RADIO SIGNALS WC4DC DEDICATED TO THE ART AND SCIENCE OF AMATEUR RADIO http://www.wc4dc.org Monitoring: 146.57, 145.01 (24/7) Repeaters: 147.375 + PL 146.2 White Bluff 442.225 + PL 123.0 White Bluff 145.330 – PL 114.8 Cumberland Furnace Issue 71 January 2017 Dickson, TN Editor NA4C Dickson County ARC Monthly Meetings Second Monday Each Month 7:00 p.m. at Dickson County EOC

Dickson County ARC Monthly Meeting Programs January Program DXpedition All programs subject to change The December and May meeting are replaced by picnics!

Volunteer Examination Schedule January 19th, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, CaVEc March 16th, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, CaVEc May 18th, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, CaVEc July 20th, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, CaVEc September 21st, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, CaVEc October 26th, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, ARRL The new location for the test sessions will be Colton’s Steak House & Grill, 2431 Highway 46 South in their private meeting room. Looking Out for Number One in a Disaster Area All of us who have had even minimal experience at the scene of any form of disaster, man-made or natural, know just how rapidly things can change in that environment. We have our "go bags" ready for what we believe we will need to get us through the situa- tion/deployment. But have we given any thought about what would happen if, during our deployment, something were to happen to us, both on a minor scale and a larger scale?

For the minor scale issues, I suggest what I call a personal comfort pack. This would in- clude items such as pain killers, cough drops, Antacid, lip balm, sun screen, any prescrip- tion drugs you may need, a few Band-Aids®, a few granola or power bars, and anything else you think may make your deployment a little easier and more comfortable for you, such as eye drops if you wear contact lenses. All of these items can fit into a small pouch: I use a nice weather proof camera case I found in a local thrift store! Many of the items listed can be found in small quantities in the travel section of some stores. These smaller versions are ideal for your kit. Of course your kit doesn't have to be small. If you want more comfort items than can fit into a small

The author's medical flash drive. (N8QQN photo) pouch you could always go bigger. Popular now in some sporting goods stores are the plastic military style "ammo cans." These would also be a good choice for your personal comfort kit. They are inexpensive, light weight and have a rubber gasket around the lid to give it some degree of water resistance. These "cans" can even hold a bottle of water if you wanted one. Now that you have taken care of the little things, what can you do to help yourself if something more serious happened to you during your deployment and you were unable to communicate? Most Emergency Medical Technicians are used to looking at a person's wrist or neck for a medic alert bracelet or necklace, so I got a very small brightly colored flash drive and labeled it on both sides, "Mike B. MEDICAL." Since there are laptops everywhere now, from mobile data terminals (MDT's) in the squad emergency transport vehicles to the desks in the trauma center, you can communi- cate a great deal of information without being conscious by having it readily available on the little flash drive. On mine, I have the following: Page one has my name, address, home phone and date of birth. It also lists the names and cell phone numbers of my wife and daughters. At the bottom, in red and in all caps, I have listed no allergies and my blood type. The next few pages list my personal medical history to include the type of medical incident (broken bones, surgeries, etc.) the attending physician's name, the date and location of treatment. After that I have a sheet with a copy of the labels of all prescription medications I am cur- rently on. This gives the hospital the type of medication, dose, and the name of the physi- cian who prescribed it. Next I have a page that has a copy of all my doctor's business cards, from my family doc- tor to a specialist, my dentist and even my optometrist. I provide this so that if a trauma center or ER doctor has a specific question, he/she can contact my doctor directly. Lastly

I provide a page of family medical history. Depending on what has happened to you, this information could be very important. You might say, well I have a card in my wallet with my spouse's contact information -- they can just call him/her and get the information needed, and you would be correct, they could. However, in some medical situations, time is of the essence and if they had any difficulty contacting your spouse, they are using up critical time. Conclusion: It takes very little effort to put together a personal comfort pack and personal medical information onto a flash drive. Do it for yourself and your family. -- Mike Burg, N8QQN, Emergency Medical Technician [Burg retired recently as Chief of Police. One of the first things he did after making Chief was to install a 2-meter radio and station in the department. Burg said, "Since the department is one of the three 9-1-1 centers in the county, we have a massive generator that runs the entire building in the event of a power outage. By putting the station there, my club was always able to get on the air."]v ARRL ARES-letter

