NC ARRL News

JUNE 5, 2026

I began this newsletter more than a week ago and have been interrupted in my planning of a trip to my grandson’s high school graduation,  The trip was discontinued due to using a new med which made taking a 1500 mile round trip to Pittsburgh, State College and Allentown impractical.

There are many things to take care of and rescheduling my Pennsylvania trip into July will involve congratulating two of my grandsons on completing their Eagle Scout projects and being recognized for their accomplishments in Scouting.

W4DNA - NC Section Net Report - APRIL 2026
NET	NMGR		QNI	LISTED	PASSED	TIME	SESSIONS	TFC %
SECTION NETS
CN	AA4MP	385		102	102	577	60	100.00%
CSN	KI4KZS	151		21	21	658	30	100.00%
NCEN	WK4WC	405		96	94	459	30	97.92%
NCMN	W3OJO	157		125	120	512	30	96.00%
THEN	N3TLV	365		0	0	501	25	N/A
LOCAL TRAFFIC NETS
CWTN	KJ4JWC	404		104	104	568	30	100.00%
ENCTN	W4DNA	217		8	8	234	26	100.00%
PCTN	W4TTO	173		52	52	236	30	100.00%
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP NETS
C-MNN	KI4FAQ	540		0	0	424	30	N/A
TOTAL		2797		508	501	4169	291	98.62%
NOTE: C-MNN = Metrolina (Charlotte-Mecklenburg) Nightly Net

Section Traffic Manager Dave Roy, W4DNA, prepares a report each month focusing on traffic passed on various nets operating in the North Carolina Section.  Limitations in the ARRL bulk email system make it difficult to align can be viewed at https://www.ncarrl.org/documents/TrafficReports/2026-04_NC_STM_Report.pdf . 

Thanks go out to Dave, the various net managers, the traffic handlers and Susan Langley Jones (WA4AKB)

The Executive Committee of the ARRL Board of Directors (a subset of the 15 Directors and 15 Vice Directors) recently held a Zoom meeting on April 22.  The minutes of the meeting have been made public and can be found at https://www.arrl.org/files/file/About%20ARRL/Board%20Meetings/EC%20Meeting%20Minutes%204_22_26%20.pdf.  Most of the items refer to the progress being made on previous Board decisions and will make more sense to members of the Board rather than almost all of the regular ARRL members.

There are two meetings each year of the entire Board of Directors (January and July).  The Executive Committee is authorized to act in behalf of the Board between the two Board meetings.  Minutes of the meetings of the ARRL Board held over several years can be found and viewed at https://www.arrl.org/board-meetings.

This is a busy time of the year with many opportunities to make contacts and to plan travel to area hamfests.

Each quarter, Roanoke Division Director Jim Boehner (N2ZZ), Vice Director Bill Morine (N2COP) along with the Section Managers for WV, VA, NC and SC offer information to the membership in the Roanoke Division.  Login information will come out closer to the Town Hall.

Time seems to be passing quickly and your group or club should be working on your Field Day plans.

As you make plans for Field Day, reach out to local scout groups and make sure they know that the scout are welcome to come and observe you activities.  If you have visitors, please make as special effort to invite them to get on the air and mark a US map as to the various states the scouts have contacted from your location.

Take a few minutes and invite a county commissioner, town council member and a newspaper reporter so that they can see how ham radio works.

Between now and Field Day, be sure to go to the ARRL Field Day web site and post information as to where your group will be operating.  The web site is https://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator.  Posting your location will allow visitors to find your base of operation and to come bu to learn about ham radio.  As  of tonight 21 Field Day sites in NC have been located on the ARRL map.  In recent years there have typically be 40 sites.

2026 is the 250^th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

Each year, ham radio celebrates the founding of our country by creating a contest that involves contacting Special Event Stations that are on the air between July 1 and July 7 in each of the original colonies, plus a station at Independence Hall in Philadelphia and another station in England. 

Certificates are issued to operators who log contact with the special stations set up in the colonies plus bonus stations.  Information can be found at https://www.13colonies.us/

Check out the upcoming NC hamfests which are listed at the ARRL webpage (www.arrl.org/)/  Search for hamfests and add in “North Carolina” in the State search criteria.  Consider going to the Salisbury Fire Cracker hamfest, the Cary swapfest, the WSCARS hamfest in Waynesville, the Cape Fear hamfest in Fayetteville or the Granddaddy of them all, the Shelby hamfest.  Plus, there are other hamfests in NC after Labor Day.

