SCARS News January 12, 2021

/ January 12, 2021

In This Issue…

Meeting Wrapup – Join/Renew ARRL/SCARS — Menu

arrl scars logos

Saturday’s meeting presentation by American Radio Relay League (ARRL) West Gulf Director John Stratton N5AUS and Vice Director Lee Cooper W5LHC is available as a YouTube video. They had a lot of good information about upcoming changes at HQ. As a special deal for you, and SCARS, if you join ARRL, or renew your ARRL membership this week, (on or before 1/16/21), you will get an additional ARRL-related prize shipped direct to you, and the club will get credit for the transaction! Send an email with your name/address saying you joined/renewed to Lee at w5lhc@arrl.org with the subject of “SCARS Member” to get your prize. You can join/renew the ARRL now online at https://arrl.org/join/ before Saturday, and send that email to w5lhc@arrl.org. John said that he would make sure SCARS got credit for the new member and renewals based on the emails sent in. I know that some have already been received, and let’s try to empty John’s door-prize cache!

For those of you that are interested in more information about Riley Hollingsworth and the new ARRL/FCC Volunteer Monitor Service, Tom Medlin W5KUB has a great video on YouTube.

SCARS Dues are Due

As a reminder, SCARS membership dues start each January 1st. Join/renew today online, or through the mail, at https://w5nor.org/membership/

Vaccinate.Oklahoma.Gov — Menu

A number of our members have asked how to get registered for the COVID-19 vaccine and President Gayland Kitch WX5MOR brought this up at the January meeting. This information talks about how to get registered to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the State of Oklahoma. This information is available as a link on the W5NOR web page, or directly at https://w5nor.org/covid/

Current priority groups that are eligible for vaccine appointments as part of Phase 2 of the vaccine distribution plan are:

  • Healthcare workers including expanded healthcare worker groups such as allied health fields and general outpatient health service (i.e. behavioral health, dentists)
  • First responders
  • Oklahomans age 65+

First, register with the state at https://vaccinate.oklahoma.gov. Click on the blue “COVID-19 Questionnaire” button to get started. You will enter your name, contact information, insurance information, and answer many questions on this page.

Second, based on your answers, you will either be allowed to schedule a vaccine time, or you will receive an email when your priority slot has opened up.

Third, attend your first vaccine appointment. Please do not contact the vaccine locations; they do not have any information about the program. The emails you receive from the health department will have all of the information you need.

Fourth, attend your second vaccine appointment three or four weeks after your first visit, depending on the vaccine maker’s requirements.

There will be a number of locations that pop up over time, based on the availability of vaccines.

LearnMorse Practice 19 — Menu

On the SCARS web pages, we have developed a series called LearnMorse to help you learn the 40 characters of the International Morse Code in 20 lessons. We’ve gone through all of the 40 characters, and now we start with 20 weeks of practice sessions. Here’s the first lesson of practice 19:

Text From Today’s Lesson 1

consider single talk turning spent ladies talk caught whose opinion tried position nothing having wheel settle conduct father large longer ashamed none am fear caught appeared stead form during come loved died energy soft cousin words nay tired sense seeing felt making two me mind women handsome else noble strange gentleman cold there animal future seven number heart caught comes speaking top living ready happened best warm name line below promise became life busy loved book bright die died fact fortune shame situation present told heaven knowledge cause ought hands time

QRZ039: Zedd and His Pals Have a Merry — Menu

This ongoing series was written by SCARS charter member SK Jack Bickham WB5TZZ / KU5B. Jack was a prolific novelist, his two most known works were turned into the movies “The Apple Dumpling Gang”, and “Bakers Hawk.” These 104 Q. R. Zedd articles were originally published in the Central Oklahoma Radio Amateurs (CORA) Newsletter, the Collector & Emitter from September 1981 through April 1990, and are hosted on the SCARS web site. We are reprinting this series to provide you with a glimpse of the past.

Originally in the December 1984 C&E.

Christmas came a little early this year to Honor Roll Ranch, home of the world-renowned DXer and all-around wonderful person, Q.R. Zedd, A5A.

