The following is familiar to typists: "Now is the time for all good (wo)men to come to the aid of their party." his can be applied to our club, as our main event of the year is upon us--Hamfest 2004.

I'm hoping that ALL our members respond and help either on Friday (1300-) or Saturday. Setting up and taking down can be easy if enough people are there. Also check around the shack and see if the Club table can be filled with donated items for sale which will benefit the Club.

Our Hamfest committee worked hard preparing for a hoped for grand event, and it seems all is well. Some vendors won't be there, but many will and there should be bargains a plenty. Crazy Eric will have his usual good food available, and we'll have a rest area with tables and chairs as some last year got tired with nowhere to rest. Exams will be available, DXCC cards will be checked, and lots of neat displays will be had. One person's "junk" is another person's treasure, so come and share ur $$.

I've talked to some hams at various locations, and many didn't know about the Hamfest. Should be publicity out this week in all the local papers, TV and many bill boards at various locations. Word of mouth is so important, so call your ham friends, neighbors and relatives and invite them to come.

When you have looked over the "goodies" and spent your money, volunteer to help in the jobs available. Horace needs help at the Club table, and its a good place to meet fellow hams and maybe even sign up some new members. Members are asked to wear the yellow club jackets so that questions can be answered about the Club and ham radio. Not all that come are hams, but hopefully all will leave as hams or future hams.

ARRL leaders will also be available drumming up support for Amateur Radio and the many areas of interest in their organization. So, Hamfest 2004 is now upon us, and hopefully all will benefit from our Club's efforts.

See you at the Fairgrounds==President's Hall.

73. Jerry Turner, K9CCZ.

The sun sets earlier in the evening indicating that the summer has ended and autumn has arrived.As President Jerry stated, the NKARC Hamfest will be held at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds this weekend. This is the major fund-raiser for the club and has gotten the reputation of being a well run Hamfest and Swap Meet. Many who rented tables last year indicated they will return because the club takes extra measures to make them welcome.

The club is enjoying many benefits from the proceeds of the previous Hamfests. The portable station, and the communications trailer are projects resulting from these funds. The recent purchase of new batteries and solar panels to charge them was possible because the funds were available. This adds a further capability for the NKARC trailer to become truly portable and available for emergency communications.

Need to reduce the equipment inventory in the shack? The Hamfest offers a great opportunity to present the surplus to a maximum number of customers. Remember there is no such thing as junk in a ham shack. Everything has a use to somebody. If it doesn’t work, somebody can fix it. That boat anchor sitting on the shelf for the last ten years can be a collector’s gem. Get together with another member and share a table rental.

The involvement of each and every member is required if this year’s Hamfest is going to continue its run of successes from previous years.

Shop until you drop (maybe)?

`The NKARC Club Table at the Hamfest where items are donated for sale with proceeds going into the club treasury has proven to be a popular place to find interesting hardware. Look around the shack for those items you no longer need and consider ready for the dump.

If the item is interesting enough, it could become part of the Silent Auction. Popular items for the table are boat anchor receivers. Station accessories like SWR meters, tuners, or electronic keyers are also welcome. Test equipment like signal generators could become candidates. Your ham shack junk could be another ham’s thingamabob to complete a project.

Oct. 8th – Hamfest Setup – President’s Pavillion – Kitsap County Fairgrounds – 1:00 PM

Oct. 9th – Hamfest – President’s Pavillion – Kitsap County Fairgrounds – 9:00 AM

VE testing, Picture ID, original and photocopy of current amateur radio license and pending CSCE's needed. Cost of session is $12.00. Questions please call Susan, AB7MD at 360-697-9379.

Oct. 13th – Presentation Meeting – Viking Park Clubhouse – 7:30 PM – Kitsap County ARES and Emergency Communications -- Jim Pace, K7CEX, WWA ARES Section Emergency Coordinator

Oct. 27th – Business Meeting – 7:30 PM – Viking Park Clubhouse

Nov. 10th -- Presentation meeting -- 7:30 PM– Viking Park Clubhouse -- To be announced

Nov. 20th -- VE testing Community Room, Poulsbo Library, 700 NE Lincoln St., Poulsbo. Doors open at 9am. Picture ID, original and photocopy of current amateur radio license and pending CSCE's needed. Cost of session is $12.00. Questions please call Susan, AB7MD at 360-697-9379.

