September 18, 2026 NC ARRL SECTION NEWSLETTER

We are in my favorite time of the year.  Blue skies, calm winds, a hint of cooler temps overnight.

Some days are still quite warm in the afternoon but the trend line for the overnight low temperatures shows that we are indeed approaching Fall. 

Sports fans enjoy the change in weather.  Various high school, college and university football teams to have schedules that most likely will be played in good weather but in cooler temperatures after sunset.

Fall is not far off. 

·        Hendersonville had its Apple Festival last weekend and the Brushy Mountain Apple Festival will be held on October 3 in Wilkes County. 

·        Locally, we are about a month away the Wooly Worm Festival in Banner Elk and the Valley Fair in Valle Crucis will soon be held, two events which will bring thousands of visitors to this area. 

·        We are about two weeks away from the leaves start turning color.

·        Expect the area motels and restaurants to be full and you will encounter a significant increase in traffic congestion. 

Welcome to Fall in the High Country!

There are a number of events that may interest you and afford you the opportunity to participate in some fun activities.

o   My friend, Travis Russel, KN4WJL, will once again lead a very popular public ham radio display at the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh.  Bring your kids and grandkids and enjoy the exhibits and midway food while the Fair runs from October 15-25 at the State Fairgrounds west of downtown Raleigh.

o   Ham radio will have a public contact table and tent just off the Midway.  There will be demonstrations of ham radio with actual on-the-air contacts.

o   Opportunities still exist for hams to volunteer to be at the contact table (and get free admission to the Fair).  Information can be found at https://hamradioexhibit.org/. 

o   Hams will be offered the opportunity to show how ham radio provided communications in areas that were isolated by Hurricane Helene.  That storm dumped up to 20 inches of rain up here and caused wide spread flooding and mudslides.  Sadly over 100 lives were lost in the storm in Western North Carolina.  Repairs to roads and other structures are still on-going.

o   Scouts across the country will take to the airwaves October 16-18. 
Info can be found at https://www.scouting.org/international/jota-joti/jota/ as well as at https://;arrl.org/amateur-radio-and-scouting .

o   Please let Dave Price (K4KDP), NC Section Youth Coordinator, know if you are planning a JOTA event, including a preplanned QSO over the air.  Dave can be reached at daveprice@nc.rr.com . 

o   There is an Amateur Radio Service to Scout Award that is available to Scout Leaders.  Scout leaders can seek the award by applying at https://k2bsa.net/arrl-service-to-scouting-award/  .

o   Girl Scouts can earn a patch for participation in their National Thinking Day in February.  Information can be found at https://www.arrl.org/amateur-radio-and-scouting .

o   Known widely known for its popularity, friendship and good food, JARSfest will be held on November 7 near Selma at a new location off I-95 at The Farm.  Info can be found at https://www.facebook.com/JARSfest/ .

o   Recently organized clubs and those clubs that have been around awhile sometimes seek advice on how to operate more effectively and increase member participation.  Here are some ideas that may be useful to your club.

1.        ARRL has published a guide for Club Presidents and other officials offering advice on how to organize meetings and club activities.  The guide is available at no cost at https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Clubs/Tips%20and%20Tonics%20for%20Healthier%20Radio%20Clubs.pdf

2.        RATPAC (a group of hams that over several years has created dozens virtual programs during live presentations and storing them in a large archive that covers a wide array of topics.  RATPAC offered a program this past week focusing on a Club Standard Operating Guide.  At the time this newsletter was written, this program was not yet archived.  However, you can go to https://www.ratpac.us/ and look for the Standard Operation Guide program which was held on September 16, 2026.

NCEM will offer a variety of EmComm courses (including Auxcomm, COML, COMT and Tactical Dispatcher) in Fayetteville on October 5-9.  Course descriptions and instructions on prerequisites and registration can be found at https://terms.ncem.org/TRS/ .

The RATPAC group this past week discussed the growing number of hams who, because of age or physical limitations on their mobility, are less likely to be able to deploy and help with supporting the Red Cross or Salvation Army during local events or actual emergencies.

Suggestions as to how to use these individuals for Watch Duty to monitor traffic on your local net, making sure that those personnel who are deployed can always reach someone on the radio, particularly making sure there is someone with situational awareness and can access landlines if there is a need for emergency contact with local 911 or the incident commander in charge of the activation.  Info can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_UsrRJe5kM. 

o   A recent discussion out of Asheville focused on urging local operators to include solar power as a means of insuring that stations, albeit low power ones, can remain on the air during power outages.  Take a look at the discussion at https://wlos.com/news/local/story/local-radio-station-builds-new-emergency-backup-system-if-wnc-goes-off-the-power-grid-asheville-hurricane-tropical-storm-helene-outage-noaa-wpvm-fm-davyne-dial .

 

Each month, Dave Roy (W4DNA), Section Traffic Manager, compiles a report about net operations and formal traffic handled across the state.

 

Thanks go out to Dave, the various net managers and the traffic handlers.

 

Due to the difficulty is posting data in columns using the .txt format and email from the ARRL Bulk email system, this is a short version of Dave’s report.

 

His complete report is posted at ncarrl.org.

 

On August 18 I took a fall at home which, fortunately, did not involve any broken bones but did result in a week in the hospital and two weeks in a skilled nursing facility where I “enjoyed” my intense daily physical therapy. 

I have returned home and am attempting to catch up on tasks that piled up while I was out of commission.  I am continuing physical therapy in Boone and plan to resume my visits to hamfests, club meetings and being NCS on the High Country UHF Digital Net at 8 pm. each Tuesday that is held on 18 repeaters that are part of the PRN digital system.

Thank you to those ham friends who have sent their good wishes. 

Best wishes,

Marv, WA4NC

NC Section Manager

Boone