North Carolina
ARRL
Section Information

Memorial service for George S Stentz, Sr (WA4OBR SK) will be Saturday, April 10th at 2 PM in the Fellowship Hall at Guilford College United Methodist Church, 1205 Fleming Road, Greensboro, NC

Greetings from Wilmington, where the weather is finally getting warm and people are going to nearby Wrightsville Beach again. I am honored to have been elected as your Section Manger for the next two years, and I welcome the opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones at upcoming hamfests, club meetings, Field Day and other occasions. I'll be at RARSfest this weekend in Raleigh and look forward to seeing many of you there.

I have big shoes to fill. Our section has been fortunate to have a succession of great Section Managers, and I want to thank especially Tim Slay, N4IB, for his four years of service. As I talk with other ARRL officials, I realize that we have a well managed, friendly and effective section. That's a tribute to leaders like Tim, the over 250 ARRL field appointments in the section, and most importantly - YOU! Let's keep the North Carolina section strong and responsive to all facets of Amateur Radio, and I look forward to talking with many of you in person or on the air soon. I invite you to join me every week for the Thursday night session of the daily Tar Heel Emergency Net (THEN) at 7:30 PM on 3923 Khz where I'll be Net Control and you can ask questions of me during "Section Manager" night.

On April 10, 2010, Central Carolina SKYWARN will be at StormFest at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences with a Special Event Station operating under the callsign WX4NC. We will be promoting SKYWARN and Amateur Radio.
StormFest Flyer (pdf)

Do you live in Central North Carolina and need Basic Spotter Training? Has it been 3 years since you've had Basic Spotter Training and it's now time to refresh? SKYWARN Basic Spotter Training will be offered on the CCS Information Net on March 23 & 30 at 9:15 PM on the 146.88 repeater. Part 1 of Basic Training will be March 23; Part 2, March 30. The instructor will be Jeff Orrock, KI4KKX, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the Raleigh National Weather Service. To fully benefit from this training and to receive a spotter certificate, participants must:

1. have PowerPoint or a PowerPoint viewer or use the pdf file of SKYWARN Basic Spotter Training,
2. listen and check in at the end of both nets, and
3. email CCS Emergency Coordinator Virginia Enzor at nc4va@nc.rr.com with name, call sign, residential address, current mailing address and phone number for inclusion in the NWS database.

PowerPoint presentations Part 1 (March 23) and Part 2 (March 30) can be found at http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/skywarn/ Under "Training Sessions", click on Parts 1 & 2 Basic SKYWARN Spotter Training.

Due to the earthquake in Chile, IARU Region 2 and Radio Club de Chile request that emergency frequencies be kept clear. This can have implications for the NC QSO party. Please see the article on the national ARRL home page for details and frequencies.

Morine

Effective April 1, 2010, our new ARRL Section Manager will be Bill Morine, N2COP. Bill has served for the past several years as Public Information Coordinator.

In order for Bill to prepare for the new SM duties, Tim Slay, N4IB, at Bill's recommendation, has appointed Woody Woodward, K3VSA, as the new Section Public Information Coordinator, effective immediately.

Congratulations to both on their new appointments. They will both serve us well.

Ladies & Gentlemen: Here we go again with another winter storm, but the difference with this one is that it may cover the whole state with some form of winter precipitation, from snow, sleet, freezing rain. The North Carolina Emergency Management has activated under Level 4. For ARES, this means on Standby. So be prepared. Monitor your usual local communications channels for ARES activations in your area. Also check the Tarheel Net web page for any updates.