Nov. 24th – No Business Meeting

Nov. 25th -- Thanksgiving Day – Happy Holiday

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If you missed the opportunity to buy one of those spiffy yellow club jackets worn by the club members at the club meetings, you will be able to get one soon. The NKARC board voted to purchase some jackets especially in the large, XL, and 2XL sizes. A notice will be posted as to cost and availability when they arrive.

Some members indicated that the jackets could be very warm if worn during a sunny summer day here in the Pacific Northwest. Yes it can get hot here once in a while. Vests readily visible in emergency situations are available from Horace, K7ORY, for $17.50 each.

Just to let you know that the NKARC has a new website home. We now have our own domain:

http://www.nkarc.org 

and I hope as many of you will take a look at what is there and give me your ideas as to what more you will want.

If you have any items advertised on the site and they have been sold, please let me know so I can remove them. The site is live and there will be lots of new and useful changes in the very near future.

If you have any questions you can email me at:

webmaster@nkarc.org. 

73, Bill, W7ARC

Bill has published a survey report on the first month’s webpage traffic available later in the newsletter.

Please notify the club secretary to update the roster if you changed your address, call sign or e-mail address. Include your phone number so that you can be contacted in case of emergency or for assistance. This will insure that you will get the latest news via the club newsletter. Either notify Horace at the meeting or drop a card to NKARC at PO Box 2268, Silverdale, WA 98383-2268. You can also send the changes via e-mail to Horace or Bob Tomas at the addresses listed in the club officers list on the mailing page.

We are approaching the rain and storm seasons of Autumn and Winter. We tend to forget that these rains can leave us with power outages and some very dire emergency situations requiring the assistance of the amateur radio operators.

The first weekend of October is the time that the National Emergency Tests are conducted to determine amateur radio’s capability to deal with emergency operations. Kitsap County amateur radio operators were involved in the tests this year and also participate in emergency communications during the severe weather emergencies. The county-wide participation showed that a viable network can be established throughout the county and also connect with adjacent counties. Contacts were established with King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties. The HF link was activated and messages were passed to the EOC in Camp Murray. South Kitsap operators activated and operated the Packet Radio network. The operations showed that more practice is required in generating traffic and there are still communications "holes’ in some areas.

The Kitsap County Alternate Communications System (ACS) was established to provide coordinated emergency communications when the need arises. The VHF net meets on Sunday nights on the 145.43 Mhz repeater (negative offset with PL tone of 179.9) at 1900 local. The HF net meets on 28.330 Mhz at 1900 local and packet meets at the same time on 145.01 Mhz. Check in on any or all of these nets and keep posted on what is happening in your county regarding emergency communications.

If you are interested in joining the Kitsap County ACS, contact Jeff Hasz, KS7H, or Jerry Turner, K9 CCZ, for information and applications.

Help the environment by properly disposing of discharged household batteries. This includes alkaline, regular zinc carbide batteries, and batteries with heavy metals such as mercury, ni-cads and lithium ion. The Solid Waste Facility on Hansville Road accepts the batteries as part of the county-wide recycling program. Otherwise, bring them to the meeting for transfer to the disposal site.

Do not bring lead-acid batteries to the meeting for disposal. It is your responsibility to take them to the Solid Waste Facility. There is no cost for the battery disposal because it is considered one of the items in the recycling program.

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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. It can be sent in Word or .pdf format. Notify Bob of the format you desire.

It costs approximately 60 cents per copy to print a newsletter and postage to mail it. Receiving your newsletter electronically helps keep publishing costs down allowing the funds to be used for other club projects

As of Sept 30, 2004 the NKARC.ORG website has received 294 visits, some of these are repeat visitors. They have been from 8 different time zones including the Eastern Europe Time Russian Federation Zone 1; we certainly have world-wide visitors.

