Thank You Letter to WGFA Radio

Dear Club Members,

I wanted to let you know that I am mailing an appreciation letter out to Maggie Martin at WGFA today.

Michael Marcier
President
Iroquois County Amateur Radio Club

July 14, 2009

Maggie Martin
Iroquois County Broadcasting Company

Dear Maggie,

It is with many heartfelt thanks that I pass on the appreciation of the Iroquois County Amateur Radio Club to you and your staff at WGFA Radio.  Your provision of facilities and tower for our repeater, tent for our “Field Day” and WGFA air time in support of our service to the people of Iroquois County and the surrounding region has been a tremendous help to us.

Amateur Radio as you know assists in many communities all over the world to provide emergency communications and support to emergency operations as disasters have come upon our nation.  Our Skywarn storm spotters provide on location eyes to the National Weather Service and report current severe weather activity.

Some of the real impact that many people do not see is our involvement in the lives of people.  Our club has partnered with Glenn Raymond School in the formation of a school based Amateur Radio station.  Through the school’s Science Club and it’s sponsors, Troy Simpson and Paul Wilson, whom have attained an Amateur Radio license themselves, several young people have received their radio licenses and others are in the process of attaining theirs also.  As I and many others of our community can attest, the lives of young people can be greatly impacted by their involvement in Amateur Radio. Many young people’s lives have started down the road of successful careers in communications and electronics technologies due to our club here in Watseka.

So again we want to express our thanks for all your support this year – you are a real blessing to us all!

Sincerely,

Mike Marcier
President
Iroquois County Amateur Radio Club

W9GRS School Roundup Results

The results from the 2009 School Club Round-Up are posted at the ARRL website.

http://www.arrl.org/scr

W9GRS took 4th place out of 10 schools in the Middle School Division in the Feb. 2009 competition. We faired quite well overall also. Can’t wait until October!

73!

-Troy
W9KVR

Radio Hams from Iroquois County join in National Deployment

Public Demo of Emergency Communications June 27 – 28

Iroquois County “hams” will join with thousands of Amateur Radio operators who will be showing off their emergency capabilities this weekend. Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America including the California wildfires, winter storms, tornadoes and other events world-wide. During Hurricane Katrina, Amateur Radio – often called “Ham radio” – was often the ONLY way people could communicate, and hundreds of volunteer “hams” traveled south to save lives and property. When trouble is brewing, Amateur Radio’s people are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications. On the weekend of June 27 – 28, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with Iroquois County  ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is about. Showing the newest digital and satellite capabilities, voice communications and even historical Morse code, hams from across the USA will be holding public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.

This annual event, called “Field Day” is the climax of the week long “Amateur Radio Week” sponsored by the ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and back yards around the country. Their slogan, “Ham radio works when other systems don’t! ” is more than just words to the hams as they prove they can send messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis. More than 30,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event.

News From W9GRS – Oct/Feb School Round-up Results

6th Place – 46 QSO’s (11 states, 7 schools, 18 DX, 1 Club, 1 Province)  3,082 Pts
I’m pretty sure only 6 jr.high schools participated during Oct., but it was a good experience to build on.

February 2009 Results

4th Place – 92 QSO’s (20 states, 8 schools, 31 DX, 4 Provinces) 16,150 Pts

I’m not sure how many were in our division this time, but I know we had considerable more success than some of the other schools.

I’m heading to Dayton/Cincy for a couple days, but W9GRS will be operational Friday morning to work VP2 DXpedition and if bands hold out like they have been work some Asia QSO’s

73!!

-Troy and W9GRS Crew

National Weather Service National Test

On Thursday, March 19, the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be conducting a nationwide EAS test via NOAA Weather Radio (NWR).

This test will use the Event Code ADR (Administrative Message).

NWS and DHS ran a similar test in November of 2008, and at that time most stations and cable operators in Wisconsin elected to carry the message.

In addition to NOAA Weather Radio, this test will be sent on NOAA Weather Wire, and all other NWS dissemination means.

This is to be a one-time test. No other similar tests are planned at this time.

Desecheo DXpedition Adventure

02/11/2009

Tomorrow…. Thursday morning we are heading out…

Since Monday we have staged over 25,000 pounds or more of ham antennas, towers, equipment, food, tents, generators, supplies, etc. etc. etc…. this does not include the weight of
15 operators and their personal gear….

This will involve over 30 trips with the 2 helicopters. ..

just check out the soon to be uploaded photos on our web site of our staging area on the west coast of PR…. it is a whole parking lot filled with white transport bags filled with everything….

We hope to some stations on the air late in the day.

We hope to have internet from the island ….. but I doubt if I will have much time for that

We should have daily updates on the website at: http://www.kp5.us

73
Jerry WB9Z

02/17/2009

Hello from Desecheo,

We finally got the satellite up-link going with some new equipment….
and now have the Internet.

We have completed 4 days of around the clock operations with
5 stations and are getting close to 40,000 contacts….. the pile-ups are un-believeable as Desecheo is near the top of the most wanted list worldwide The team leaders gave me the honor of making the first voice contacts from this operation and I logged over 300 stations in the first hour.