Spammers reverting to old tactic to bom- bard your inbox By Francis Navarro, Komando.com Photo courtesy of Shutterstock Are you noticing more junk and spam email in your inbox lately? This may be why. Spammers are reportedly reverting back to an old technique to defeat anti-spam and anti-malware filters. The technique, called hailstorm spamming, is the use of a large number of IP addresses for sending out a high volume of spam email over a short span of time. It is in contrast with another spamming method dubbed Snowshoe, which uses multiple IP addresses to send out a low volume of spam emails over an extended amount of time. Both techniques attempt to override and evade email reputation or volume-based filters and their campaigns typically end before spam filters have the time to update. “Hailstorm spam attacks end just around the time the fastest traditional anti-spam de- fenses can update in response,” wrote Cisco Talos researchers in a recent security blog. The researchers also noted that unlike a snowshoe spam attack, whose maximum query rate is only 35 queries per hour, a hailstorm attack can spike up to over 75,000 queries in an instant, then drops back down to nothing.

A snowshoe attack (top) vs a hailstorm attack (bottom). Photo credit: Talos

Additionally, the Cisco Talos team analyzed 500 hailstorm campaigns and the spammers mainly advertised sponsored links or redirects to "As Seen On TV" products like bath- room remodeling and dietary supplements. They also warn that some of the hailstorm campaigns distributed malware as shown in the screenshot below:

The team wrote: “The message claims to be generated in response to a complaint filed with the United Kingdom’s Companies House and tries to lure the recipient into opening an attached word document. The From address of the message is [email protected] while the legitimate government agency has their web presence at compa- nieshouse.gov.uk. The attached Complaint.docS contains a macro that downloads and executes a Dyre/TheTrick Banking Trojan."

The source of the hailstorm spam is reportedly from IP addresses located all around the globe. The addresses with the most spam volume sent were from the U.S., Germany, Netherlands, Great Britain and Russia The most common domains were .top, .bid, .us, .win and .stream. And finally, as spammers try a variety of different tactics, like hailstorm and snowshoe spamming, to rapidly deploy and circumvent anti-spam filters, it is important for users to remember these vital tips:  Don't download unsolicited email attachments, especially from unknown sources.  Don't click on links in suspicious emails.  Install software security solutions like anti-virus and anti-spam on your computers.  Update and apply patches to your systems regularly.  Beware of pop-up ads on your web browser. What is Boxing Day?

Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated the day after Christmas Day. It originated in the United Kingdom, and is celebrated in a number of countries that previously belonged to the British Empire, including Canada. Boxing Day is on 26 December, although the attached bank holiday or public holiday may take place either on that day or a day later.

In the liturgical calendar of Western Christianity, Boxing Day is the second day of Christmastide,[1] and also St. Stephen's Day.[In some European countries, notably Germany, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, 26 December is celebrated as a Second Christmas Day.

There are competing theories for the origins of the term, none of which is definitive. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the earliest attestations from Britain in the 1830s, defining it as "the first week-day after Christmas-day, observed as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas-box".

The term "Christmas-box" dates back to the 17th century, and among other things meant:

A present or gratuity given at Christmas: in Great Britain, usually confined to gratuities given to those who are supposed to have a vague claim upon the donor for services rendered to him as one of the general public by whom they are employed and paid, or as a customer of their legal employer; the undefined theory being that as they have done offices for this person, for which he has not directly paid them, some direct acknowledgement is becoming at Christmas.[

In Britain, it was a custom for tradespeople to collect "Christmas boxes" of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the

year This is mentioned in Samuel Pepys' diary entry for 19 December 1663. This custom is linked to an older British tradition: since they would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day to visit their families. The employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts, bonuses and sometimes leftover food.