Most of the visits, as could be expected, come from the Pacific Time Zone but we have had visitors from Alaska, and all the other contiguous United States. Maximum time spent visiting the site has been just over 10 minutes (this does not include the time I have spent working on the site.)

We are getting referrals from the ARRL web site as well as several search engines. If you type "NKARC" into almost any search engine you will see the NKARC website listed among the first sites that come up. With the re-direct page now in place on the old site, we are getting lots of folks being redirected to the site. Hopefully those folks will updates their links.

We have had several people sign our Guest Book and some have taken advantage of the Online Classified Ads that we now have. The information for the ads are automatically placed on the web site and a copy of the ad is sent to the webmaster just to make sure that this is an appropriate item for our website to be selling.

The website is there to keep all of informed of upcoming activates, if you know of something that needs to be added to the site or would like to see on the site, let me know and I'll do what I can to get that on the site for all to use.

Bill Frazier, W7ARC
Webmaster - NKARC.ORG 

The largest annual World Order of the Scouting Movement (WOSM) event, the Jamboree-On-The-Air (JOTA) will held this year for the 47th time during the weekend of 16 and 17 October 2004.

The JOTA is an annual event in which Scouts and Guides all over the world speak to each other by means of amateur radio contacts. Scouting experiences are exchanged and ideas are shared, via the radio waves.

Since 1958 when the first jamboree-on-the-Air was held, thousands of Scouts and Guides have "met" each other through this event. Not only is it fun to talk to Scouts from other parts of the world but it provides also a chance to find out about other countries and about Scouting elsewhere. Many contacts made during the JOTA have resulted in pen pals and links between scout troops that have lasted for many years.

With no restrictions on age, on the number that can participate and at little or no expense, the JOTA provides an opportunity for Scouts and Guides to contact each other by amateur radio. The radio stations are operated by licensed amateur radio operators. Many Scouts and leaders hold licenses and have their own stations, but the majority participates in the JOTA through stations operated by local radio clubs and individual radio amateurs. Today some operators even use television or computer linked communications.

All amateur radio operators are invited to get on the air and participate in the jamboree by contacting the various JOTA stations on the suggested operating frequencies and "rag chew" with the person on the other end. Suggested operating frequencies are:

Band SSB CW

80 m 3.740 & 3.940 MHz 3.590 MHz

40 m 7.270 MHz 7.030 MHz

20 m 14.290 MHz 14.070 MHz

17 m 18.140 MHz 18.080 MHz

15 m 21.360 MHz 21.140 MHz

12 m 24.960 MHz 24.910 MHz

10 m 28.390 MHz 28.190 MHz

Previous experience has shown that Scouting organizations in the United States will be found on other parts of the Ham bands besides those recommended above. Get on the air and support a growing worldwide radio movement. It would be great to compile a list of JOTA contacts and publish the results in Solid Copy next month.

Employees of the US government can designate their Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) pledges to the ARRL. (The League is CFC No 9872.) Federal employees who participate in the CFC can donate all or part of their CFC contribution to the League to support ARRL's efforts on behalf of Amateur Radio. Some private-sector employers also match donations their employees make to ARRL, while others will donate to the League if you volunteer your time--as an Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) volunteer, for example.

"Exxon-Mobil gives ARRL a donation of $500 for every 25 hours that I volunteer for ARES activities, including training, exercises and preparation--with a max of $2000 per year," says ARRL member Alan Isaachsen, KB2WF. ARRL is a qualifying §501(c)(3) organization, and contributions may be tax deductible for both employer and employee.

To learn how to donate to various ARRL funds, visit the Support Amateur Radio and ARRL Web page <http://www.arrl.org/development/#top >. For additional information, contact ARRL Chief Development Officer Mary Hobart, K1MMH, mhobart@arrl.org; 860-594-0397; fax 860-594-0259.—thanks to Alan Isaachsen, KB2WF, and Walt Dubose, K5YFW

Have surplus gear in the shack or garage? Need some cable to finish the antenna? Advertise in the Solid Copy classifieds. Cost is free.