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NORTH CAROLINA SECTION NEWS - July 2011

Posted Jul 28, 2011

FIELD DAY - Congratulations to the 49 clubs which listed their Field Day sites on the ARRL website and to the hundreds of other locations and individuals who got on the air June 27 & 28 for the 78th annual Field Day. I visited clubs in the western part of North Carolina, and other ARRL officials traveled throughout the rest of the state. The weather was largely good across the state, and we all witnessed innovative, dedicated and sometimes humorous solutions to making Field Day a success. Special thanks to those clubs which used Field Day to incorporate other activities, such as teaching the Boy Scout Radio Merit Badge. It was fun to see so many homebrew antennas, towers and equipment, stations running solar power, and even homemade tin can wireless antennas to connect to the internet for logging. Field Day truly brings out the spirit of resourcefulness in all. I'll share the FD scores when they're published later. You can see many pictures from Field Day across North Carolina on the NC ARRL page on Facebook.

MEDIA HITS - Field Day always generates large amounts of Amateur Radio coverage, and this year North Carolina had a bumper crop. Newspaper articles appeared in the Shelby Star, Chapel Hill News, Durham Sun-Herald, Boone Mountain Times, News of Orange County and the Southern Pines Pilot. Greensboro's WFMY-TV covered the Alamance County club's Field Day location featuring 11 year old Christopher Tate, KJ4UJB, who is the youngest ARRL Public Information Officer (PIO) in North Carolina and possibly the U.S. See his great interview at: http://www.digtriad.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=180752 Congratulations to the Richmond County Amateur Radio Club which had a nice profile article in the Richmond County Daily Journal. YadkinValleySports.com website told how the Foothills Amateur Radio Club will provide communications support for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life on July 23rd.

D STAR - North Carolina now has its 9th D Star repeater location. The newest is on Pinnacle Mountain in Hendersonville at 147.255 MHz +0.600 and 442.025 MHz +5.000. This new repeater joins other D Star repeaters in Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Burlington, Greensboro, Raleigh, High Point, Mt. Airy and Shelby. D Star is getting a lot of publicity because it's the pre-dominant digital voice mode on VHF/UHF and it has been integrated into ARES and emergency communications in Georgia, Alabama, northern Florida, and to some extent in South Carolina. Contrary to what you may have heard, D Star is not a proprietary protocol, but Icom is the only manufacturer to date to produce commercial transceivers. There are other digital voice and digital technologies which permit simultaneous voice/data transmission, but D Star has the greatest lead and market penetration at this time. To learn more about this fascinating technology, read the excellent overview article on D Star by Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, which originally appeared in the February, 2011 SERA Journal, at http://www.scribd.com/doc/58264210/Repeaters-From-a-to-D-by-KN4AQ or see Gary's video collection on digital voice modes and D Star at http://www.arvideonews.com

NEW NET MANAGER - Please welcome Don Negus, N0SU, as the new manager of the Carolinas Net. This CW National Traffic System (NTS) Net, which has both early and late editions, has served as the flagship net for NTS traffic for both North and South Carolina for decades. Don replaces long time Net Manager Will Harper, K4IWW. Our thanks to Will for many fine years of dedicated service and our best wishes to Don. Take time to check into the CN either at 7 PM or 10 PM local time on 3573 KHz. More info at: https://www.ncarrl.org/nets/index.html

YOUTH ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Those who say kids aren't in the hobby aren't keeping up with what some of our younger North Carolina operators are doing. As mentioned above, 11 year old Christopher Tate is an ARRL PIO, has a General license and does CW; Raleigh brother and sister Sam Jenkins, KI4TRG, and Grace Jenkins, KJ4KWG, just returned from the Youth DXpedition in Costa Rica, and 9 year old Eric Hasson, KJ4DLJ, of Gastonia just upgraded to Extra class. Congratulations to these fine young ambassadors to our hobby.

NTS REPORTS - June, 2011. QNI (Net Stations Check-In) 2917 (up 129 or 5%). Messages passed 696 (up 91 or 5%). STATION ACTIVITY REPORTS (SARs) K4IWW 400, WK4P 333, W2EAG 182, W4DNA 180, KI4YV 153, W4TTO 69, KC4PGN 51, W3HL 47, K8SKX 45, KE4AHC 35, W4AJT 32, KA4IZN 31, NC4VA 24, WB4Y 12, KD4SM 8. PUBLIC SERVICE HONOR ROLL (PSHR) W4DNA 360, NC4VA 291, WK4P 255, K4JUU 160, K4IWW 150, KA4IZN 136, W2EAG 120, W4TTO 105, KI4YV 90, NC4VA 79.

HAMFESTS - July 30th, WCARS Hamfest, Haywood County Fairgrounds, Waynesville: Talk-In 146.91 (PL 91.5) and 147.39 (PL 94.8); August 6th CFARS Swapfest, Methodist College, Fayetteville. Talk-In: 146.91 (PL 100.0); September 3-4, Shelby Hamfest, Dallas, NC. Talk-In 146.88 and 147.12.

SPECIAL EVENT STATIONS - None listed on ARRL website for August

PUBLIC SERVICE - July 30th, Tour d'Orange Bike Race, Hillsborough; August 27-28, Ride Without Limits, Pittsboro. For more details go to www.hampublicservice.org

SKs - We regret to report the passing of the following Hams: Marty Killough, AD4KO, of Indian Trail; Ashley Spratley Jr., W5PGX, of Garner; Larry Volker, KL7IWF, of Conover; John Johnson, KI4VVC, of Raleigh; Bill Phillips, W4ACL, of Smithfield and Dick Genaille, W4UW, of Winston-Salem. One of Dick's last contributions to our hobby was his article on overcoming HOA antenna restrictions in the August issue of CQ magazine.

THE LAST WORD - I was proud of Field Day this year. All the sites I visited and the subsequent media and email reports showed that North Carolina Hams did their best. Field Day often raises the perennial question from the public as to why we are called "Amateurs" when our efforts and results are so professional. To show how the word "Amateur" strictly means uncompensated but not "unprofessional", I'm going to compare our situation with that of Amateur golfer Francis Ouimet. For those who don't know his story, I highly recommend you read either the book or view the movie by the same name called, "The Greatest Game Ever Played". Many have called both the book and movie the best depiction ever of American sports. Francis Ouimet was a caddie who defeated many professionals to become the first Amateur golfer to win the U.S. Open in 1913. It's a classic underdog tale, and a wonderfully American story as a lower class kid breaks upper society mold and opened up the game of golf to the rapidly emerging American middle class. Francis Ouimet could have taken his newfound fame and turned professional, but he remained an Amateur golfer the rest of his life. He went on to become a successful businessman and spokesman for golf and for those who service the golf industry, especially caddies. I know - I am one of 4,000 Francis Ouimet Caddie Scholars, a tribute which covered a quarter of my college education. I caddied for six years as a teenager. Today, I don't play golf; I'd much rather spend time on-the-air. But I can still accompany any golfer and with precision outline a lie and recommend a club and shot on the course ahead. Francis Ouimet is celebrated as what an Amateur should be in the truest sense of the word - a volunteer who cheerfully dedicates himself to the advancement of his craft, expecting as his only reward to witness others being fair and having fun. Isn't that what "Amateur" Radio is supposed to be? That's what I saw everyplace I went on Field Day.

73 de Bill N2COP

Follow the ARRL North Carolina section at its website www.ncarrl.org and at NC ARRL on Facebook.

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ARRL North Carolina Section
Section Manager: Mr William C Morine, N2COP
n2cop@arrl.org
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