The potential for significant wintry weather across the Central Carolina SKYWARN coverage area exists for Friday and Saturday, January 29 & 30. Central Carolina SKYWARN will activate at the onset of the event across the CCS coverage area to take initial reports and then hold directed nets at the bottom of each hour for the duration of the event or until such time the National Weather Service directs us to deactivate. SKYWARN will temporarily cease operations after the 11:30 PM directed net on Friday night and resume operations at 5:30am on Saturday. The NWS will be looking for the following criteria from spotters:

• Precipitation type -- snow, sleet, freezing rain, rain
• Rate of precipitation -- light, moderate, or heavy
• Changeover in precipitation type
• Snow accumulation or ice accretion
• Temperature
• Measured wind speed and direction
• Sustained power outages (not blinking)
• Road conditions

The National Weather Service is especially interested in hourly and event totals and any changeover in precipitation type.

We will activate on our primary repeater, the 146.88 repeater. Should this repeater go offline, our backups for this event, in order of use, are:
147.105 (Tone of 82.5 Hz) - Broadway, NC
147.135 (Tone of 82.5 Hz) - Chapel Hill, NC
Carolina 440 UHF Linked System - Visit www.carolina440.net for a list of those frequencies.

Reports may also be emailed to the NWS at rah.reports@noaa.gov.

Spotters are encouraged to stay listen to NOAA weather radio or visit www.weather.gov/rah for the latest weather information.

Keep an eye on the main ARRL home page for the most current information.

From the ARRL home page:
The ARRL encourages US amateurs to be aware of the emergency operations on the following frequencies: 7.045 and 3.720 MHz (IARU Region 2 nets), 14.265, 7.265 and 3.977 MHz (SATERN nets), and 14.300 MHz (Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net); the International Radio Emergency Support Coalition (IRESC) is also active on EchoLink node 278173.

Please remember to keep these frequencies clear at all times, even if you do not hear any activity.

January North Carolina Section Update from Tim Slay, N4IB (pdf document)

For the latest information on SATERN activation, see http://www.satern.org

The following two messages have been passed on to us by N4IB:
From RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service Budapest, Hungary:
Event: Earthquake
Location: Haiti Capital City Port-au-Prince area
Situation: A strong earthquake has hit the impoverished country of Haiti where a hospital has collapsed and people are screaming for help. According to CNN the area is also under a Tsunami alert for the Dominican Republic. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola. The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 14 miles (22 kilometers) west from the capital of Port-au-Prince, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. An Associated Press videographer saw the wrecked hospital in nearby Petionville, and a U.S. government official reported seeing houses that had tumbled into a ravine. No further details on any casualties or other damage were immediately available. "Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a visiting official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "The sky is just gray with dust." Bahn said he was walking to his hotel room when the ground began to shake. "I just held on and bounced across the wall," he said. "I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."

From SATERN:
Subject: UPDATE - EMERGENCY ACTIVATION of SATERN Net For Haitian Earthquake
TO: All SATERN Operators, Southern Territory, The Salvation Army
CC: All ARRL Leadership in the Southern Territory of The Salvation Army
Greetings:
National SATERN Director, Major Patrick McPherson - WW9E - reports that 20 meters is no longer viable for this evening. He has asked all active SATERN Operators with HF privileges to monitor 7.265.0 MHz and 3.977.7 MHz. SATERN Operators in the Southern Territory are in a generally excellent geographic position to hear any signals from Haiti on those frequencies - particularly on 75 meters.

Again, normal SATERN Net protocols apply. That is, there should be a Net Control who will be in charge of the frequency. All transmissions should be directed to the Net Control. Please listen for a Net Control on those frequencies. If you do not hear a Net Control or a relay to Net Control, but do receive formal EMERGENCY or PRIORITY traffic from Haiti (e.g. traffic with a name and a telephone number or e-mail address for the addressee and the same information about the sender), please contact me at 601.421.1496 with that traffic and I will pass it on to the appropriate authorities. But please try to work through Net Control if you can hear them or a relay to Net Control. Passing traffic to me is a LAST RESORT.

Beginning, tomorrow, as 20 meters opens up, you should again monitor the 20 meter frequency of14.265 MHz whenever possible.

Please keep the people of Haiti and our Salvation Army personnel and other disaster relief personnel already in that country in your prayers.