Solid Copy

from
KC7Z
Newsletter of the
North Kitsap Amateur Radio Club
December, 2000

President's Message:

I demand a recount from the ARRL DXCC awards committee.

I worked AX0KW (MACQUARIE Island) in 1970 and have a QSL to prove it. The DXCC desk gave me credit for MIXED. I have provisions for CW, SSB, FM, AM, on my radio, but no MIXED. Although they didn't recognize the CW category until later, it is a poor excuse not to allow me CW credit. It was a valid contact and technically there is no MIXED mode.

(2) In December 1992 I worked P5RS7 (NORTH KOREA) and have a card from the JA QSL manager. The operators claim they were across the border in N. Korea. Yet, because of an unfriendly government their operation was not officially recognized. Those who were there knew where they were and my submittal should not have been denied due to an uncooperative government

In April I worked, and have a QSL from, 7OYGF (Yemen German Friendship) for a new country. Again, I was denied credit because of some alleged squabbling within that government. Again, I have the QSL as proof that I made contact with a station in Yemen, and another denial. On the basis of (1), (2) and (3) above, I hereby demand manual recount and reconsideration.

I received a QSL from a Japanese station with a note that the operator would like "to meet me in the sky again." Technically, our RF energy did pass in the sky. This caused me to reflect on our expression, "on the air." How would a foreigner translate it? After all, air is a gaseous mixture, and how can one be on it?

Its election time again and the club will be looking for officers to serve during 2001. Unlike the national scene, we do not have any legal confrontations to contend with, and no hostilities toward any candidate willing to step forward. Anyone wishing to be nominated can rest assured there will be no need for manual recounts.

Hope to see you at Angel's Homestyle Buffet at 6:00 o'clock, Wednesday evening, the 13th. Don't let the fear of being nominated deter you from attending. If you are not there, who will defend you from being elected to one of the positions.

Happy Holidays-

73, Burt

==========00000===========

Volunteers Needed!

It’s time for the changing of the guard. The nomination and election of club officers takes place at the December dinner meeting...It’s time to think about who will lead the club next year. The club offices are listed on the newsletter mailpage. Look over the list and think about the office you would consider or else who would make a good candidate. If somebody approaches you and asks you to consider a position, listen and give some thought to it. After all, they have confidence that you have the qualifications for the office you are being asked to fill.

The winter solstice approaches signifying that it’s time to celebrate the holidays in the great American tradition. It’s now time for families and friends to get together to celebrate Christmas and exchange gifts. This makes it had hard to plan and hold meetings during this month.

NKARC continues its custom of having only one meeting in December. There will be a short business meeting before the meeting.

The December meeting will be the dinner meeting held at Angel’s Homestyle Buffet at 4111 Wheaton Way in Bremerton. The meeting will start at 6:00 PM with dinner followed by an election of officers. The club will pay $3.00 towards the cost of the meal for member and guest.

Come and enjoy a delicious meal as we enjoy discussions and conversations on what happened during the Y2K year. Mark the date on your calendar and be sure to include your wife, girlfriend or significant other as applies.

Want your newsletter as soon as it comes out of the word processor? Send your e-mail address to :bobtomas@sprintmail.com, and it will be mailed out right after the proof reading. Be sure to tell if you are using an Internet browser or an e-mail only account in order to get the right format. Most e-mail only accounts only accept ASCII text format and we oblige with a text only format for them.

NKARC sponsors and conducts the only Amateur Radio VE testing in Kitsap County on a regular schedule. The tests were previously conducted on the fourth Saturday of the month at Olympic College. There will be no VE testing in December because Olympic College is closed for the holiday.

Olympic College is now charging NKARC to use the room. The VE Team is negotiating with Olympic College to use the facility on the 3rd Saturday in January, February, and maybe March as well since they like to do things on a quarterly basis. A change in the examination fee is also anticipated. When testing resumes in the new year, exams, for all grades will be given. An applicant can take any tests for which they qualify. If the applicant passes the test for a given grade, they will be allowed to take the next level if they feel they are qualified to do so. Information on the testing will be published in the Solid Copy, January 2001 issue.

The NKARC DX PacketCluster Node continues to perform exceptionally well. There was a period of about one week when the computer connected to the Internet server hung up. Unfortunately, I had to be out of town during that week and nobody was available to reboot the computer until I returned. It has been determined that the computer hangs up occasionally when the modem connection is broken because the service provider is conducting system maintenance.

We are looking at two approaches to minimize the system lockup. The first is to work with the software that is supposed to monitor the modem connection. It is designed to reconnect to the service provider when the connection drops out. It will work most every time, and it is difficult to troubleshoot because of its intermittent nature. There are some intervals in the program that control timing and these are being reviewed for function and applicability to our problem.

The second approach is to install a repeater controller capable of accepting signals that will force a reboot of either computer depending on the system status. This will allow operators to reboot the system from a remote location without having to come to the station.