The European tradition, which has long included giving money and other gifts to those who were needy and in service positions, has been dated to the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown. It is believed to be in reference to the Alms Box placed in areas of worship to collect donations to the poor. Also, it may come from a custom in the late Roman/early Christian era, wherein metal boxes placed outside churches were used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen, which in the Western Church falls on the same day as Boxing Day.

Date

Boxing Day is a secular holiday that is traditionally celebrated on 26 December, the day after Christmas. 26 December is also St. Stephen's Day, a religious holiday.[10][11][12] When 26 December falls on the weekend (Saturday or Sunday), the Boxing Day public holiday is moved to the following day (27 December). In the UK, Boxing Day is a bank holiday. On the occasions when Christmas Day is on a Saturday or a Sunday, the following Monday is Boxing Day and Tuesday the substitute bank holiday for Christmas Day.

In Scotland, Boxing Day has been specified as an additional bank holiday since 1974,[by Royal Proclamation under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971.[14]

In Ireland – when the island as a whole was part of the United Kingdom – the Bank Holidays Act 1871 established the feast day of St. Stephen as a non-movable public holiday on 26 December. Following partition in 1920, Northern Ireland reverted to the British name, Boxing Day.

In Australia, Boxing Day is a federal public holiday. The Australian state of South Australia instead observes a public holiday known as Proclamation Day on the first weekday after Christmas Day or the Christmas Day holiday.

In New Zealand, Boxing Day is a statutory holiday; penalty rates and lieu time are provided to employees who work on Boxing Day.

In Canada, Boxing Day is a federal statutory holiday. Government offices, banks and post offices/delivery are closed. In some Canadian provinces, Boxing Day is a statutory holiday[16] that is always celebrated on 26 December. In Canadian provinces where Boxing Day was a statutory holiday, and it falls on a Saturday or Sunday, compensation days are given in the following week.

In the United States, 26 December is given as a holiday to state employees in some, mainly southern, states: Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas but it is not known as Boxing Day. On 5 December 1996, Massachusetts Gov. William F.

Weld declared 26 December as Boxing Day in Massachusetts, in response to the efforts of a local coalition of British citizens to "transport the English tradition to the United States", but not as an employee holiday.

In Nigeria, 26 December is a public holiday for working people or students. When it falls on Saturday or Sunday, there is always a holiday on Monday.

Shopping (retail therapy!)

In the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday, much like Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) in the United States. Boxing Day sales are common in Canada. It is a time when shops hold sales often with dramatic price reductions. For many merchants, Boxing Day has become the day of the year with the greatest revenue. In the UK in 2009 it was estimated that up to 12 million shoppers appeared at the sales (a rise of almost 20% compared to 2008, although this was also affected by the fact that the VAT was about to revert to 17.5% from 1 January, following the temporary reduction to 15%.]

Many retailers open very early (typically 5 am or even earlier) and offer doorbuster deals and loss leaders to draw people to their stores. It is not uncommon for long queues to form early in the morning of 26 December, hours before the opening of shops holding the big sales, especially at big-box consumer electronics retailers Many stores have a limited quantity of big draw or deeply discounted items. Because of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, many choose to stay at home and avoid the hectic shopping experience. The local media often cover the event, mentioning how early the shoppers began queuing up, and showing video of shoppers queuing and later leaving with their purchased items. Many retailers have implemented practices aimed at managing large numbers of shoppers. They may limit entrances, restrict the number of patrons in a store at a time, provide tickets to people at the head of the queue to guarantee them a hot ticket item or canvass queued-up shoppers to inform them of inventory limitations.

In recent years, retailers have expanded deals to "Boxing Week". While Boxing Day is 26 December, many retailers will run the sales for several days before or after 26 December, often up to New Year's Eve. Notably, in the recession of late 2008, a record number of retailers were holding early promotions due to a weak economy. Canada's Boxing Day has often been compared with the American Super Saturday (the Saturday before Christmas) and Black Friday. From 2009 onward Black Friday deals become more prominent among Canadian retailers to discourage shoppers from crossing the border to the USA when the Canadian and USA dollars was close to parity, and this has lessened the appeal of Boxing Day in Canada somewhat as it was overtaken by Black Friday in terms of sales in 2013 Boxing Day is not and has never been a shopping holiday in the USA.

