THE LOCAL OSCILLATOR - May 2004 NOTE: An HTML version is available at www.mvrc.qzxservices.com. A pdf file of the web edition is available at www.mvrc.qzxservices.com/pdf/LO0405.pdf. It will be easy to print that edition. If you do not have the free pdf reader you can get it at www.adobe.com TABLE OF CONTENTS COMING EVENTS BEANFEED FIELD DAY 2004 RUN OLD MESILLA SOCIAL 2004 TRIATHLON EVENT SET ARRL SECTION NEWS FCC PROPOSES CHANGES BACK PAGE COMING EVENTS Week days 6 m FM net 52.540 6:00AM Mon WTRA Swap net 146.88 8 PM Wed Net 146.64 6:45PM round-table 52.525MHz 8 PM Weekdays Informal get together Mon Wed Fri Munson Center 10AM Tue Thur Wal-Mart E April 24 Spring Tailgate in Albuquerque. Apr 25 Bean Feed Elmer Session May 1 Breakfest 8 AM Club House May 1 Business meeting 9:15AM Club House May 10 Social Meeting (2nd Mon) 6 PM Golden Corral May 12 1st Wed after 2nd Mon Directors at Club House 7:00PM May 7 - 9 Extra Class Club House June 26, 27 Field Day BEANFEED APRIL 25 Tailgating will start officially at 8:00 am (but unofficially when ever the first two of you arrive). We've added three racks of equipment from a TVRO Satellite Earth Station. FIELD DAY 2004 W5TLU Field Day has been with Amateur Radio since 1933. Many of us remember from our youth the fun and camaraderie that accompanied this 24-hour operation. In case you haven't kept up, Field Day is still fun, and it has expanded to include newer aspects of our hobby such as PSK31. Among other things, a good Field Day event provides: A fun time for participants A good opportunity to enhance emergency communications skills Exposure to the community Enticement for others, especially youth, to join our hobby One of the newer and growing aspects of Field Day is Get On The Air (GOTA) stations. These are event stations operated by visitors who have never worked a Field Day or who haven't operated in a long time. Even unlicensed people can operate under the supervision of a licensed operator. Last year Dave Hassall, WA5DJJ, did a yeoman's job of organizing an event on the campus at NMSU. This venue provided some nice advantages in terms of accessibility and public exposure. Not only did the event go well but they also made a good showing in the ARRL point standings. Dave's schedule is such that he cannot head up a 2004 effort. However several other club members have agreed to organize a Field Day effort this year. We plan to build on what Dave did last year and follow some of his suggestions for improvements this year. The basics of our plan so far include: – Use the same field at NMSU as last year's event if possible – Operate either class 2A or 3A (2 or 3 is number of HF transmitters operating simultaneously and A is 3 or more participants). – Use <150-Watt rigs running on generator power – Include a VHF station, a GOTA station and if possible a PSK31 station – Run 24 hours by recruiting operators for 2-hour shifts – Possibly a BBQ Saturday evening if sufficient interest We are hoping to get a large participation of club members and would like for it to be a club-sanctioned event using our club call sign. Our Board of Directors is recommending that we do this. Toward that end we will ask the club at our next meeting, May 1, to endorse and support this effort. Please think about what this can do for our club, the fun you can have doing it, and come prepared to discuss and hopefully support this as a club activity. Bob - AD5LJ, Billy - KD5UZJ, Cash - KD5SSJ, Charlie - W5TLU RUN OLD MESILLA KJ5Q The Run Old Mesilla race was held on Saturday, April 3 with 129 participants. The race was completed successfully without any major incidents. Don Shepan, KB5VLH was the race coordinator. There was minimum support from the police department because of several other events at the same time. The Mesilla fire department manned a truck and gave us the frequencies to reach them. Thank goodness we really didn’t have to call on them because the race ran smoothly with no injuries. A big thank you to everyone who worked – KD5OHA George, N5PK Jack and grandson KE5ALP Trey, KB5TPV Dennis, W0SWK Dorothy, WK5C John B., KD5SSA Sid, KC7VHS Perry, W5UMQ Bill, WK5I Rodney, N5WQ John H., WA5DJJ Dave, and KC5SKE Brad who was the tailgunner on a bicycle.. SOCIAL KC4MRM Those attending the second Monday night MVRC social voted that it is time for a change. Therefore the May 10, 2004, second Monday night MVRC social will be at Golden Corral at 1800 hours. 2004 TRIATHLON EVENT K5DI As every year in April the Mesilla Valley Track Club hosts a Triathlon event where each person needs to run 5000 meters, run to their bicycle and do a 25 KM bike ride, put the bike back and grab some goggles and run to the pool where they swim 500 meters. This year I had one person from Mexico and another from El Paso tell me they love to run in Las Cruces where the people are so kind and good. It is true we are a lot better than the groups they are used to. There were 10 Hams in our crew who also are kind and good. As usual nothing bad happened but 2 bikers left their bikes airborne and got some scrapes and bruises. One cute and very pretty girl had a flat tire. It took a guy from the Medical group and Dennis Shepan KB5TPV some time to change the tube and blow the new tire up. Sandra Hempling KJ5Q was at the corner where the bikers had to leave Cholla and enter Sam Steal roads. One biker failed