Log on this weekend and monitor the DX spots from the CQ Worldwide 10 meter contest. There are still some problems to be resolved in the node operation. If anybody is willing to work toward a resolution, talk to Bruce, Horace, or Bob Tomas and come aboard. This is an interesting club project and is open to everybody who wants to participate.

Dec. 13th - Annual Dinner Meeting & Election of Officers at 6:00 PM -Angel’s Homestyle Buffet, 4111 Wheaton Way, Bremerton.

Dec. 23rd - No VE Testing. Olympic College is closed for the holiday/

Dec. 27th - NO Business meeting - Merry Christmas

Jan. 10th - Combined Business/ Presentation meeting at 7:30 PM - Viking Park Clubhouse - Presentation to be announced

Jan. 20th - VE testing - VE testing - Olympic College, Room T-114, Lincoln Avenue, Bremerton, WA at 9:30 AM. All exams are given. Contact Sue, AB7MD, at 360-697-9379

Note: This may be changed. Final date will be published in Solid Copy January 2001.

Jan. 24th - Business Meeting at 7:30 PM - Viking Park Clubhouse

Don’t forget to dispose of those discharged household batteries in a way that helps our environment. This includes alkaline, ni-cad, and regular zinc carbide batteries. Bring them to the meeting., and provisions will be made to transport them to the proper disposal site in Kitsap County.

Lead acid batteries are excluded from this collection. The disposal site on Hansville Road will accept lead acid batteries without a charge

The following article is copied from the ARRL Web Page. It is published here to point out the significance of paying attention to your license expiration date and for following proper procedures in all dealing with the FCC. The situation is close to home because the individual involved, Richard Josslin (W7CXW), is a resident of Bainbridge Island.

NEWINGTON, CT, Dec 5, 2000--The FCC has turned down a petition for reconsideration from a former ham who filed for license renewal beyond his two-year grace period. The FCC ultimately turned down the petition from Richard Josslin, ex-W7CXW, of Bainbridge Island, Washington, because his reconsideration petition had not been filed properly. But the FCC also told Josslin that ignorance of FCC rules was no excuse and that he should have known he needed to renew his ticket on time.

In an Order on Reconsideration released December 1 by John J. Schauble, Chief of the Policy and Rules Branch in the Wireless Bureau's Public Safety and Private Wireless Division, the FCC said that Josslin's ham ticket already had been expired for more than two years when he attempted to register with the Universal Licensing System. When Josslin submitted a Taxpayer Identification Number Registration Form 606 to the FCC's Gettysburg office last December, he was informed that the call sign W7CXW was no longer in the FCC database. The following month--nearly three years after his license had expired--Josslin applied for renewal "by simply writing his request for renewal on the Report he received from the FCC," the FCC said, "rather than on FCC Form 605 or Form 610 as required." The FCC dismissed the renewal attempt because Josslin was well beyond the two-year grace period. The FCC advised Josslin that he had to take his exams again to hold an amateur license.

Josslin attempted to get the FCC to change its mind by requesting reconsideration of the dismissal notice. Josslin claimed that he'd read in an amateur publication that the FCC was issuing lifetime amateur licenses and that he did not believe that he had to renew any longer. He says he didn't realize anything was amiss until he got the FCC's response to his ULS registration attempt. Josslin asked the FCC to give him a break--that he failed to renew his license because of his erroneous belief that his license was good for life.

In response, the FCC said the Communications Act spells out requirements a petitioner must satisfy before it may consider a pleading on reconsideration. The FCC says Josslin failed to file his petition within 30 days of the release date of the Commission's action and, by sending it to Gettysburg, did not send it to the right place. Petitions for reconsideration must be timely filed with the FCC Secretary in Washington, DC.

The FCC noted, however, that Josslin's application for renewal was properly dismissed in the first place because he wrote his request on the FCC Report and did not file the proper form. Beyond that, the FCC said, Josslin's erroneous understanding about his license term "is not sufficient justification" to reinstate his license. "As Josslin concedes, the face of his license contained an expiration date," the FCC said, yet it is evident that he made no attempt to verify or familiarize himself with the Commission's Rules." The FCC said any reliance on something he'd read "was at his own peril."

Visit the NKARC Web Page at the URL: http://www.silverlink.net/nkarc. There is a wealth of information and capabilities to anybody that checks in. After you get connected, you can get the latest copy of the club newsletter -- "SOLID COPY.

Click on the handi-talkie graphic and you’ll get a list of links to other web pages giving you an opportunity to connect to the ARRL, FCC, Packet Radio Home Page, AMSAT and many others. Need the QTH of the station you just had a contact with? The QRZ call sign look-up form is available. The links also give the link to the information on the Evergreen Intertie.

The page master is Marcie Stilwell, KC7DAT. Submit your comments to Page master, Marcie at nkarc@yahoo.com and let her know what you think. If you know of any interesting links, let her know and she will look into them. Give it a try.