In some areas of Canada, particularly in Atlantic Canada and parts of Northern Ontario, most retailers are prohibited from opening on Boxing Day, either by provincial law or by municipal bylaw, or instead by informal agreement among major retailers to provide a day of relaxation following Christmas Day. In these areas, sales otherwise scheduled for 26 December are moved to the 27th The city council of Greater Sudbury, Ontario, which was the largest city in Canada to maintain this restriction as of the early 2010s, formally

repealed its store hours bylaw on 9 December 2014.

In 2009, many retailers with both online and High Street stores launched their online sales on Christmas Eve and their High Street sales on Boxing Day.

Sports

In the United Kingdom, it is traditional for both top-tier football leagues in , Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the lower ones, as well as the rugby leagues, to hold a full programme of football and rugby union matches on Boxing Day. Originally, matches on Boxing Day were played against local rivals to avoid teams and their fans having to travel a long distance to an away game on the day after Christmas Day. Prior to the formation of leagues, a number of rugby fixtures took place on Boxing Day each year, notably Llanelli v London Welsh and Leicester v The Barbarians.

In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, Test cricket matches are played on Boxing Day: for more details see Boxing Day Test.

In Australia, the first day of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne and the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race are on Boxing Day.

In , there is the King George VI Chase at in Surrey, England. It is the second most prestigious chase in Britain, after the . In addition to the prestigious race at Kempton, in Britain it is usually the day with the highest number of racing meetings of the year, with eight in 2016, in addition to three more in Ireland.[

Boxing Day is one of the main days in the hunting calendar for hunts in the UK and US, with most hunts (both mounted foxhound or harrier packs and foot packs of beagles or bassets) holding meets, often in town or village centres.

Several ice hockey contests are associated with the day. The IIHF World U20 Championship typically begins on 26 December, while the Spengler Cup also begins on 26 December in Davos, Switzerland; the Spengler Cup competition includes HC Davos, Team Canada, and other top European Hockey teams. The National Hockey League traditionally had close to a full slate of games (10 were played in 2011), following the league-wide days off given for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. However, the 2013 collective bargaining agreement (which followed a lock-out) extended the league mandate of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off to include Boxing Day, except when it falls on a Saturday, in which case the league can choose to make 23 December a league- wide off day instead for that year.[41] In some African Commonwealth nations, particularly Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania, prize fighting contests are held on Boxing Day. This practice has also been followed for decades in Guyana and Italy

A notable tradition in Sweden is Annandagsbandy, which formerly marked the start of the bandy season and always draws large crowds. Games traditionally begin at 1:15 pm.

145.250 (-) offset. No PL Tone. John K4IYN

Do like spam? No I am not referring to the canned meat. I am referring to the email(s) that may end up in your SPAM or trash folder each day! Eleven times out of ten the spam is unsolicited mail. Many times, it is phishing or in other words looking to get in- formation, especially personal information, pass words, account number of your bank, credit or debit card. There are always a few things you can do to protect yourself. Never click on a link on email, unless you know who it is from, but them be very careful. Some one may have had their email account taken over by some low lifes. One little tactic I like to use is the very first line in my address book is [email protected]. Many times this will work. Also look at who it is from, the name may be very familiar but the email address may be completely wrong. If I am not familiar with a person or email address it is al- ways very easy to delete.

If you would like to help stop spam, if this is possible, or at least reduce it forward all spam type email to [email protected] This is section of the FTC that looks at each email forwarded. You may never know the results but maybe just maybe spam will be reduced but it will never be eliminated.

If you have any hints or suggestions for spam control or internet security, please send them to me and they will be included in future newsletters. You never when your idea may same someone a lot of grief! DE NA4C