Polls

Should QCARC continue giving VE Exams before club meetings in even months?

  • Yes, but occasionally on other days and times (67%, 2 Votes)
  • Yes (33%, 1 Votes)
  • No (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Yes, with more months (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Yes, but fewer months (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 3

Loading ... Loading ...

QCARC WX

What's Happening

open all | close all

Internet Condx

Who's Online

5 visitors online now
1 guests, 4 bots, 0 members

QCARC Meetings

The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club meets on the third Tuesday of the month,  at the Penn State DuBois Campus in the Smeal Building Conference Room. The VE exams are scheduled on even months.

Set your GPS to  ” 1 College Place, DuBois, PA  15801 ” .

This meeting is open to the public.   Face masks are NOT required.  Members and non members alike are welcome.

Share

QCARC Meeting

The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club will meet at 7:00 pm at the Penn State DuBois Campus in the Smeal Building Conference Room. Set your GPS to 1 College Place, DuBois, PA 15801, or use the maps to find your way.

Share

Special June Meeting – “New Ham Radio Operator Event”

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

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

Share

Quad-County ARC Turns 40!

QCARC Logo TPHAPPY BIRTHDAY QCARC! On April 18, 1975, a group of about 30 local hams gathered at the DuBois High School for the first meeting of what would become The Quad-County Amateur Radio Club. From that auspicious beginning, the club grew in membership and activity. The members of the new club took part in Field Day that very first year from a hilltop in Clear Run. Later, the club placed the WR3AGV repeater at that location, coordinated on 146.13/73 MHz.

Traditions that continue to this day are monthly meetings at 7:30 pm on the third Friday of each month, Club Banquets, Field Day, and a number of Public Service activities, involving multiple served agencies, such as DuBois and Sandy Township Police Departments, the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, and local schools. Club Founder, Joe Shupienis W3BC (then WA3IHK) conducted dozens of licensing and upgrade classes that continue to this day, in DuBois, Clearfield, St. Marys, Ridgway, Kersey, Punxsutawney and Reynoldsville.

In the 1970s, the club held meetings in several communities throughout the Quad-County Area, such as Sinnemahoning, Punxsutawney and Reynoldsville, but found that it was more convenient for everyone to keep the meetings in the more centrally-located DuBois area. In 1991, meetings moved to Clearfield at the County offices, and over the next couple decades the membership, meeting participation and activities declined, as the club became “the Clearfield Club.” New clubs formed in Jefferson, Cameron and Elk counties in reaction to the long travel distances the move created.DSC_0581

In 2011, the club decided to conduct Field Day operations in a location accessible to the general Public, and moved operations from a small, crowded room in the Clearfield County Emergency Operations Center to a public pavilion at the Clearfield County Fairgrounds. In November, the Club held its final meeting at the EOC, and once again began holding meetings in DuBois. Currently, we hold our monthly meetings at the Penn State DuBois Campus, which provides plenty of free parking, handicapped accessibility, and outside space for experimenting with antennas and hidden transmitter hunting before the meetings.

Don KB3LES shows us how happy he was to find the fox!

Don KB3LES shows us how happy he was to find the fox!

Share

Tonight’s Meeting at DuBois Eat’n Park

February 20, 2015 –

Tonight’s meeting has been moved to the DuBois Eat’n Park Restaurant. The Penn State DuBois Campus is closed due to weather, so the meeting will be held at the DuBois Eat’n Park Restaurant at 7:30.

Those wishing to eat before the meeting are asked to join us at 6:30 in the back part of the restaurant where the meeting will be held. Eat at 6:30. Meeting at 7:30.

Share

NIMS Training at Meeting

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

Share

2012 Annual Report

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

Share

Shootout at the Range!


Antenna range, that is… The Quad-County ARC held its first-ever antenna shootout preceding the July meeting. Using a low-power transmitter located almost 1/4 mile away, the group of antenna experimenters set up a monitoring position in a large parking lot adjacent to the meeting room on the Penn State DuBois Campus and took signal strength measurements of various 2-meter antennas that they brought for the occasion. The winner was a homebrew contraption made by Lars SM7FYW/KB3WBT.

Larry KB3YJH placed his home-made groundplane atop the test mast and the measured signal strength was good enough to take second place. Lars and Don KB3LES each tested several antennas and found the truth about directivity and gain.