Web - What a spider makes

Web site - High corners of the ceiling

Cursor - Someone who swears

Search Engine - What you do when the car dies

Screen Saver - repair kit for the torn window screen on the camp

Home Page - map you keep in your back pocket in case you get lost in the woods

Upgrade - Steep hill.

Server - waitress

Mail Server - male waitress.

MS DOS - Some new disease they discovered

Sound Card - One of them technological birthday cards that plays music when you open it

So, under this proposal, our 10 meter band was moved down 1 Mc., we would lose 1/2 of our 5 meter band, we lose 112-116 Mc. but gain 144-148 Mc., our 1-1/4 meter band stays the same, and we gain a large chunk at 420 Mc. The FM broadcast allocation is increased by 85%, police agencies leave the crowded medium wave area for VHF-FM, aircraft has their piece of the pie, and both CBS and RCA have home turfs to battle out the TV standards war. Note also the 450-460 Mc. range allocated to "Facsimile Broadcasting." For those of you who think FAX machines are a recent invention, it may interest you to learn that 60 years ago, a reliable mechanical-electrical FAX system was in use. By the mid-1940s, it was widely believed that every home soon would have a FAX machine. During the night, as you slept, the machine would be tuned to various stations in the 450-460 Mc. range and would print out the next day's newspapers, magazines and catalogues, for you to read in the morning. Another proposal was for a "Veteran's Band", which would be a 2000 Mc.-wide slice of the spectrum above 10,000 Mc. This proposed band would be available for war veterans (and ONLY war veterans) in any way they desired.

The ARRL was quick to object to the proposed allocations. It was not acceptable to amateurs to move our 10-meter band down 1 Mc., to eliminate 50% of 5 meters, and to upset the harmonic relationship of our bands by moving us from 112 up to 144 Mc. The FCC capitulated on 10 and 5 meters, as we will see in a moment. As for the 144-148 Mc. band -- the FCC was firm. 112- 116 Mc. was going to aircraft. Furthermore, the FCC wanted our amateur bands above 100 Mc. to be next to government allocations, so that in time of war or national emergency, they could be used for the expansion of essential governmental radio services. The needs of the government, per the FCC, outweighed the need for a strict harmonic relationship between the amateur bands.

Meanwhile, while the ARRL was arguing over our allocations, General Sarnoff was conducting his campaign behind the scenes. He couldn't eliminate the CBS color wheel UHF system because, at that time, CBS was producing beautiful, lifelike color pictures that impressed the FCC. But he could attack FM. A big deal was made out of the claim that FM broadcasting needed to be moved higher in the VHF range to eliminate interference caused by Sporadic-E skip. Sarnoff, of course, wanted these frequencies for TV. He never explained, and no one seemed to ask, how TV would not be affected. In fact, TV, with it's amplitude modulated video signal, would be more susceptible to "E" skip than FM with its capture effect. RCA however had power, money, and influence, and Major Armstrong found he was no match for the corporate giant.

On January 15, 1945, the FCC issued a revised allocation proposal:

25-28 Mc. -- Fixed, Mobile, Industrial, Scientific and Medical

28-30 Mc. -- Amateur 10 Meter Band

30-44 Mc. -- Police, Fire, and Various Governmental Allocations

44-50 Mc. -- TV Channel 1 (now you know where it was!)

50-54 Mc. -- Amateur 6 Meter Band

54-84 Mc. -- TV Channels 2-6

84-102 Mc. -- FM Broadcasting

102-108 Mc. -- Possible Facsimile Broadcasting

108-132 Mc. -- Aircraft

132-144 Mc. -- Government

144-148 Mc. -- Amateur 2 Meters

148-152 Mc. -- Government (note 2 meters sandwiched between two government bands)

152-162 Mc. -- Police, Fire, and Other Local Government

162-170 Mc. -- Government

170-180 Mc. -- Navigational Aids

180-216 Mc. -- TV Channels 7-12 (note that TV only gets 12 channels here)

216-220 Mc. -- Government

220-225 Mc. -- Amateur 1-1/4 Meter Band

225-420 Mc. -- Government, Including Military Aircraft

420-450 Mc. -- Amateur 70 cm Band

450-460 Mc. -- Air Navigation

460-470 Mc. -- A New "Citizens' Band" (which would eventually evolve into Class A and Class B CB, then into GMRS and the new FRS)

470-480 Mc. -- Facsimile Broadcasting

480-940 Mc. -- Experimental TV (for the CBS system)

 

Yes, this proposal sounds a lot like what we have today, but the battle was only beginning. Major Armstrong was not giving up on an FM band in the 43-58 Mc. area. He didn't want the thousands of FM receivers and dozens of stations now on the air to suddenly become obsolete. CBS was still convinced that UHF was the place for TV, and their system was the best. During the first half of 1945, the battle would rage with many more proposals to come forth.

**********************************************

This article may not be reprinted without the express permission of the author -- Bill Continelli, W2XOY