Zedd, holder of the world’s only 1×1 callsign and the first man to win the coveted Worked All Stations award on 440MHz, decided to have some of his pals in early because he was scheduled to bop off to Houston’s Space Flight Center at mid-month to get a few bugs out of the space shuttle’s communications systems and show authorities a new robot arm he designed which will replace the Canadian arm presently in use. Zedd’s arm is made from old Coors cans, works a lot better than the Canadian model used heretofore on the shuttle, and costs nothing if you write off the cans to thirst.

Tinsel and mistletoe garlanded all the towers and antennas at Honor Roll, just a hoot and a holler south of Norman, when the festivities began at mid-month.

Everybody who was anybody was there.

Zedd’s momma, Mrs. Constance Wilhemina Zedd, blasted over on her new four-cylinder Honda, trailing a zepp antenna and dazed highway patrolmen in her wake. She reported working 212 countries on the way over from her home near Mena, Ark., using a straight key strapped to her handlebars and an old Kenwood 820 “that I messed with a little to boost the power.”

Zedd’s constant companion, Tondelayo Schwartz, was on hand, of course, having just won the 10-meter contest while updating her 10-10 logbook to include everybody who ever belonged.

Bill Buckeye, famed Ohio Dxer, was there. So was Bill Blast, of the renowned Blast Off DX Net. Andy Taco, New Mexico newcomer to the DX world, flew in, and so did a number of other dignitaries. The President wanted to come, but the Secret Service warned him that’all the rf might break his hearing aid.

It was a grand, festive occasion. Everyone had a fine time whetting the proverbial whistle and square dancing and all, and the gift exchange started at 5 p.m.

Tondelayo, wearing a lavender jump suit like the one once used by an actress in a 007 movie, passed out the gifts. Bill Buckeye gave everybody present an autographed picture of Woody Hayes. Taco gave pieces of a balloon that never got off the ground in the great Albuquerque balloon race. Blast distributed engraved tips on how to get onto the list when his net is working. N5MS gave the great one a model Cessna airplane. Zedd gave WA5RPP a new pencil. Tondelayo gave W5OU a booklet entitled “How To Get a Bond Election Passed.” Your reporter, honored to be there, was given a vacuum tube once used in Zedd’s No. 1 linear, I plan to take it home as soon as I can rent a truck big enough to transport it.

The most touching moments came when Zedd, his momma, and Tondelayo exchanged gifts.

Zedd gave his momma a lifetime subscription to Ms Magazine. He gave Tondelayo a beautiful engagement ring with a germanium crystal in it, telling her she could work the world with it.

Tondelayo gave momma a copy of her recently published memoirs, and to Zedd went a photo album of herself.

Momma had dragged in a couple of huge packages. Tondelayo’s turned out to be one of each from the current Fredricks catalogue. Tension and suspense mounted as Zedd tore open his box, scattering Santa stickers in all directions.

“Wow,” quoth Zedd as the contents were revealed. “Jiminey!

Momma had given her son an Epson QX-10 computer.

Readers may not fully appreciate the significance of this moment.

In all his illustrious career, Zedd had never meddled much with computers. Oh, he designed the IBM PC, but he never got into them for his personal use. And it is quite likely that he had never even looked at the Epson before.

Zedd pulled the machine out of the box, plugged it in, tossed the instruction booklet into the pile of trash to be burned, whanged a couple of diskettes into the dual drives, and — oblivious to us all — immediately began hammering on the keys while glaring at the screen with total intensity.

Two or three hours later, even through dinner, he stayed at it.

By nightfall, he had strung some cable out to the root cellar, where he happened to have an old mainframe in storage. Muttering something about booboo algebra and relational databases, he retired to his lab for a little while and came back in a cloud of smoke (resin core solder) with a new board he had just whomped up. Opening the lid, he installed the board, hit a couple of keys, and pat down in front of the machine again, chuckling to himself.

It was a grim moment amid the holiday glitter. Even momma was grim. For this, she saw now — too late — could be bad. We had all seen good hams go crazy when they discovered computers. Some of them didn’t even have rigs any more. They filled page after page in the C&E with stuff the rest of us didn’t understand.

Had the bug bitten Zedd?

As we filed silently out of Honor Roll at dusk, Bill Buckeye was heard to exc1010, “God bless us, every one.”