After the meeting Joe W3BC presented a program on computer modeling of antennas. The highlight of the presentation was to input the dimensions of Lars’ blue ribbon winner, and see if it was supposed to work in theory. The answer was surprisingly close to the pattern measured on the test range, with deep side nulls predicted just like those measured on the range, and a fairly large lobe off the back of the antenna, again in accordance with the actual measurements.

It was so much fun, that another shootout is planned for 6:30 August 17th, before the meeting at 7:30. This second shootout will also be for UHF antennas.

Don KB3LES will be bringing his secret weapon, which looks like something from NASA… You’ll have to be there to catch all the fun!!!

Share

QCARC Spring Banquet

It’s that time of year again—time to put on the old feedbag and spend a night out with your ham radio friends! We will meet in the upstairs Banquet Hall of the DuBois Diner at 6:00 pm on Saturday, May 5. Plenty of free parking in the back of the diner, and you can take the elevator or climb the stairs.

Our guest speaker is Mike Sapp, WA3TTS, a technical writer from Pittsburgh, who will fill us in on his recent work with Amateur Radio beacons, including his world-famous 6-meter beacon on the old KDKA-TV antenna.

The menu is a buffet, featuring Stuffed Chicken Breast and Beef Pot Roast with potatoes and carrots, salad and beverage for $13.99 per person, plus tax and an 18% gratuity. It works out to $17.50 per person.

The main door prize will be a brand-new Baofeng UV-5R dual-band portable transceiver.

Plan on attending one of the best ham radio social activities in the area. We hope to see you there!

Please make a reservation by sending an email to banquet@qcarc.org, or on the air during a net!
(Or fill out the convenient form below and hit the [Submit] button.

Share

Fox Hunt at Penn State DuBois

We finally stopped talking about it and just did it! Before the April meeting, several members tried their hand at finding W3BC’s hidden UV-3R somewhere on the Penn State DuBois campus. Lars KB3WBT brought his DF tape-measure antenna, and Don KB3LES brought one of his home-built log-periodic antennas with his UV-3R for a receiver.

Ed and Don close in on the fox, as passing drivers gape in wonder...

Stomping around the campus with antennas, the hidden transmitter turned out to be harder to find than expected. Lars reported the signal level picked up INSIDE the Swift building, and Don couldn’t get a good direction as he got closer to the fox.

The “winner” of the first heat was… Ed KB3VWX, who found it without using either a radio or antenna! We’ll have to call him “Eagle Eyes” from now on! Don took some time to introduce Bev W3BEV to the art of foxhunting before heading out to find the fox.

The first to find the fox using proper radio and antenna technique was Don KB3LES. After finding it, he got to silence it, and hide it in a second location. That second location was even harder than the first, utilizing a brick wall, a large flower pot, a metal trash can and a pile of leaves to hide out from the DF antennas. Lars was zeroing in on it when time ran out. Ed “Eagle Eyes” KB3VWX retrieved the radio and we all went inside for the meeting.

Reports were all positive, and some areas for improvement were discussed, notably signal attenuation when close to the fox. Others remarked that passing drivers gave us some astonished looks as we marched around campus with “space antennas!”

Everyone thought it was a lot of fun, and we look forward to perfecting our setups to do it again next month.

Share

April Meeting – LOCATION UPDATE!

Due to the Penn State Du Bois Convocation ceremonies this evening, we have been moved across campus to the meeting room of the Smeal Building. The Foxhunt is still scheduled for 6:30pm, rain or shine.

The Smeal Building is on the corner of DuBois Avenue (“Beeline Highway”) and College Place, near where the Mansion Building used to be. Parking is available in the parking lot adjacent to the Smeal Building, or on the street going toward the top of the WPA stairway at the end of Liberty Boulevard.

TONIGHT ONLY: DIFFERENT MEETING ROOM!

Share

February Meeting – NEW LOCATION!

Our February meeting will be held on Friday, February 17 at 7:30 pm in the Hiller Building Quiet Lounge on the Penn State DuBois Campus. There is plenty of free parking, within a few feet of the meeting location. Please see the map for details. Talk-in will be on the 147.315 repeater.

On the Program

We welcome Trooper Bruce Morris, Public Information Oficer, Troop C, Pennsylvania State Police, and a representative of the DuBois City Police Department. Trooper Morris will present a program on the Crimestoppers and Crimewatch programs, and will also discuss Burglary Prevention.

[google-map-v3 width=”500″ height=”500″ zoom=”17″ maptype=”HYBRID” mapalign=”center” addmarkerlist=”41.12768, -78.75105{}wifi.png” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”true” bubbleautopan=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]

Share