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 Mark your calendars and get ready to upgrade your license or get started with a new one. The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club is sponsoring another VE License Exam session on Thursday, May 2nd at 6:00 pm in the DuBois Red Cross offices. These are ARRL VEC supported exams and there is a $15.00 fee to take as many different exams as you can. (Retests only require an additional fee.)
Please plan on being there if you need to take an exam. This is a service the club offers to all hams in our area, and keeps the cost of travel lower than driving a couple hundred miles round trip on winding, narrow, back roads after getting up at 5:00 am to get there in time!
 Recently Licensed Radio Amateurs (l-r) James Withers KB3YJF, Ian Gerard KB3YJM, Joel Best N3UOA, Wayne Kocher KB3YJE, Jay Lorance KB3YJL, Bob Thunberg N3DIR, Nick Lorance KB3YJJ, Devon Lorance KB3YJK, Bev Hudsick KB3YJI, Jim WickerKB3YJG, Greg Donahue KB3WKD, Larry Whitten KB3YJH, Ed Stewart KB3WRX ou want to get your ham radio license? Well you’re in luck, because the Spring 2013 classes are beginning in March!
The Spring 2013 License Classes are being held every Thursday, beginning March 7 at the Lock Haven Unoiversity Clearfield Campus, Room 003. The classes start at 5:30 and end at 8:15. There is no charge, and the classes are open to everyone of any age. You do not need to be a student at LHU — these classes are offered by The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club.
If you cannot attend every class don’t worry. You may attend as many as you can, since each class will cover a different part of the exam question areas.
For more information contact instructor Joe Shupienis W3BC at 814-371-3235 or training@qcarc.org via email.
 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
 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
 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)
Now is the time to renew your Quad-County Amateur Radio Club membership. It’s still only $12.00 a year, the same as it was in 1975! In 1975, that would buy you a tank of gas, today it would only buy 3 gallons. Or you could look at it as only $1.00 a month… or 3 cents a day!
 Here’s the 2013 Membership Application!
2013 promises to be a fun-filled year with lots of enjoyable ham radio activities already being planned! Come join the fun, and support your Club!!!
Quad-County members participated in a number of contests over the summer months, with good results! Here are some of the official results:
ARRL June VHF Contest
Current Club President Herb Murray W3TM and Secretary Joe Shupienis W3BC hit the bricks to participate in the Rover-Limited category. Activating 5 grids and handing out 92 QSOs, their final official score was 5,406 points, with contacts being made in 48 grids! It was a lot of fun, and they activated some grids neither had operated from before, notably FN02, EN92 and EN91, along with FN00 and FN01. We are fortunate to live in or near so many “rare” grids, and the 6 meter stations were grateful!
That score was enough to win the WPA Section, and to take second place in the Atlantic Division!
Field Day
Overcoming confusion about our location, we stuck it out and had a great time. Finishing in the top 10 of all stations in the WPA section, we scored 2,550 points and most importantly had 26 participants who helped put our signals on the air for the full duration of the event!
That score allowed us to take First Place honors in our 2A-Commercial category for both the Western Pennsylvania Section and the Atlantic Division. We finished 6th place in our category, Nationwide.
Great work, everybody!
CQ WW DX (SSB)
This is “The Big One” — the 900 pound gorilla of contests. Current Vice-President Peach Caltagarone AB3OG graciously opened up his Hummingbird Speedway facilities to the club, and the 16 members and guests who stopped by to operate and observe. We strung up a number of antennas, including a pair of crossed G5RVs and W3BC’s “Half-Rhombic,” a 300 foot monster pointed at Europe.
Results were very good! We logged 91 counties — that’s almost DXCC in a single weekend! the antennas worked flawlessly, digging out European, African and Asian stations well into the wee hours. Then it was back at it Sunday morning, with all the comforts of home — W3BC brought an HD TV and antenna. We were able to receive 11 HDTV stations, and could keep an eye on the football games as we racked up our own score on the air!
Our goal was to introduce non-contesters to RadioSport, to allow everyone to try their hand in a big contest, and to have fun. We did that and more! We finished 2nd Place in the 3rd call district, 17th place Nationwide, 27th place in North America, and 96th place worldwide. With over 8,000 other stations sending in logs, that is quite an accomplishment!
The CQ WW DX (CW) weekend is coming up, as is the ARRL Sweepstakes (SSB) weekend. Gear up for these and be sure to include “Quad County Amateur Radio Club” as your club to help out our club aggregate score! Whatever you favorite on-air activity, it’s coming to your radio soon!
Congratulations to newly licensed and upgraded hams. The following hams earned new licenses and privileges at the recent VE session following 6 weeks of classes held at the Red Cross in DuBois.
Bill Latta, Punxsutawney, KA3MKY – General
Steven Caltagarone, Reynoldsville, KB3ZKI – Technician
Roger McEachron, Treasure Lake, KB3ZKJ – Technician
Paul Murphy, Punxsutawney, AB3RB – Extra
 THE QUAD-COUNTY Amateur Radio Club, Inc. proudly presents our 2012 Annual Report, detailing the activities of the past 12 months in this, our 38th year. You may view or download it here:
2012 Annual Report
 A milestone has been reached by the Quad-County ARC website. At 0917 UTC, Thurday October 25, someone in Ireland registered hit number 250,000 on this website. That’s not surprising, because hams all over the world have visited qcarc.org to the tune of more than 400 hits per day since it went live in February last year (2011).
Thank you to all our visitors, and to all our contributors!
| CQ World Wide DX Contest (SSB) — 0000 UTC Saturday October 27 to 2359 UTC Sunday, October 28, 2012 (Friday evening at 8 until Sunday evening at 8). |
 Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work 100 countries in one weekend? Would you like to sharpen your operating skill? Do you want to try your hand at contesting and see if you have what it takes?
Well, this weekend is a great opportunity for you to do all that and more! And not only that… there’s food! Peach AB3OG has invited everyone back to Hummingbird Speedway this weekend to take part in the CQ WW DX contest. W3BC and W3TM are providing the radios and other equipment, and Peach will make the racetrack food concession available for our use.
This will be a multi-operator, multi-transmitter station, and will be pretty much like another Field Day, except everybody will be trying to work DX. That should be pretty easy, since the bands have been very good, and the solar forecast calls for continued good DX conditions, day and night. You are invited to come out and stay as long as you want. Take your turn on the air, or just sit back and watch — we’re not in it to win it, instead, our reason for doing this is to give our members and other interested hams the chance to learn how to become a successful contester.
Think of it as “On-the-Air Training.”
Our goal is to make 1 million points, but more importantly we hope to have fun, food and friendship! Please plan to take part if you can, and don’t feel obligated to do anything except have a good time!
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Mark your calendars and get ready to upgrade your license or get started with a new one. The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club is sponsoring another VE License Exam session on Thursday, May 2nd at 6:00 pm in the DuBois Red Cross offices. These are ARRL VEC supported exams and there is a $15.00 fee to take as many different exams as you can. (Retests only require an additional fee.)