Our supply ship came today, but the seas were too ruff for a landing spot close to our camp…. so the zodiac had to beach about 1/2 mile from our camp…. we ended up humping over 30 5 gallon gas jugs for the 4 generators and over 30 5 gallon water containers plus food and supplies over very ruff and rocky terrain…. one of our guys went down in our camp area from heat exhaustion, and lucky for him and us Doctor Gary is with us…. he put Mike on a IV and Mike come back to almost normal in 6 hours….

I am hoping to get out on the next supply ship on Thursday when the next group of fresh operators come in. Hopefully the seas will permit the zodiac to get in….. it will only be able to take one or 2 of us off at a time to main boat…. which is just a big fishing boat.

There are plenty of rats running around here at night and the folks that are with us here from Island Conservation have traps set up and catching a lot of them at night….. the federal agents that are here to protect us are super guys and I have got to be good friends with the head guy… Billy who is Puerto Rican….. we hope to have a LOT of beers with him when we get back to Puerto Rico on Thursday night as he is leaving then too….. did I mention there is NO alcohol permitted on the island so there are several of us that are VERY thursty here.

There should be more new pictures on our web site soon as Mike just uploaded them to the webmaster.

http://www.kp5.us

Regards

Jerry Rosalius WB9Z / K5D

Easypal Digital TV

Hi All – I heard some guys talking about a new digital TV program and it is really slick. Check out www.kc1cs.com and download EasyPal. You can monitor their pics on 14.233 MHz. I was able to get mine set up and exchanged a few pics with KB4BW.

Michael Marcier

ICARC Workday @ WGFA North Repeater

In late 2008 several members of the Iroquois County Amateur Radio Club  assembled to clean out the North Repeater Site and refurbish it.  You can view pictures here…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrkaiser/sets/72157604501827891/

Pictures Courtesy – Janet Focken

New Hams in Iroquois County

Dear RadioActives

This just in… GRS has their first student to earn their callsign!  Jakob Anderson has been issued the call KC9OQN with his Tech. License!! He is a 6th Grader here.  Congrats to dad Scott (KC9OQO) as well!!!!!

Also we had guests at W9GRS to check out our newly christened PSK31 set-up. Chris KC9OQM and Scott KC9OQO got to “play” around and experience the basics of PSK31.

One Down! Many to Go!!

73!

-Troy
W9KVR

We Just learned today that we have 4 new hams in the Watseka area.

KC9OQO Scott

KC9OQN Jakob

KC9OQQ Gery

KC9OQM Chris

KC9OVF Paul – Paul is one of the Glenn Raymond School Science Club sponsors and believe it or not, studying for his General!

If you hear them on the repeaters, stop and say Hello

Sam Ripple W9QKF KAE7607

Cold Weather Announcements for 12/22/2008

A Wind Chill Advisory remains in effect until 9 am CST this morning. Bitterly cold wind chill readings will continue overnight as temperatures fall to a range of 2 degrees above to 5 degrees below zero. When combined with winds of 15 to 25 mph…wind chills of 15 to 25 degrees below zero will be common.

A Wind Chill Advisory means that very cold air and strong winds will combine to generate low wind chills. This will result in frost bite and lead to hypothermia if precautions are not taken. If you must venture outdoors…make sure you wear a hat and gloves. Keep your pets indoors.

Winter Storm Watch in effect from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon… Today Partly cloudy early in the morning then becoming mostly sunny in the morning then becoming partly sunny in the afternoon then becoming mostly cloudy late in the afternoon. Highs 7 to 11 above. Lowest wind chill readings 10 below to 20 below zero in the morning. West winds around 10 mph until late afternoon becoming light and variable late in the afternoon.

Law enforcement and IDOT officials report improved visability, ice packed roadways, slippery conditions

Eastern Illini Electric Coop is still experiencing a large amount of major outages. Approximately 1500 people in Ashkum, Chebanse, Clifton, Cullom, and Piper City will be without power until at least Tuesday. Additional line crews from 10 neighboring coops worked 20 consecutive hours in the cold and wind. As of 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 21, there are still several thousand accounts without electricity. Eastern Illini has brought in even more additional line crews, and now has workers here from ten neighboring cooperatives to assist in the restoration efforts. We expect to have power fully restored in the next several days. If the high winds and extreme cold weather continue, though, it will slow down the restoration process. Eastern Illini encourages every member that is still without power to find other lodging for tonight. Information for emergency situations may be obtained by calling your local township or city office. Eastern Illini’s Web site, www.eiec.coop will have regular updates during the storm recovery process.

Warming centers at the Ashkum Fire Station and at the former Lang Auto Parts Store on Spaulding Street in Clifton. Shelters in Sheldon, Martinton Church of Christ as well. Manteno Community center open for warming center for residents of manteno only without power. You are asked to bring your own belongings such as blankets, chairs, warm beverages, and anything to make you comfortable.

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