to turn and Sandra chased him down and explained. He said shucks, I was doing real good too! He finished the race. In my opinion we had too many Hams. You really only need 8 to cover this event. But we made do and had Jack Lemons, N5PK and John and Sandra Hempling, N5WQ and KJ5Q, Bob Bennett, AD5LJ, Dennis Shepan KB5TPV, George Kopp, KD5OHA, Tim Linn, KD5SSF, Rodney Davis, WK5I, Charlie Mabry, K9AQH and Karl Larsen, K5DI. This is a difficult event for Don Chepan and his wife to put on. But there were 160 people doing the event from all over so it needs to happen. SET ? Great job by all, Thanks to Jim, WA2NIJ's guiding hand. I consider this exercise to have been a great success because all of you expressed a team spirit. At the Dona Ana EOC, the HF frequencies 7.233 and 3.939 were totally useless from the location centered in uptown Las Cruces. There was a minimum signal noise level of "S-7" with peaks of "S-9" on 40 m. On 80, that noise was well above "S-9+10". (Seemed to be computer generated?" N5BL, the clubhouse was activated as a secondary location, and was manned by WK5C, KD5SSF, and KD5SSJ where traffic was relayed between the Las Cruces Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and all other points throughout the state of NM, including Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Lincoln Cty. A total of 4 messages were generated from the EOC. 2 were priority messages from the Salvation Army about their personnel. One was a routine message about the personnel dispatched from Las Cruces to Santa Fe as relief personnel (Fictitious to simulate added communicators for relief work up state) and one Health and Welfare. All were delivered in a timely manor, and all receipt confirmations received and logged. We had the following personnel activated; KD5SSF at N5BL WK5C at N5BL KD5SSF at N5BL WM5Z at DAC-EOC KD5ZGY at DAC-EOC WA2NIJ at DAC-EOC WA8FBN as standby operator KC5EVR as standby operator N5IAC as standby operator KD5UZF as standby operator KC5KWI as standby operator There were several others that were available if needed and could have been activated via Land Line. The biggest critique problem I saw was the lack of HF capabilities from the EOC at Dona Ana. There are radios there, but the noise made that equipment non-functional. Also, no return on the Health and Welfare message (#4) sent to B.C.EOC. Believe problem was dyslexia somewhere on my call sign, which made delivery not happen. All in all, I think the exercise was a success from our location due to the hard work of all of you. ARRL SECTION NEWS KM5FT The annual Spring Tailgate in Albuquerque is coming up Saturday, April 24. It will be at the Del Norte High School North parking lot, where the Winter Tailgate was held. The next day, Sunday, April 25, is the Bean Feed in Las Cruces. These are both great events, so check them out. Now that Spring is here, why not volunteer for some of the public service events coming up? Contact Ed Ricco, N5LI, to see where your talents can be best used. It's not too early to start planning for Field Day, June 26 and 27. Contact your local club and join the Field Day fun. You might even enjoy it! Registration for the next Level III Emergency Communications on-line course (EC-003) opens Monday, April 19, at 12:01 A.M., Eastern Daylight Time (0401 UTC). Registration remains open through the April 24-25 weekend or until all available seats have been filled -- whichever comes first. Class begins Tuesday, May 4. Approximately 50 seats are being offered to ARRL members on a first-come, first-served basis. Thanks to a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service and United Technologies Corporation, the $45 registration fee paid upon enrollment will be reimbursed after successful completion of the course. To learn more, visit the ARRL Certification and Continuing Education (C-CE) web page and the links found there. For more information, contact Emergency Communications Course Manager Dan Miller, K3UFG, (860) 594-0340. If you're in the Deming area on Thursday nights, check into their net. It's on the 146.820 repeater at 7:30 p.m. And, if you've got Six Meter gear, check out the Sunday night nets around Albuquerque. One is on FM simplex on 52.02 at 7:30 p.m., and one is on SSB on 50.150 USB at 8:00 p.m. Lots of great newsletters from around the state: Totah ARC; The Communicator; QRL?; HDARC; Que Pasa DX; Valencia County ARA; Albuquerque Amateur Radio Club. Somebody is putting a lot of effort into these and it shows. Thank you and keep up the good work. We welcome the High Desert Amateur Radio Club as an ARRL affiliated club. They're new and if you live on the West side of Albuquerque, or in Rio Rancho, give their president, Frank Warren, AB5WJ, a call. They meet the first Saturday of the month, 2:00 P.M., at Fire Station 1 on Southern in Rio Rancho. We mourn the loss of Jaime Smith, W2AWD, Scott Van Omen, KC5RUS, and Leo Bressen, WD5HCB, and extend our condolences to their families. FCC PROPOSES CHANGES ARRL The FCC has released an "omnibus" Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) that seeks comments on a wide range of proposed Amateur Service (Part 97) rule changes. The FCC also denied several petitions for rule making aimed at altering portions of the Amateur Radio regulatory landscape and ordered minor changes in Part 97. The NPRM is a result of a