We needed it. We who had for so long idolized the great man were deeply worried.

–KU5B

New/Upgraded Hams

PLEASE WELCOME THE FOLLOWING NEW AMATEURS TO THE AIR:
Wade, KI5MPP (Dec 19)
Billy, KI5MPS (Dec 19)
Kim, KI5MPT (Dec 19)
Patrick, KI5MVW (Jan 7)
Each of whom earned Technician class licenses and please also congratulate:

Joshua, KI5MPO (Dec 19)
Karl, KI5MPQ (Dec 19)
Each of whom earned General class licenses as well as 

Paul, KI5MIZ (Jan 7)
Gable, KD6TGU (Jan 7)
Each of whom upgraded their licenses to General class. All tested at the firehouse on the dates indicated. 

Upcoming Exam Sessions:  February 4, virus permitting

Dates to Remember — Menu

Newsletter News — Menu

Due to special member requests, we’ve added a couple of segments to the newsletter. First, the New/Upgraded Hams from the most recent testing session are included here in the newsletter. Second, the W5KUB Amateur Radio Roundtable video has been added to the newsletter. Enjoy!

This newsletter is announced in several places. Feel free to subscribe to the way that suits you best. If you’re an email person, you can subscribe by visiting https://w5nor.org/email. If you’re a Twitter person, visit us at https://w5nor.org/twitter. And each newsletter announcement is posted on the Facebook group at https://w5nor.org/facebook. And, if you like to search this yourself, you can go straight to the newsletter at https://w5nor.org/newsletter. Any way you found the newsletter, we’re glad you made it.

And, this newsletter should be for, and about, you. If you have a neat build project to share, an interesting QSO, a new radio review, a new idea, an upcoming event, a member spotlight, or if you’d like to help produce the newsletter, please send an email at w5nor@w5nor.org. These don’t have to be polished articles; we’ll edit as required. Don’t forget a picture or two. That picture is worth a thousand words.

Local Hamfests — Menu

Briefly, here’s the list of the upcoming local hamfests. Hamfests are always great places to buy new equipment, sell your underused equipment, and find that great flea market bargain. They are always a great place to meet local hams and learn some new tricks.

1/23/2021 | Pryor Tailgate Event | Location: Pryor, OK
3/6/2021 | Elk City Hamfest | Location: Elk City, OK
4/2/2021 | Ozark Con – 4 States QRP | Location: Branson, MO
4/9-10/2021| Green Country Hamfest | Location: Claremore, OK — POSTPONED —
5/21-23/2021 | Dayton Hamvention | Location: Xenia, OH — CANCELED —
Ham-Com | Location: Plano, TX — CANCELED —
7/23-24/2021 | Ham Holiday | Location: OCCC – Oklahoma City, OK
9/10-11/2021 | Arkansas State Convention | Location: Mena, AR
9/24/2021 | Reno County KS Hamfest | Location: Hutchinson, KS
10/22-23/2021 | Texoma Hamarama Hamfest | Location: Ardmore, OK
11/6/2021 | Enid Hamfest | Location: Enid, OK (or maybe December)
8/27-28/2021 | Joplin Hamfest | Location: Joplin, MO
10/02/2021 | Wichita Area Hamfest | Location: Wichita, KS

The ARRL maintains a list of all US hamfests if you would like to travel. Click here for the ARRL list of those within 250 miles.

Odds and Ends — Menu

SCARS Is On The Web — Menu

News, links, repeater info, hamfests, licensing, and more are linked from the menu sidebar at the SCARS Homepage – W5NOR.ORG!

Podcast: On The Air — Menu

The On the Air podcast is a companion to the bi-monthly On the Air magazine (an ARRL membership benefit) and takes a deeper dive into select features and projects. Each month, host and On the Air Editorial Director Becky Schoenfeld W1BXY will offer additional resources, techniques, and hints to help you get the most from the magazine’s content.

Audio Link

A chat with Mike Corey, KI1U, about storm spotting and SKYWARN.

ARRL On the Air – Episode 12

The “On The Air” podcast homepage is available by clicking here.

ARRL Letter — Menu

The current ARRL letter is available by clicking here.

