PART I) Successful Field Day Events for Local Ham Clubs

Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society meets at 7:00 p. m. on the first Thursday of every month. Our primary meeting location is the conference room on the upper floor of the Publix on Ocala Road in Tallahassee. Talk-in on the AE4S repeater 146.655 (down .600, tone 94.8), or 146.520 simplex if you require entry into the building

FIELD DAY EDITION (PART I) Successful Field Day events for Local Ham Clubs

Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society

TARS Officers Elected at the Annual Meeting of the Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society

The 2005 – 2006 TARS Officers elected:

President: John Swindle - KI4EWB Vice President: Dan Moniz - KI4HGO Secretary: John Love - NZ4QJ Treasurer: Carlton W. Wells - AG4UT

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 1 TARS Meeting June 3, 2005

June 2nd 2005 TARS meeting called to order by Brian AI4AI at 7:30 p.m. at Publix Ocala road Tallahassee

Dan KI4IGO presented a slate of candidates for 2005-06as follows:

Pres.John KI4EWB V.P. Dan KI4IGO Sect. John NZ4QJ Tres. Carlton AG4UT

Slate was elected unamiously.

Congratulations to the new officers.

John AD4DO presented a program on message handling. John emphasized reading slowly, follow the ARRL format with,get a phone number if possible. 50/50 netted$16.00 Gene AI4KK presented plans for field day.

David KC4YZI presented a certificate to TARS for their help in the Tallahassee Airfest. Meeting adjourned at 9:30

Submitted John NZ4QJ

TARS Treasurer’s Report June 2005

Not Available at this time.

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 2 TARS Field Day

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society held their Field Day Exercise at historic Mission San Luis in Tallahassee. Gene Floyd AI4KK coordinated the Field Day weekend activities. Kent Hutchinson KC4TOC worked closely with the Park and provided PR. Carl NN5I brought two generators. The Red Cross provided a mobile office. The sheriff’s Department provided a mobile tower. Phil N4IPH, John NZ4QJ, Dan KI4HGO and Larry KI4JOJ constructed a couple of dipole antenna and got the GOTA station up and running. Ted W1XO helped hold down the CW station, there were very busy!! Brian AI4AI and Carlton AG4UT were busy ensuring everything was running smoothly. Breakfast was a real treat, Evelyn Williams provided Sunday Morning breakfast, take it from me, it was terrific. There were lots of hard working Hams present during the weekend; I know I have missed a lot of you, please forgive me, thanks for your efforts.

Committee Volunteers: Safety: Larry Workman, KI4JOJ Food: Bonnie Floyd, KI4JOL and Stefan Floyd, KI4JTA VE Testing: Allen Terrell, N4KGT EMCOMM Testing: Kimo, K4IMO and Brian Dunworth, AI4AI Electrical Power: Carl, NN5I Facilities and Public Affairs: Kent Hutchinson, KC4TOC Logistics/supply: Carlton Wells, AG4UT and Randy Pierce, AG4UU Sign Coordinator: Dan Moniz, KI4HGO

Band Captains: HF Phone: Ken Decoteau, KGFDXT HF CW: Ted Zateslo, W1XO SATcom: Randy Pierce, AG4UT GOTA Station: Phil Ashler, N4IPH

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 3 The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 4 BPL In Tallahassee -- An Update

As of June 6, the City of Tallahassee was finalizing engineering & contractual details with Apogee Telecom for an In-Building BPL deployment at the Campus Lodge Apartments located at Old Bainbridge Road & I-10. I'm not aware of any other BPL initiatives that the City may be pursuing, but have requested my contact there, Gary Brinkworth, to keep me advised of any & all BPL activities the City is involved with.

Mr. Brinkworth states that he will contact me once the build-out plan is complete to discuss the system design further. Its my intention to check this location as soon as possible to observe existing (baseline) noise before the BPL system is activated.

Note that any interference generated by "in-building" BPL is likely to be very localized as compared to "access" BPL, which uses overhead distribution lines. Therefore, any conclusions drawn from this deployment, while informative, may not be applicable to a conventional, wide-area deployment of BPL.

Please feel free check with me first on this important issue as I am maintaining close contact with the City.

