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 It is with deep sadness we report the passing of Paul Silinsky K3PS.
Dr. Paul Stephen Silinsky K3PS of Ashland, Ohio, formerly of DuBois Pennsylvania, died following a brief illness on Saturday, May 5, 2018. He was Lecturer at The Ohio State University — Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster, Ohio, and served as Adjunct Faculty at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio and North Central State College in Mansfield, Ohio. He managed the family business, Keystone Electric Motor Repair Co. in DuBois, before moving to Ohio.
He was born in DuBois May 12, 1948, the son of Stephen A. and Connie I. (Zaykosky) Silinsky. He was a graduate of Central Catholic High School in DuBois, Pennsylvania, and graduated Cum Laude from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a BS in Physics. He received Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from West Virginia State University for his work in Solid State Physics.
He retired from the United States Naval Reserve with the rank of Commander, and served in the Civil Air Patrol as a pilot and Squadron Commander, retiring as Lieutenant Colonel.
He was a licensed Radio Amateur beginning in 1962 with the callsign KN3ZDR, and later K3ZDR and K3PS. He was a founding member of the Quad-County Amateur Radio Club in DuBois, and was a long-serving officer, performing the duties of President, Secretary, and Treasurer during the first 20 years of the club’s history.
He was responsible for the Quad-County repeater, WR3AGV (later K3PS) and served as an officer of the Western Pennsylvania Repeater Council.
He is survived by his wife, Tonda Nalle Silinsky, and is remembered by his many students and friends. Private funeral arrangements in Ashland, Ohio are incomplete.
Where: Smeal Building Conference Room, 1 College Place, DuBois, PA 15801
Time: 6:00 pm
Walk-ins WELCOME
Exams will be given for all classes of license
Bring the following:
- Photo ID
- Applicable CSCE forms for exam credit
- COPY (NOT original) of your current license (if licensed)
- Non-programmable calculator (phone calculators cannot be used)
- $15.00 exam fee (payable to “ARRL-VEC”)
This year the QCARC Field Day site will be at the Sandy Valley Community Church, located just off Rte. 950, between Falls Creek and Reynoldsville.
— CLICK THE MAP FOR LARGE DISPLAY — — CLICK THE RED FD 17 LOGO FOR NATIONAL EVENT INFO —
 
The SkyWarn presentation has been rescheduled for July 19, 2017. This training is open to amateur radio operators as well as the general public.
 It is not required but if amateur radio operators could, also email me if you anticipate attending at: “bryan at wa3ufn dot com”.
Since I initiated the planning I would like to know how many are planning to attend, just curious. Thanks!
See the following information from Peter Jung, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, State College :
1 – SkyWarn Training: July 19th at 6:30 pm.
2 – Location: 911 Leonard Street in Clearfield, the Clearfield County 911 Center.
3 – Register by sending an email to: Scott Mignot at “smignot at clearfield911 dot com”
Registration in this method is important so that we can get an accurate count of who will attend, and a way to directly reach out via email should we need to do a last minute cancellation or change.
GENERAL REMINDERS FOR SKYWARN CLASSES
- Classes are free and open to the public
- Attendees under the age of 16 must be accompanied by a parent/guardian
- Classes typically last about 90 minutes
- Bring a pen/pencil to the class
- If possible, bring the Latitude and Longitude of your home
(see this page to determine your coordinates: http://www.latlong.net/convert-address-to-lat-long.html )
- Current spotters bring your old ID Card or Spotter Number
 The Quad County Amateur Radio Club will operate Field Day June 25-26, 2016, at the Clearfield County Fairground Community Building, yes we’ve been there before. Operating hours are scheduled to be from 2:00 PM Saturday to 2:00 PM Sunday, antennas have to be installed after the VE exam session. All amateur radio operators are welcome as well as the general public. Since the public as well as a number of Clearfield County officials and TV stations have been invited, as Club secretary, I ask that members please wear their Club shirts if possible. Thank you – in advance.
Volunteer examiners are reminded that the exam session is scheduled for June 25, 2016 at 11:00 AM. 
