing structure that permits one to become a ham without learning the Morse
Code. This is exactly what the no code
philosophy is supposed to promote and I think it is starting to do exactly
that…at least for some potential newbies.
Psychology studies tell us that if you show kids that you want them to
study anything that is not required for school work…they won’t…but if you are
indifferent or even apprehensive about what they want to learn…then they will
purposely want to learn it. At least
that is what I am hoping for, because a few youngsters have been asking me
about the ham exams and I am looking forward to the time when they will be
ready to take them. I hope that these
kids get to go to HRU2008. That is one
of the purposes of it…aside for rewarming up old hams….who may already be
Extras.
73, w2ilp (Increase Licensing
Publicity)..for more unrelated hams!
GARC
VE SESSIONS We
are continuing to proctor exams for all classes of ham licenses on the second
Tuesday of each month starting at The present
exams are: Element 2:
Technician Element 3:
General Element 4:
Amateur Extra Class. The fee for
2007 is $14 for all exams taken at one sitting. Applicants for
upgrades should bring a photocopy of their license and any CSCE and their FRN
number. New, first
time applicants should be aware that their Social Security number will be
required on their application form.
All applicants should bring driver’s license or other picture ID. Until
further notice, VE exams will be at Room: Briarcliffe
in All
applicants should contact W2ILP to preregister so as to confirm
location. If no applicants apply, exam
sessions may be cancelled. For any
information e-mail: - [email protected]
or phone: - (631)
499-2214 Study
material information is available at the http://www.arrl.org or the http://www.w5yi.org web site. All VECs use
the same Q & A pools. Since the
beginning of the VE program the GARC has provided opportunities to take ham
exams monthly, during all twelve months of every year. |
GRUMMAN AMATEUR RADIO CLUB OFFICERS FOR 2007
President
Pat Masterson KE2LJ
Retiree 813-938-4614
Vice President Gordon
Sammis KB2UB Retiree
631-666-7463
Secretary Karen
Cefalo KC2OPX 631-754-0974
Treasurer Ed Gellender WB2EAV X02-14
516-575-0013
2Yr Board Member Zack Zilavy WB2PUE Retiree
631-667-4628
2YrBoard Member Dave Ledo AB2EF
2Yr Board Member Bob
Christen W2FPF
1Yr Board Member Bob
Wexelbaum W2ILP Retiree 631-499-2214
1Yr Board Member Jack
Cottrell WA2PYK
Retiree 516-249-0979
Trustee WA2LQO Ray
Schubnel W2DKM Retiree
Meeting Programs: Contact a Board
Member
FCC Exam Coord:. Bob
Wexelbaum W2ILP 631-499-2214
20 Years Ago- “CQ DE WA2LQO” –
Nov. 1987 Vol. 59 N0.5 CIRC 411
The
fears of losing the shack below the Blue Ball, which were discussed at the
October meeting were substantiated. A
new location that was offered to the GARC turned out to be unsatisfactory, since
it was directly in the line of a runway. This was no good because it limited
the height of antennas, including the repeater antenna. Ken Fitch, KC2DH, wrote
his final President’s page. Since Ken had obtained a position at the Grumman
West Coast Office he said his last farewell, knowing that a new president would
be elected in November. As one of his
last official acts, Ken welcomed members of the Republic Radio Club, K2KIX, who
had joined Grumman, as part of the A-10 program.
Ken
spoke about letters he had received from Harry, K2AAN in CA and Ben, N6SL at
sea on the “Sea Venture” (WJMV). The scores from Field Day 1987 appeared in
this issue. The GARC, operating as a
class 5A, racked up a score of 5,736 points.
This made us number 10 in that category.
Other scores (above 4500) were shown for comparison.
In
addition to the first part of the FD 1987 article, other reprints from QST
included the
W1AW operating schedule, an article about the
questioning pools used for license exams, and an article asking if your license
manual was up to date. An article from WorldRadio told about various
organizations which were had filed comments with the FCC in attempts to take
over the issuing of vanity call sign coordination. There was also a reprint of Steve Mendelssohn’s
“ARRL Update”. It spoke about PRB-1 with regard to Andy’s (K2LE) antenna height
problem.
Also
mentioned was Carole Perry’s promotion of Ham Radio for “Geography Awareness
Week.”, Nov. 15 -21.