73, Steve - AD4E [email protected]

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Testing Information:

The ARRL/VEC administered FCC Amateur Radio License Examinations are provided in Tallahassee the first Tuesday of EVEN numbered months (February, April, June, etc.) in the conference room located at 2631 Municipal Way at 7:00 p. m.

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 5 Hams work with Red Cross in Hurricane Zack

The Capital District Hams provided communications for the Capital District of the American Red Cross on May 21. The four hour exercise, starting at 9 a.m., simulated a category 3 storm blowing through the Big Bend area, leaving, as you might imagine, a scene of devastation. The problem play focused on what the Red Cross would do after the storm. Chris Floyd, the Director of Emergency Services for the 10 county area required all his chapters to rely almost exclusively on amateur radio to tell the Tallahassee headquarters what needs they had and what damage they saw. It was an extraordinarily busy time for all. Except for Taylor and Liberty counties, hams manned Red Cross facilities and passed traffic to all counties in the Big Bend. The TARS van was set up in a parking lot near the Red Cross headquarters and acted as the net control for the operation.

A lot was learned from this short exercise. We need to work on writing messages. Some were letters, rather than short, concise messages. . Some messages would have been better sent digitally. We need to develop that capability, and I am looking for hams who would like to try that mode of communications. We had some equipment and antenna problems that need to be looked at in the near future

If we had problems, and we did, we solved them by some remarkable ingenuity and a “never say die” attitude. I was very proud of our effort and was especially gratified by the number of newly licensed hams who showed up. We could not have done it without their help.

Unfortunately, I misplaced the list of hams who participated, and what follows are the ones that I recall. If your name is not on the list please accept my apology for not listing you. Jefferson County-KC7GHI, Russ; KI4JOO, Mary; Madison County, WD4ODB, Pat; KD4EKS, John; several others from Madison county; Wakulla County, KG4KLR, Brett; W4GJM, Greg; Leon County, KI4EWB, John, KI4HGO, Dan, KG4YZI, Dave, KG4YZE, Art; AG4UU, Randy; KI4EBD, Bill, KF4UPU, Dave; AI4KK, Gene; KA4EQZ, Wayne, W1ABT, Alan;AI4GF, Dave, KI4JOJ, Larry, KI4JOL, Bonnie, Stefan Floyd, KI4JOG, Bill; Gadsden, KG4LFT, Bill; WA4WES, Dave

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 6

News from our neighbors

Sportsman's Paradise Amateur Radio Club meetings are every 3rd Thursday of each month at the Wakulla County Emergency Management Facility (Sheriff’s Department) at 7:30pm.

Wednesday Night Net Meeting 2000 Hours 146.550 MHz Simplex

Thomasville Amateur Radio Club: will not meet in the month of July nor will there be any nets.

******************************************************* Net News:

Don’t forget these popular nets in the Tallahassee area:

2 METERS The Seven Hills Two Meter Side Band Net meets every Sunday night at 8:45pm. The frequency is: 144.208 USB Everyone is welcomed. 73’s John KG4GXT

Sparc Wednesday Night Net Meeting 2000 Hours 146.550 MHz Simplex

Thomasville Amateur Radio Club: suspended for July.

6 METERS The Big Bend Six Meter Net meets Wednesday evenings at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time or at the conclusion of the Sportsman's Paradise Amateur Radio Club Two Meter Simplex Net - - whichever is later. The Net meets on 50.150 MHz upper sideband. Use whatever antenna you have, but try to get around to using a horizontally polarized antenna. 73’s IVAN (K4SRB)

Other nets are listed on the K4TLH website. All the new ham radio operators are welcomed to use the repeaters and join in on the nets.

Dave Davis will be the presenter at the next TARS meeting on July 7th. He will cover everything you want to know about being prepared for this hurricane season.

