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NEW NC SECTION MANAGER
ELECTED
Monthly Summaries
Monthly Summary for December 2009
News last updated: Mon, January 18, 2010 at 10:18 PM ET
JANUARY NC SECTION NEWS
NEW NC SECTION MANAGER ELECTED
My four years as your ARRL Section Manager have been the most
rewarding experience of my 33 years in Amateur Radio. But
expanding work responsibilities and a couple of over-active kids
make it hard for me to devote enough time to the important work
we've doing in the North Carolina section. But the section will
be in good hands when my term expires. On December 10, Bill
Morine, N2COP, our current Section Public Information
Coordinator was declared the next NC Section Manager, running
unopposed in the election. Bill's term begins
April 1.
Bill was first licensed in 1970 as WN1NOP and got his General
and his current call of N2COP in 1981 while living in New
Jersey. Bill became an Extra in 2001. Bill is a life member of
ARRL and QCWA. He and XYL Pam have two sons: Reid, W4RSM, and
Grant, W4GHM, who was named Young Ham Of The Year in 2007. Bill
became an ARRL Public Information Officer (PIO) in 2000, was
named section Public Information Coordinator (PIC) in 2004, and
became a member of ARRL's national Public Relations Committee in
2005. Bill has served as chairman of the national PR committee
since 2008. He is an Assistant EC in New Hanover County
(Wilmington) and is also an ARRL and W4VEC Volunteer Examiner.
Bill has worked extensively with Boy Scouts, and served on the
staff of K2BSA at the 2001 and 2005 National Jamborees. He has
helped over 1,800 Boy Scouts earn the Radio Merit badge, and has
helped over 300 Scouts and Scout leaders nationally and in North
Carolina get licensed. He served as the first chairman of CARES,
the Carolinas Amateur Radio Emergency Services, from 2001 to
2006, implementing a 220 MHz network in southeastern North
Carolina dedicated to public health traffic in disasters. Since
2008, he has served as head of communications for the Beach 2
Battleship triathlon, the only full iron distance (140.6 miles
over 17 hours) triathlon in the Roanoke Division. Bill and his
wife run an independent financial planning practice in
Wilmington.
The North Carolina Section is fortunate to have so many
strong leaders like Bill and I know you will join me in
supporting him as he assumes his new and challenging
responsibilities.
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, CW WORKS!
Running our section SSB nets has been a big challenge since
we returned to standard time. The band frequently goes long soon
after sunset and while Midwest stations boom in, it's hard to
hear others in North Carolina. There have been several Tarheel
nets with NO check-ins because of poor band conditions. So I've
been occasionally checking into our section CW nets to get my
"net fix" and polish my rusty fist. I've been amazed at how
often I've listened to a struggling SSB net only to move to the
CW frequencies to find a full net with perfectly readable
stations from all over the state. It's a reminder of the
effectiveness of CW even in poor conditions.
Joel Hallas, W1ZR, wrote an interesting article about CW for
the May, 2007 QST. According to Joel, CW has major advantages
over voice and other modes. CW has much lower bandwidth than SSB.
How well we can receive a signal is specified by its signal to
noise ratio (SNR). If we change our receive filter from 2.5kHz
for voice to 250Hz for CW we reduce the received noise power by
a factor of 10. That's equivalent to 2 S-units improvement in
SNR. To gain the same SNR improvement with SSB we would need to
increase the transmit power from 100w to 1000w! With a higher
SNR for CW, it's much easier to detect a weak CW signal than a
weak voice signal. A good CW operator can copy code at or below
the noise level. To copy voice it takes a minimum of 3-5 dB SNR.
Because of the narrower bandwidth, five or more CW stations can
fit into the space one SSB signal can fit. But what's this all
mean? It means your CW signal can usually get through when your
voice signal cannot. Your 100w CW transmitter can get to places
that your neighbor's 2000w voice transmitter can't!
So try one of our CW nets some night when you're struggling
to copy the net control for an SSB net. A great place to start
is with the Carolina Slow Net, which meets nightly at 8pm on
3.571MHz. Helpful info on the net can be found at
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/r/g/rg_burns/index.htm.
UPCOMING EVENTS IN NC
March 13-14: Charlotte Hamfest, Concord
April 3: NC State Convention, Raleigh Hamfest
DECEMBER TRAFFIC
K4IWW 561 (BPL), N3BW 267, W2EAG 233, KI4YV 228, W4DNA 61,
W4TTO 61, W4FAL 45, KE4AHC 34, K8SKX 30, W4EHF 26, KC4PGN 22,
W3HL 21, NC4VA 16.
DECEMBER PSHR
NC4VA 273, K4IWW 130, W4DNA 130, W4FAL 130, W2EAG 110, KI4YV
100, W4TTO 100.
NC Section Manager Tim Slay,
N4IB
KD4OZI
1/20/10 |
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At
approximately 8:40 PM on October 12, a man, woman
and their 15 year old son were killed while trying
to erect a 50 foot vertical antenna at the home of
the man's mother, Barbara Tenn, KJ4KFF, in Palm Bay,
Florida. The deceased were not licensed amateurs.
According to police reports, Melville Braham, 55,
Anna Braham, 49, and their 15 year old son Anthony
were putting up an antenna -- Tenn's second -- at
night when they lost control of the antenna and it
crashed into nearby overhead power lines. The impact
sent 13,000 volts of electricity through the pole
that the three were holding. A family friend, a 17
year old boy, was on the roof at the time of the
accident. He and the couple's daughter, who was in
the house at the time, were not injured. Click