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 The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club is pleased to sponsor a Skywarn training session, conducted by the National Weather Service office in Moon Township, PA. The date is 6:00 pm on Thursday, April 4th, 2013 at the Reynoldsville Fire Hall, 411 Jackson Street, Reynoldville, PA 15851.
This official Skywarn Observer training is now required for all applicants for the ARRL EC-016 course for ARES and Emergency Communications leaders.
This is the only Skywarn training in Jefferson County scheduled so far this year. The Reynoldsville location is conveniently located near the center of the county, just 12 miles from Brookville, 13 miles from Punxsutawney, 12 miles from Brockway and 11 miles from DuBois (although Clearfield County residents should attend a session conducted by the State College NWS.)
Those taking this course will learn how to identify and report severe weather to the National Weather Service as a Skywarn Weather Spotter.
Continue reading Skywarn 2013
 I just worked a Japan station on 21.365.00 100watts!!
 The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club is pleased to offer free upgrade classes for those wishing to prepare for the General and Extra Class exams. Classes will be held on Friday evenings at the Reynoldsville Ambulance building, on Main Street in Reynoldsville. Classes will begin at 6:30 pm, and will be held every Friday beginning February 8th, with three exceptions: Feb. 15th and Mar. 15th, which are the QCARC meeting nights, and Mar. 29th which is Good Friday.
Back by popular demand, as an added bonus we will offer optional Morse Code training beginning at 6:00 pm for those who are interested. Even though code is no longer required for any license, there is quite a bit of CW activity on the bands, and this unique skill is very useful to round out your abilities. Completely optional, this training will enable Technicians to operate legally on the 80, 40, 20 and 15 meter HF bands using CW. If you have any musical ability at all, the method we will use is guaranteed to get you up to speed or double your tuition back!
A VE Test session will be scheduled for a date following the completion of the class at a date, time and place to be announced.
 Twelve Hams from all four counties came early for the meeting on January 18th, to take part in an Introduction to NIMS Training session. Instructor W3BC described the courses availble from FEMA that are now required for the ARRL EC-001 and EC-016 courses, and other free NIMS courses that are useful for all hams wishing to imporve their understanding of emergency communications and the structure of incident management involving multiple agencies.
Those attending learned about the structure of the Incident Command System, and the National Incident Management System. They discussed the role of the Amateur Radio Service within this framework, and the positive contributions our service provides as a voluntary agency. The class concluded with an overview and discussion of the IS-700 course, and those attending were encouraged to complete self-paced, online IS-100 and IS-700 training.
The Website for the NIMS courses is training.fema.gov/IS. The public is encouraged to take any of the courses, and the cost is free.
Recommended Courses
Although there are many interesting courses, and no restrictions on taking any or all of them, hams interested in completing NIMS courses identified as prerequisites for the ARRL EC-001 and EC-016 courses are encouraged to complete the following courses first:
For EC-001 “Level I”
- IS-100 b Introduction to Incident Command System
- IS-200 b National Incident Management System (NIMS) An Introduction
For EC-016 “Level II”
- IS-120 a An Introduction to Exercises
- IS-230 b Fundamentals of Emergency Management
- IS-235 b Emergency Planning
- IS-241 a Leadership and Influence
- IS-241 a Decision Making and Problem Solving
- IS-242 a Effective Communication
- IS-244 a Developing and Managing Volunteers
(Note: For EC-016, an additional prerequisite is Skywarn certification)
Of course you can (and should) take any others that interest you.
All members completing each of these courses are asked to send an email to Public Service Coordinator, Kevin Snyder KA3YCB for his records at PublicService@qcarc.org
 Well, here we go again!
Remember a while ago, when I wrote about needing a project in order to stay sane, while my shoulder healed? Well, I sure found one!
If you look at the picture at the right, that’s it!
It’s a fantastic little rig from Kenwood, when they still made simple but very good HF stations – no menus, no electronic band-switch, etc.
The model number is TS-130s, and it covers 80m -10m, including the WARC bands, it’s got 100w output and is a cw/ssb rig only, but hey, its a great rig for ragchewing, field-day, beginners’ rig, or when going camping! :)
When I got it, someone had dropped the top lid while looking inside, resulting in tearing the wire off from internal speaker, but with the help from some junked speakers, that was an easy fix. Then came the question why the RF power came and went. Well, what really was wrong, was a voltage regulator, sitting on the heat sink, and it was supposed to be insulated from ground. As you might already have guessed, it was not really…that is to say, the little washer with a little flange on, that is supposed to keep the screw from touching the regulator, was damaged, so when keying the rig, sometimes it made contact, and sometimes not…. After having found this, it now works just as new!
Speaking of cleaning, now I’m going to tell you what not ever to do!! (AND I MEAN THAT!)
When cleaning knobs, do not EVER try to do that in a sink, without a strainer! Why? I’ll tell you why, if you haven’t felt your heart fly up into your throat, YOU WILL! Also, if you haven’t had to take the drain apart, YOU WILL!
Now, if you have stopped laughing, and stopped saying S****D I***T, I can tell you, I now know how it feels! I was just lucky that the knob wasn’t flushed out. Having put it all together again, I buffed up the scuffed paint on the case. It looks so good, that I don’t want to let it go, but since it’s only a project rig, I must (at least that’s what XYL says…)
A radio in this condition sells really fast, and so did this. Roger KB3ZKJ, is now the happy owner. Congrats Roger!
Your storyteller
Lars KB3WBT
 Congratulations to Jack AA3AZ for his most recent accomplishment 5 band DXCC
ACTIVE SUNSPOT: One of the biggest sunspots of the current solar cycle is now turning toward Earth. Named AR1654, the active region is crackling with medium-sized (M-class) flares and could be poised to break the recent spell of calm space weather around our planet.
 During the month of January, the Hamshack Net has moved to the WAN Repeater System. Testing will continue all month. Meet us there every Wednesday at 7:00 pm on a WAN repeater near you!
The wide availibility of WAN repeaters should allow handheld users an opportunity to check in by using a local repeater instead of DXing the 147.315 machine which may be dozens of miles away!
Here is a recording of the first session (6.5MB download)
This is the second WAN session, January 9, 2013 (12.7 MB)
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The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club is pleased to sponsor a Skywarn training session, conducted by the National Weather Service office in Moon Township, PA. The date is 6:00 pm on Thursday, April 4th, 2013 at the Reynoldsville Fire Hall, 411 Jackson Street, Reynoldville, PA 15851.