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 7 TARS Officers President: John Swindle - KI4EWB Vice President: Dan Moniz KI4HGO Secretary: John Love - NZ4QJ Treasurer: Carlton W. Wells - AG4UT

TARS Committees Repeater Trustee #1: Randy Pierce AG4UU Repeater Trustee #2: Vacant Newsletter Editor: Dan Moniz KI4HGO Historian: Shawn Wilson AG4VE Equipment Manager: Carlton Wells AG4UT Education: Phil Ashler N4IPH Special Events: Carliane Johnson KG4CJT Webmaster: David A. Heupel WE4RA

Upcoming Events: TARS Meetings: Every first Thursday of the month at 7:00 p.m. EDT at Puvlix at Ocala Rd. Friday Lunch 11:30 a. m. EDT at Golden Coral on No. Monroe St. Capital District ARES Net: Every Sunday, 8:00 p. m. Eastern on the AE4S repeater 146.655). North Florida ARES Net: Every morning, except Sunday on 3950 KHz at 9:00 a. m. Eastern. The Seven hills two meter side band net meets every Sunday night at 8:45pm. on 144.208 USB The Big Bend Six Meter Net meets Wednesday evenings at 8:30 p.m. on 50.150 MHz Please submit upper sideband. your articles and announcements to the news- EDITORIAL POLICY letter by the th 20 of the month Submitted material received by the editor from dues paying members in good standing, on or before the 20th of the month will appear in the following month’s newsletter as space permits. Comments and/or suggestions to improve the newsletter are welcomed. The Printed Circuit is not representative of the views or opinions of the whole organization, and such views and opinions are of the individual author(s). Currently, the editor is Dan Moniz KI4HGO. Submissions for The Printed Circuit may be emailed to: [email protected]

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 8 Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005

FIELD DAY EDITION (PART II) Successful Field Day events for Local Ham Clubs

Sportsman Paradise Amateur Radio Club And Thomasville Amateur Radio Club

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 1 SPARC Field Day

Field Day is in the book for another year. I had a good time and so did many others. We had a good turn out and had a nice set up. The food was good and the comradery was even better. Paul, KJ4G, hosted a great PSK31 station masked as a motor home; Bill, KG4LFT, provided use with a diesel powered tower and generator that looked a great deal like a bucket truck along with a 12' X 20' tent which housed the food, lounge area and the live entertainment and a generous contribution for food that KD4SFW put to good use. Red Cross provided us with a tent for the SSB station and display area for our repeater demonstration conducted by Jerry, N4JL, and Judy, KD4SFW, did her usual outstanding job of keeping us fed and content. Richard, W1AAO, and his crew set up a great PSK31 station and Lois,W4MIT, put it to good use. John, AD4DO, did a fine job coordinating the entire effort which is something like herding cats and Brett, KG4KLR, was at his PR best putting Amateur Radio in the spot light where it should be when he was not manning the SSB station. The Wakulla County Sheriff's Department allowed us the use of their 100' tower and a generator which are crucial to our effort. Breakfast Sunday morning would have been something less than special without the help of Warner and Jeanette. Jeanette cooked some fine scrambled yard eggs, provided by Terry KG4YMC and his feathered assistances, and homemade biscuits which we had to cover up with some of Warners gravy. She also cooked some grits and Judy cooked sausage on the grill.

73 Ed KC4MHM

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 2 The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 3 TARC Field Day

The Thomasville Amateur Radio Club held its annual Field Day exercises at the American Legion Post 31 in Thomasville, which is different from preceding years. President Mike Brown KE4FGF said that the new site forced them to re-think their antenna set-ups as well as placement of the radio equipment. Bobby N4KXL and PRESIDENT Brown did interviews with WPAX . In addition several TV stations aired coverage of parts of the event.

It was a good turnout and a great time for all. Ivan K4SRB and Lawrence KC4LYC worked their magic with the field antennae and the HF rigs, allowing the operators an abundance of contacts for the weekend. Wynona KF4HSM and coordinated the food operations with Buddy WD4CJI manning the smoker, the food was absolutely incredible!!!!! The weather was stormy for a little while late Saturday, but that didn’t slow down the festivities or the contacts.

President Mike KE4FGF presented Walter KQ4SF with a trophy for his efforts in Ham Radio.

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 4

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 5 TARS Officers President: John Swindle - KI4EWB Vice President: Dan Moniz KI4HGO Secretary: John Love - NZ4QJ Treasurer: Carlton W. Wells - AG4UT

The Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society July 2005 6