April 14, 2007
Glen Sage, W4GHS
VA Section Manager

Volunteer Examiners have continued to be very busy with the strong interest in obtaining an Amateur Radio license or to test for an upgrade. More staff has been added to the ARRL license department and they are still running about 2 to 3 weeks behind. Prior to the rule change in February, call signs would be placed on the FCC database within 3 to 5 days following testing.

Clubs are gearing up over the next few months to operate special event stations across the commonwealth for the celebration of our 400th anniversary as an English settlement. To view these special events planned, go to our VA400 special events page. There are still many good open dates for additional special event stations that would allow you to operate from a historical site near your home. This would provide an opportunity to promote Amateur Radio and to inform people worldwide of some happening of historical significant at a site in your area. To register your event go to our forms portal and click on the form for 400th Anniversary Special Event Registration.

The new sectional digital traffic net is operating on Chip64 on 3.578 USB with a 1300-hertz offset. The net has moved to a five nights a week (m-f) schedule from a two nights per week. Interest continues to grow as tests are run to check on the effect of propagation on the message accuracy. This mode is run from freeware and your computer soundcard and about 30 watts of power.

To view reports by the Section Emergency Coordinator go to ARES VA home page for the Section Traffic Manager report go to the ARRL VA Section home page.

Members of the Section cabinet and several ARES appointees met with VDEM leadership at the Virginia Emergency Operation Center this month. We explored ways that ARES and the Virginia Section traffic system can best support VDEM and our local emergency management in times of communication emergencies. Our visit also included a tour of the facility and the VDEM ham station. This station has been setup to allow for dependable HF,VHF and UHF communications to and from the center. There is also a packet node and BBS located at the center. This operates on the frequency of 145.73 with a call of W4ZA and the aliases of VAEOC. This VEN system covers much of the state with the exception of far SW Virginia. We are hearing W4ZA on HF and VHF nets more frequency. Our plans are to continue to explore ways to strengthen this relationship.

We have two new cabinet members that have been appointed this past month. Ron Ramsey, AB4A is our new Affiliated Club Coordinator and Howard (Gene) Wood, WA4PGI is the new Technical Coordinator. Bios can be found on the website at our VA Section Officials page on the two new appointees. Much of what happens within the section is dependant on the fine pool of volunteers that serve in the various cabinet positions. Some of our cabinet spend as much time serving the section as they did as full-time employees prior to retirement. Much of what is done happens behind the scene but makes a positive impact on the Virginia Section. We all owe a big thank you to those that have given so much of themselves.

Upcoming meetings for evaluation and planning will bring real change to the section over the next few months. Since 911 and Hurricane Katrina and Rita the world of emergency response has changed and those that serve in volunteer or full-time professional capacities, as responders will have to be dedicated and prepared. These skills require constant training and drilling. This is true of volunteer firemen or EMTs. Why should less be required of Amateur Radio operators? Just obtaining a license 25 years ago and working a local disaster in your hometown back in the 90’s doesn’t make us immune to these requirements.

If this preparation is viewed as drudgery, many hams will avoid any attempt to update their skills. If we see this as an adventure that will prepare us to be more competent and confident it can be a positive experience. It will also allow representatives of agencies that we serve to view us as a real asset.

73,
Glen Sage, W4GHS
Virginia Section Manager

March 17, 2007
Glen Sage, W4GHS
VA Section Manager

This is the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America. The Vic Clark Chapter of the Quarter Century Wireless Association, is offering a special certificate for stations that have confirmed contacts with 25 Virginia stations. An ideal time to gather these QSLs is during the many special event stations operating across Virginia during this year. One of these is coming up in March. It is the annual Virginia QSO party. Please note details of this event below.

Virginia QSO Party

The Virginia QSO Party - March 17th through the 19th - will be here before you know it. Sponsored by the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club, the objective is"To promote amateur radio activity in the 95 Virginia Counties and 39
Virginia Independent Cities". Here's the link for the detailed rules for the QSO Party. The scoring program used by Stering Park is available for download here. If you're interested in what counties and independent cities are hard to reach, you can take a look at this.PDF file which includes a VA map of QSOs logged during the 2006 QSO Party.

Andy Arnold, WV8AA, has made his VA QSO Logger program available again this year. This software can be downloaded from Andy's Last Name Software web site. Several other logging programs for the QSO party are available also. Check the Sterling Park web site for more details. As the folks at Sterling Park say:

Ultimately the success of the QSO Party depends upon participation of Virginia Amateur Radio Operators. There are about 23,406 amateur radio operators in Virginia and we encourage everyone to get on the air. This year we hope to activate all of the 134 counties and independent cities in Virginia; we were only short by 7 last year. But we need your help to make this happen. Please take a few hours, get on the air, and help make this a fun event.

VTM and SEC reports

Follow this link to view the report from the Virginia Traffic Manager report, The Section Emergency Coordinator's report can be found here.