Operations are scheduled to start 2:00 PM, Saturday June 25, continuing through the night, with the hopes of taking advantage of any changing propagation characteristics. There is to be a Get On The Air (GOTA) station activated. The GOTA station will give new hams and those not even licensed, the opportunity to experience operating the HF bands under the supervision of a licensed amateur radio operator.
Location Coordinate information: 41°01.840 N 78°26.540 W.
Follow the route depicted by orange arrows, on the map, after you turn off Rte. 322.
You can also try the inserted interactive map to zoom and obtain directions. You can use the satellite view on the small map to compare the orange arrow map to the right.
If you operate APRS, there will be an object beacon to help you locate the Field Day site.
Please consider what will make Field Day comfortable for you, like in the real deal you will be responsible for your own comfort and personal operating conveniences such as chairs, clipboards, pens, pencils, paper. flashlights, etc. – remember to mark your property -. The main equipment will be provided, such as transceivers and antennas. I do not recall that the building is handicapped accessible. If you have a spare HF radio or antenna to bring, all the better as a just in case but only 2 will be on the air plus the GOTA station. Additionally if possible, please bring along some type of food to share.
Plans are in motion to have breakfast Sunday morning and some picnic style food for later times.
To help with the items and food for Field Day, please down load the 2 page checklist and email the Club secretary (secretary@qcarc.org) as to the items that you will supply. I’ll try to keep all the updates current on the download list. If you have anything to add, please email your input to the Club secretary.
Amateurs who are attending the QCARC Field Day, please advise the FD Coordinator by email at secretary@qcarc.org . This info is for overall planning purposes.
The Quad County Amateur Radio Club will hold a “New Ham Radio Operator Event” at the regular meeting on June 17, 2016. The meeting will be held at the Penn State Du Bois Campus, Smeal Building at 6:30 PM. This event is open to those who recently obtained their amateur radio license and who have been licensed but inactive for some time. The meeting is also open to the public who may be interested about amateur radio.
The Quad County Amateur Radio Club, which serves amateur radio operators in; Clearfield, Jefferson, Elk and Cameron Counties, was founded in 1975. Regular meetings are held monthly on the third Friday, 6:30 PM at the Penn State Du Bois Campus. For more information visit the Club website at www.qcarc.org
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! This is a traditional time to spend with family and friends, and to remember all those who are no longer with us.
I remember in the early days of the club, that there was a day-long QSO on the DuBois Repeater with hams far and wide in the Quad-County area checking in and out and back in again as their family activities permitted.
My Elmer, K3TFL was the unofficial Master of Ceremonies for those sessions, and the discussions ranged from what was for dinner, to the snowy weather to how to modify an ARC-5.
For our Quad-County hams, our repeater was the “Social Media” of the day. We all knew each other and stayed in touch on the air, making friends and sharing our thoughts all over the coverage area. This regular repeater contact with each other made for stronger friendships, and brought our disparate communities together in a spirit of cooperation and good will. Sadly, repeaters have fallen into disuse, and the social connections have withered away to a great extent.
I wonder; what would happen if we all made the effort to pick up the microphone, and reach out to each other today, and into the future? Would we find a renewed interest in local ham radio, and perhaps make a new ham radio friend or two? The only way to find out is to give it a try.
Why not fire up the radio today, and see who’s on the repeater? I’ll see you… on the air!
It is with sadness that the Quad-County Amateur Radio Club notes the passing of Douglas A. Rowles W3DWR, 72 of Morrisdale, PA on Friday, January 2, 2015 at UPMC-Shadyside in Pittsburgh, PA. Doug was currently serving the club as a member of the Executive Board, and was an a frequently serving officer of the club, having recently held office as Treasurer and President. Doug was also the Net manager, and a fixture at club activities including public service events, contests, dinners, banquets, breakfasts and meetings.Doug served as Facilities Coordinator for the annual Field Day event held every June.
Doug was an enthusiastic supporter of operation on the VHF and UHF bands, including repeaters, and simplex operations, as well as single sideband operations on Six and two meters. He was part of the “WIT Team” – a group of club members focused on VHF contesting led by Gary Boucher W3GNR, and with the group scored first place an numerous VHF contests through thhe early 1980s.