dozen petitions for rule making, all filed more than a year ago and some as long ago as 2001. Comments on the proposals put forth in WT Docket 04-140 are due by Tuesday, June 15, with reply comments by Wednesday, June 30. Among other changes, the FCC has recommended adopting the ARRL's "Novice refarming" plan, which can be seen on the web at, http://www.arrl.org/announce/regulatory/refarm/. "Because the ARRL petition addresses the operating privileges of all classes of licensees on these Amateur Service bands, we believe that the ARRL petition provides a basis for a comprehensive restructuring of operating privileges," the FCC said. The ARRL referenced its Novice refarming proposal in its recent Petition for Rule Making, RM-10867, which, along with three other petitions remains open for comment until April 23. The FCC also has proposed essentially eliminating its rules prohibiting manufacture or marketing of Amateur Radio Service power amplifiers capable of operating between 24 and 35 MHz. The current rules "impose unnecessary restrictions on manufacturers of Amateur Radio equipment and are inconsistent with the experimental nature of the Amateur Service," the FCC said. The FCC proposed amending Section 97.201(b) of the rules to permit auxiliary operation on 2 meters above 144.5 MHz, with the exception of the satellite subband 145.8 to 146.0 MHz, in addition to frequency segments already authorized. The FCC proposed extending the bands available for spread spectrum experimentation and use to include 222-225 MHz as well as 6 and 2 meters. Current rules limit SS emissions to frequencies above 420 MHz. Among other things, the FCC also proposed to prohibit acceptance of more than one application per applicant per vanity call sign; permit retransmission of communications between a manned spacecraft and its associated Earth stations, including the International Space Station; allow current amateurs to designate a specific Amateur Radio club to acquire their call sign in memoriam; eliminate Section 97.509(a) of the rules, which requires a public announcement of volunteer examiner test locations and times; and add to Section 97.505(a) to provide Element 1 (5 WPM Morse) credit to any applicant holding a Technician license granted after February 14, 1991, and who can document having passed a telegraphy examination element. The Commission ordered some changes in Part 97 without requesting comment. It ordered, among others, the revision of the definition of an "amateur operator" in Section 97.3(a)(1) to reflect that entry in the FCC Universal Licensing System (ULS), not a license document, determines whether a person is an Amateur Radio operator. The FCC adopted a technical change to specify that the mean power of any spurious emission from a new amateur station transmitter or amplifier operating below 30 MHz be at least 43 dB below the mean power of the fundamental emission. Among other petitions, the FCC turned down a proposal to establish distinct CW and phone segments in the 160-meter band. Also denied were petitions that would have imposed restrictions on the time, length or transmission frequencies of bulletins or informational transmissions directed at the amateur community and a request to add to the special event call sign system certain call sign blocks designating territories and possessions that lack mailing addresses. The FCC Notice of Proposed Rule Making, on the web at, http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-79A1.doc, in WT Docket 04-140, is available on the FCC Web site. As soon as the document has been posted, comments on the NPRM may be filed via the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System at, http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/. Click on "Submit a filing." To view filed comments, click on "Search for filed comments." In either case enter the NPRM number in the "Proceeding" field as "04-140" (without the quotation marks). BACK PAGE The newsletter is always looking for articles and notes of interest to the members of the Mesilla Valley Radio Club. Please send them to Alex. F. Burr, K5XY, Editor, MVRC Local Oscillator, 695 Stone Canyon Drive, Las Cruces, NM 88011. Small personal ads from members will also be published. It would be helpful if submissions would be made in a machine readable form. MSDOS disks are welcome. Files can also be sent to the Internet address aburr@aol.com. The club has a web site maintained by WA2NIJ at http://www.zianet.com/mvrc. OFFICERS Pres Tim Linn KD5SSF 521-0486 kd5ssf@arrl.net VPr Bob Deal KD5PPP bob-verna@zianet.com Sec Carleton Talbot KC5MRM (915)877-3538 kc5mrm@zianet.com Tres Charlie Welch W5TLU 524-3412 cwwelch@usa.net Board Communications Karl Larsen K5DI 524-3303 k5di@zianet.com Education Joe San Filippo WZ5R 521-7574 sanfilippo@zianet.com Special Events Cash Olsen KD5SSJ 382-1917 KD5SSJ@zianet.com Newsletter Alex Burr K5XY 522-2528 k5xy@arrl.net Repeaters Brad Sacca KD5SKE 382-4380 sheikyerbouty@msn.com Facilities Bob Bennett AD5LJ 382-0148 rbennett@zianet.com JOIN THE CLUB To join the Mesilla Valley Radio Club, renew your membership, or to support the repeaters, please complete the form below and send it with dues ($25 single, $35 family per year) to: Treasurer, MVRC, Box 1443, Las Cruces, NM 88004. Name: Address: Call: Class of License: Phone: E-Mail Address: ARRL Member? Yes? No?