Successful ARISS QSO with Virginia Run Elementary School

March 8, 2007

Kudos to the Vienna Wireless Society for pulling off a successful QSO between Virginia Run Elementary School and Astronaut Suni Williams, KD5PLB, onboard the ISS on March 2nd. The main ARRL web site is currently running an expanded version of this story. If you're interested in details about what happened"behind the scenes", follow this link. Pete Norloff, KG4OJT sent in this report:

Friday [March 2nd] was a pretty exciting day, and I thought you might be interested in hearing about it.

The Vienna Wireless Society had our amateur radio contact between students from Virginia Run Elementary School and astronaut Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday. After five months of planning and countless hours of preparations including equipment failures, ice and wind storms and more, we were successful. It was not without several new problems Friday morning and an incredibly tense 3 minutes and 36 seconds between the time we were supposed to make contact and when we actually connected with the astronaut over the radio.

The contact was supposed to last as long as 9 minutes and 59 seconds (the time the ISS would be above the horizon during this pass from our location.) I don't know yet, but I believe that the radio on board the Space Station either had the volume turned down or was tuned to listen on a different frequency than the one we planned on. Either way, it was clear that Suni Williams could not hear us for the first 3+ minutes of the pass.

We had thirteen children asking questions of the astronaut and listening to the answers plus the school student president saying a few words at the end. Despite the shortened contact, we accomplished everything we set out to do.

One of our Vienna Wireless Society members Phil Wherry videotaped the contact and the results are available here. He has provided the 10-minute video in low, medium, and high resolution, making for video file sizes of 40, 100, and
300 MB.

Also, NBC Channel 4 was there with Bob Ryan who recorded the event and plans a segment on the news on Monday night [March 5th]. The teaser for that broadcast is included in Phil's web page above.

Fairfax County Public Schools channel 21 also recorded the event and is planning to produce a program which will air next month on Cox Cable channel 21

Frostfest

The Frostfest, the Virginia State Convention was held in Richmond Virginia on February 18th. At a special Virginia Section Forum the attendees heard from the Roanoke Division Director, Dennis Bodson, W4PW. Several members of the Virginia Section Cabinet spoke during this forum. There was a later cabinet meeting where current and future projects for the section were discussed. More will follow on these projects as they unfold in future months.

73,
Glen Sage, W4GHS
Virginia Section Manager

February 16, 2007
Glen Sage, W4GHS
VA Section Manager

This month begins a year of special event stations across the Commonwealth of Virginia. These events are in celebration of the establishment of the first English settlement in Virginia. Ham clubs and organizations are offering a number of awards during the year 2007. The Vic Clark Chapter of the Quarter Century Wireless Association is offering a certificate for any station working 25 or more Virginia stations during the year. I am already receiving request for QSL cards from contacts around the world so they can comply with this requirement to receive their certificate.

The first special event station of the years is the Mount Vernon ARC operating from the Mount Vernon Estate on Presidents Day, February 17-18 from 1500Z to 2100Z. You may see additional details on this and other special event stations by going to our section's VA400 web page.There is also a link to a registration form on this page to allow you to register your special event. It is ideal to locate and operate from a site that has historical significances. Please list the historical event that occurred at you site in your registration information.

Opportunity or Crisis

The requirement for passing a code test has been removed from all classes of Amateur Radio license. Hams have lined up on both sides of this issue during the proceedings and continuing through this becoming a new rule and order. To debate issues of importance to the Amateur Radio community is vital to our health and it creates an atmosphere of growth as we learn from each other's opinions. Many of us hams took time both to comment to the FCC and to read the opinions of others during the time that the decision making process was ongoing. Many views were expressed that were different from my own but I feel that we all profited from these diverse views of what is good for the future of Amateur Radio.

What is disturbing is that there were some hams that didn't attempt to express their views at a time when this rule was being considered and in a forum (comments to the FCC during the period that comments were enlisted) but have been very vocal in the aftermath of the decision. Some had declared if they discover they are "talking with a ham that has received a no-code license, they will sign off the air and not continue to talk with that ham." Others have threatened to discontinue serving as a VE and will return their badge with a note as to why (the why was passing this new rule). There are people that I know that made these kinds of comments didn't comment to the FCC during the rule-making window, when their view could have made a positive difference.

I see this time of change as an opportunity. There will be a large increase in the number of hams that will be pursuing an upgrade. This is an ideal time to institute upgrade classes to ensure that these new hams moving to new HF privileges will be well trained and will make a positive contribution to the hobby. Ham clubs can plan programs around the needs of these new hams moving up the license advancement ladder. To rebuff or demean these advancing hams is not the historical approach to Amateur Radio. All through our long history we have been known, as an organization where we have reached out to those that needed our assistance. Now is not the time to reverse that trend. One thing has always been consistent with ham radio and that is change. We moved from spark gap to pure CW, then to phone on AM then SSB and FM. Later we adapted to digital communications and even the marriage with the Internet, with voice over IP. We may not agree or like it but the new rules are the rules that we now operate under. Let's look for and capitalize on the opportunities that will present themselves as a byproduct of change.

73,
Glen Sage, W4GHS
Virginia Section Manager