Doug is survived by his brother, Jeff KA3FHV who resided with Doug at their home in Morrisdale. Funeral arrangements are being provided by the Chidboy Funeral Home in Curwensville. Viewing will be on Tuesday, January 6, 2-4 pm and 6-8 pm, and on Wednesday, January 7 from 10-11 am, with services following.
 Our annual Christmas Dinner is Saturday, December 6th at 6 pm, at the Arrowhead Restaurant, Route 322, east of Clearfield.
Our menu will be the Italian buffet with dessert table and beverage, plus, just for us, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing. Cost will be $12.00 plus tax and tip.
 Mark your calendars for the weekend of October 12 and 13th. The Pensylvania QSO Party is “The Friendly Contest” and an on-the-air activity that is a lot of fun. Each year, you can represent your county as other hams try to work a “clean sweep” of all 67 counties, and our Quad Counties are some of the most sought-after!
Here's your chance to see how it feels to be a ham some place in the Western Pennsylvania Section that's important for a change! You can operate from your home (be sure to list Quad-County ARC as your club when you submit your log!), or we may get together at a central location and try to set an all-time record high score for one of our counties as a multi-operatior, multi-transmitter entry.
Even if contests aren’t your thing, you should give the PA QSO Party a shot anyway, since it’s more like an on-the-air “Old Home Week” reunion rather than a hard-core contest. Every year, you will find lots of former Pennsylvania hams who enjoy talking to us back in the old home state, and you’ll also run into a lot of old friends you haven’t talked to in years! You might even run into a ham down the street who you’ve never heard on the air before. You’ll never know just who you may run into unless you get on the air and join in the fun.
 Hi everybody
Since I was just sitting here, I thought that I could show you all what I found at the ham-fest in Butler last Sunday.
Well, lets go back to the beginning in this story. In 1978, I became interested in ham-radio satellites, so called OSCAR satellites. Way back then, the AMSAT OSCAR 7 was the satellite to work. It had an orbit that made it show up every 90 minutes, and covered Europe, northern Africa, and also the US East Coast. To work US East Coast stations, you had about 5 minutes before it went down under the horizon again, so you had to be quick!
Now to the more technical part, the radio you see here at the right, is an Icom 402, it was the state of the art in late 70’s if you wanted to do some SSB on 70cm. It has 3w out-put, and that is not very much, but then again, your average 2m FM radio had a high-power setting of 10w. I used an Icom 402 on the uplink, 435 Mhz LSB, and then the signal from the satellite came back on 145 Mhz USB. The 402 was hooked up to a 46 element J-beam, and the antenna for down-link was a simple 4 element yagi. Right at the 2m yagi, I had a low-noise preamp, to help my Kenwood TS-700 hear the weak signals coming back from the satellite. I would say, that I worked a few hundred stations via OSCAR satellites.
Now to complete this little story. At the hamfest, I paid $10 for this radio in close to mint condition! Needless to say, it made my day! Of course, there aren’t many 70 cm stations around Clearfield — much less SSB ones — but late last night before I went to bed, I went into my shack, and for some reason I tuned around the band and heard somebody! It was Joe W3BC, and he was operating from W3SO in Altoona, so that was my first QSO on my new “old” rig, Joe also gave me the frequencies for 2m and 6m, since what I stumbled into was the VHF contest, lucky them!
Hope this little essay was worth reading :)
PS: For all you who are interested, there is a 2m version of this radio and a 6m version, Icom 202 and Icom 502, there is also a fm 2m, Icom 215.
Lars
PS2: This is a 70cm Halo antenna I built for the radio, it’s horizontally polarized and it is Omni directional (same radiation all directions)
Update on Halo, just worked W3SO, Altoona, made op laugh! Will listen for other stations also….
We send our best wishes for a speedy and full recovery out to Doug Rowles W3DWR, the QCARC Treasurer.
Doug is recuperating from a heart procedure at Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh. He expects to be home early this week, and reports that everything went well. He expects a full recovery.
Please add your comment to this message with your get-well wishes for Doug.
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