eHam.net News

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Jerry L. Pettis VA Amateur Radio Club Marks Fifth Anniversary:

Posted: 19 Feb 2016 04:44 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36215


The Jerry L. Pettis VA Amateur Radio Club marked its fifth anniversary on
Feb. 1. Founded Feb. 1, 2011, the ham radio club provides emergency backup
communications for the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Medical Center in Loma
Linda and connects with veterans from all over the country during its daily
networking operation. Formation of the club dates back to November 2010
when U.S. Air Force veteran Keith Tomas, KE6TT, began asking questions of
hospital staff regarding an amateur radio station that had previously
operated at the hospital. Meeting multiple dead ends, Tomas found himself
at the VA's Emergency Management Office where he met hospital staff members
Mark Solheid, KJ6BBI, and Ted Gegoux, who were trying to resurrect the
station but were not certain what would be needed or if they could garner
the operator resources to keep the station operational.


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Functional Emergency Exercise Gets Jolt of Reality:

Posted: 19 Feb 2016 04:44 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36214


Otero and Crowley County Public Health Director Rick Ritter has been
planning the functional emergency preparedness exercise that took place on
Feb. 17 for well over a month, but nothing could have prepared the group
for the fiber optic cable going out shortly after the exercise began.
Ritter wrote: "...our exercise started out with a real world 'inject.' At
about the exact time the exercise was to begin, we had a real (not
simulated) Internet outage in our area. This was not planned; however it
threw an actual problematic element into the mix. This set back e-mail
communications for approximately 1 hour. For those that had them, we used
the 800 MHz radios as our primary communications back-up. After the
Internet was back on line, e-mails to our exercise distribution group began
flowing, albeit with a time delay." The call for volunteers was quite
successful. Ritter asked for, and received, Southeast Medical Reserve Corps
medical professional assistance, as well as a wave of responses from
participating agencies and individuals. An unexpected support came from
American Amateur Radio Association in the person of Floyd Glick, who gave
Ritter a local contact he can use in the case of an actual emergency. The
Pikes Peak Amateur Radio Association was holding its event Wednesday in
honor of Hiram P. Maxim, founder of the American Radio Relay League
(original organization name) at Train Hill in La Junta.


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Tiny USB Morse Code Beacon:

Posted: 19 Feb 2016 04:43 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36213


It is reasonably easy to make a microcontroller spit out some Morse code.
What makes [pavlin's] take on this project interesting is that it resides
on a tiny USB board with an ARM processor. The design for the board is
available with single-sided artwork suitable for production using simple
methods like toner transfer. The STM device has a built-in USB bootloader.
It can also act as a serial port, which makes the project very simple. The
only external parts are a speaker and an optoisolator. The program provides
a command line interface over the serial port that you can use to program
the message and set other options like speed and the delay between
messages. The code is available on GitHub.


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Propagation Forecast Bulletin #8 de K7RA:

Posted: 19 Feb 2016 09:35 AM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36209


Sunspot numbers and solar flux declined over the past week relative
to the previous seven days. Average daily sunspot number went from
86.6 to 56.7, while average daily solar flux slid from 117.4 to
107.8. Geomagnetic indices were up. Average daily planetary A index
went from 9.4 to 17.7, and mid-latitude A index went from 7.4 to
12.6.


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DX News -- ARRL DX Bulletin #7:

Posted: 19 Feb 2016 09:35 AM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36208


This week's bulletin was made possible with information provided by
CX3AL, W2APF, QRZ DX, OPDX, The Daily DX, DXNL, Contest Corral from
QST and the ARRL Contest Calendar and WA7BNM web sites. Thanks to
all.