North Carolina
ARRL
Section News Letter

NC ARRL Section News

June 15, 2022

GREETINGS FROM THE HIGH COUNTRY

FIELD DAY

Field Day is coming on June 25 and 26.  This is a perfect time to practice setting up a station at a temporary location, to get on the air and bring recently licensed hams fully into the hobby.  Field Day information and rules can be found at http://www.arrl.org/field-day .

This past week I have been finalizing my schedule for Field Day visits.  This year I will visit Field Day sites in Northwestern North Carolina before travelling over to Statesville, Winston-Salem and High Point on Saturday.  I will travel to the travel to Durham and Raleigh.

Be sure to list your Field Day location on the ARRL Field Day page (http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator). On Wednesday morning, there were 41 sites located in North Carolina which had been registered and which can be located on a map on the ARRL webpage.

Concern has been expressed that the recent rule change allowing Class D station to contact other stations for points during Field Day may have depressed participation from traditional activations that occur at temporary activations occurring home stations.    This rule may be reviewed before the next Field Day.

CARY SWAPFEST

July 16 is the date of the Cary Amateur Club’s 49^th Annual Swapfest, which will be held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Ritter Park. Information can be found at https://caryarc.org/events/swapfest/.

WESTERN CAROLINA HAMFEST

Sponsored by Western Carolina Amateur Radio Society (WCARS), the hamfest will be held on July 23 at the Smoky Mountain Event Center, formerly known at the Haywood County Fairground, located near Lake Junaluska and Waynesville.  This is a great opportunity to come to the mountains and visit with old friends while getting a good price on a piece of gear you have always wanted.  Roanoke Division Director Jim Boehner N2ZZ and WA4NC your section manager will be give talks about League and Section Matters. Information on the hamfest details can be found at https://wcars-club.org/ .

CLUB GRANT PROGRAM

ARRL has received a gift of $500,000 from the ARDC which has several purposes:  helping clubs that are struggling, expanding emergency communications capabilities and drawing more young people into the hobby. Applications are now being received for grants up to $25,000 with announcement of awards being expected in August and near the end of the year.  Information on the Club Grant Program can be found at http://www.arrl.org/club-grant-program .

USEFUL INFORMATION

The Department of Homeland Security recently updated the National Interoperability Field Operations Guide (NIFOG).  Personnel involved in EmComm are urged to download a copy of the NIFOG which is referred to as the eNIFOG and put it on their phone.  Information can be found at    https://www.cisa.gov/safecom/enifog-mobile-app .

EMERGENCY WINLINK EXERCISE

Winlink provides opportunity for Amateur Radio participation in FEMA Cyber Attack Exercise.

FEMA Region 4 (NC, SC, FL, GA, AL, MS, KY, TN) and Region 6 (TX, AR, LA, OK, NM) held a communications exercise on May 31 to June 1 which simulated major cyber attacks in Charlotte, Miami, Little Rock and Dallas resulting in communications outages over wide areas..

The exercise provided an opportunity to Winlink operators to send SITREP's indicating  which communications systems (telephone, cell, internet, tv, am/fm radio,  WISP, etc) were operational or degraded at their location.

Approximately 996 “ground truth” reports were generated by Amateur Radio and CISA SHARES operators that were sent via Winlink to three designated stations that received the data.  The template used in the exercise can be found under General Forms-Field Situation Reports.  This data provided emergency management agencies at various levels of government critical information throughout the two FEMA Regions.

Both South Carolina Division of Emergency Management and Arkansas Department of Emergency Management developed provided extensive mapping of the resulting information on Dashboards, displaying the geographical conditions presented.  The link set out below displays the extent of participation and of the areas affected by the outage.

https://scdto.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/19d22e12a96a4c19b2141d63b153f

Moving forward, the mapping in the Winlink Express end-user program has already been enhanced, and provided to the Winlink community.

In addition to the Winlink “ground truth” information, the exercise also contained the testing of FNARS (FEMA National Emergency Radio System), NAWAS (National Warning System), MSAT G2 (Multi-State Satellite talk groups), Multi-State linking of P25 Trunking Networks.

SECTION TRAFFIC REPORT

Dave Roy, W4DNA, Section Traffic Manager, compiles a report about net activies in the previous month.  The ARRL mail system does not allow importation of Excel files so a reduced version is set out below.  The entire Traffic report can be found at https://www.ncarrl.org/ .

HURRICANE PLANNING

Many of us in North Carolina feel confident that hurricanes affect only the coastal area.  Newer residents may not realize that in 1989 Hurricane Hugo tracked inland across South Carolina and did massive damage to Charlotte’s tree canopy and power distribution system.  Hurricane season is designated as falling between June 1 and November 30.  The National Hurricane Center predicts that 2022 will have a higher than average number of named storms.  For information, go to: https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-predicts-above-normal-2022-atlantic-hurricane-season

CLOSING COMMENT

Enjoy ham radio, not only during Field Day, but several times each week.  Reach out to someone who is interested but not year licensed to get them on the air at a Field Day location.  Today, North Carolina has Novices   161 

Technicians 10606  

General   5785

Advanced 1102  

Extra   5073  

Total   22727

If you have a license, use it.  If you know someone who wants to get a license, point out a mentor (aka “Elmer”) and help him or her get a license.  Information on where a nearby club is located can be found at http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club .

If I don’t see you of Field Day, be sure to contact me if you need help on an amateur radio matter.

Marv, WA4NC

Boone

Mkhoffman2006@gmail.com