Canadian authorities have announced that after 103 years of time and frequency transmissions, hf radio station CHU will be shut down on June 22.

Sixty–eight years ago, I had saved enough money from my paper route to buy a Hallicrafters S-38E receiver via parcel post from Sears Roebuck.  The first three shortwave stations I picked up were WWV (which at that time was located in Maryland before being relocated to Fort Collins, Colorado), CHU (from the Dominion Observatory in Canada) and New York Radio which gave weather information for airplanes on transatlantic flights coming from Europe into Halifax, Boston and New York

Late at night my two baseball-loving older brothers would commandeer my receiver and listen to baseball games coming in from St. Louis and Chicago.  The S38E was just a basic receiver but a 125 foot long wire antenna pulled in a lot of night baseball games from Middle America.

Starting on June 6 and running through June 21, clubs in all 16 states that the Lewis an Clark trail is located, will be on the air issuing certificates for contacting stations along the trail.  For information go to https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/lewis-clark-trail-on-the-air-event.993371/

There has been an increase in the number of recently issued DMR radio Id’s showing up on the PRN CBridge and a number of the new users appear to be having difficulty in getting on the air.

Looking at the traffic on the CBridge, from the on-line log on the CBridge, I see that some users with newly issued call signs or DMR id’s appear to set up their radios with code plugs that do not line up with the design of the PRN system.

Here are some suggestions on how to set up your radio to successfully operate on the PRN system:

a.      Look at the information posted at https://ncprn.net/?page_id=12 .

b.    You will notice that hundreds of Brandmeister and TGIF talkgroups (an example would be BM World Wide 91) do not appear at any of the PRN repeater sites.  Attempting to use talkgroup 91 will be rejected as will other talkgroups not shown on the repeater page cited above.  Attempting to use talk groups that are not listed in the PRN repeater information for each of the PRN repeaters will cause the CBridge to immediately drop the transmission,, often in a fraction of a second.

c.     In addition to rejecting unapproved talkgroups, the CBridge will also reject legitimate talkgroups that have been programmed on the wrong time slot.  An example would be an attempt to use the Local talkgroup 27500 on timeslot 2.  The Bridge will reject this attempt to transmit.  Although 27000 is legitimate, trying to use it on timeslot 2 will cause the attempt to be rejected.

d.    There are actually several separate DMR networks in North Carolina which vary in size and complexity.  They work in similar ways but are different.

e.     Largest is the PRN system that includes 60+ repeaters in North Carolina and South Carolina. 

f.      Next in size is a network in Eastern North Carolina that is mostly  based in the Vidant Hospital system.  Information can be found at www.nc4es.org .

g.     A third DMR system is the WNC network.  It involves DMR repeaters located in Morganton, Asheville, Hendersonville, Waynesville and Franklin. In addition there are some 900 MHz users that access a couple of 900 MHz repeaters that are connected to then WNC system.  Until recently there were WNC DMR repeaters in Marion and on Mt. Mitchell but they may have had technical issues and are not presently connected to the WNC system.  The WNC system has a webpage that can be found at http://wncdmr.info:42420/PeerWatchFrame .

We are fast approaching July 4, the 250^th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

Although people today may argue and sometimes fight over whether the government that was built after we defeated the British has grown to be too big and is too expensive. 

Two hundred fifty years ago we knew that we were willing to fight to death in the cause of freedom. 

Today, we argue and disagree over whether we should add a government program to solve a persistent problem but others feel that we should scrap many programs that we already have.  Many people feel that government has become financially burdensome and that government is reducing our personal freedoms.

I taught students at Appalachian State for 29 years.  There, we often had penetrations about heroes; heroes in battles, heroes who today volunteer to help neighbors; heroes who put their own safety at risk when they serve as police, fire, rescue and hazmat experts.

My listing of heroes could be a lot longer but every time I reflect on the beginning of our country I think about General George Washington and the crucial role he played in keeping the tired, hungry, lonely and in the conditions at Valley Forge. 

Washington inspired people who questioned whether the Revolutionary Wa4 was winnable.  He led soldiers who missed their families, soldiers who worried about who would plant the Spring crops, soldiers who had little training to go against a well-equipped British army supplemented by paid Hessian mercenaries. 

Calling it quits and going home was very tempting for lots of our troops that came from very different colonies but Washing kept his ragtag soldiers motivated. 

The outcome could have been very different but we had good commanders when they were needed.  The appeal of freedom made many people with mixed feelings willing to fight for the idea of America.

Best wishes

Marv, WA4NC

NC Section Manager

Boone