ARRL DX Bulletin — Menu

SB DX @ ARL $ARLD001
ARLD001 DX news

ZCZC AE01
QST de W1AW  
DX Bulletin 1  ARLD001
From ARRL Headquarters  
Newington CT  January 7, 2021
To all radio amateurs   

SB DX ARL ARLD001
ARLD001 DX news

This week's bulletin was made possible with information provided by
The Daily DX, the OPDX Bulletin, 425 DX News, DXNL, Contest Corral
from QST and the ARRL Contest Calendar and WA7BNM web sites.  Thanks
to all.

GEORGIA, 4L.  Peter, G4ENL plans to be QRV as 4L1PJ from Svaneti
while on work assignment.  He expects to be here for the next few
years.  Activity is on various HF bands using SSB.  QSL via N4GNR.

NIGER, 5U.  Adrien, F5IHM is QRV as 5U4IHM until February 11.
Activity is on 40 and 20 meters using CW.  QSL direct to home call.

MALDIVES, 8Q.  Massimo, IZ5KID is QRV as 8Q7MM.  Activity is on
various HF bands using mainly digital modes and with low power.  QSL
to home call.

PAKISTAN, AP.  Syed, AP2AM is QRV on 160 and 80 using FT8 at his
sunrise.  QSL to home call.

ANGOLA, D2.  Paulo, CT1FJZ is QRV as D2FJZ from the Province of
Cuando-Cubango until September 2021 while on work assignment.
Activity is on 80 to 10 meters using SSB.  QSL direct to home call.

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY, DA.  Uwe, DO2PZ is QRV as DB100AVUS
during all of 2021 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the AVUS.
Located in the southwest of Berlin and opened in 1921, it is the
oldest controlled access motorway in Europe.  QSL to home call.
         
JAPAN, JA.  Special event call 8N1IZA is QRV until March 31 to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of Niiza City.

JAN MAYEN, JX.  Erik, JX2US has been QRV on 80 using CW from 1000 to
1200z.  QSL via LA2US.

CZECH REPUBLIC, OK.  Members of the radio club in Roznov pod
Radhostem are QRV with special call sign OL70KRT to celebrate the
club's 70th anniversary.  The length of activity is unknown.  QSL
via OK2UYU.
         
ASIATIC RUSSIA, UA0.  Special event station RJ30KR is QRV from
region R9Y in CQ Zone 18 during January to mark the 30th anniversary
of the Amateur Radio Club Kristall.  QSL via bureau.
         
AUSTRALIA, VK.  Grant, VK5GR will be QRV as VK5KI from Kangaroo
Island, IOTA OC-139, from January 11 to 22.  Activity will be
holiday style on 80 to 6 meters using CW, SSB and FT8, and possibly
with RTTY and PSK.  QSL via M0OXO.

ANTARCTICA.  Seba, SQ1SGB and Will, M0ZXA are QRV as either
VP8/SQ1SGB or VP8HAL from Halley VI Research Station until February
4.  They are active in their spare time on 40 and 20 meters using
JT65 and FT8.  QSL via operators' instructions.

INDIA, VU.  Special event station AT2YAR is QRV until March 1 to
celebrate 100 years of amateur radio.  QSL via VU3ZHA.

INDONESIA, YB.  Ravie, YD7RV is QRV from Laut Island, IOTA OC-166,
and is active almost daily around 1700z on 40 meters using FT8.  QSL
via EA5GL.
                  
CAYMAN ISLANDS, ZF.  Pete, K8PGJ will be QRV as ZF2PG from Grand
Cayman, IOTA NA-016, from January 10 to 17.  Activity will be on 160
to 10 meters.  This includes being an entry in the upcoming North
American SSB QSO Party.  QSL via LoTW.
         
THIS WEEKEND ON THE RADIO.  The North American CW QSO Party, NCCC
RTTY Sprint, QRP 80-Meter CW Fox Hunt, NCCC Sprint CW Ladder, YB SSB
DX Contest, Old New Year Contest, SKCC Weekend CW Sprintathon, UBA
PSK63 Prefix Contest, NRAU-Baltic Contest, DARC 10-Meter Contest and
RSGB AFS Data Contest are all on tap for this upcoming weekend.

The RSGB Hope QSO FT4 Party, OK1WC CW Memorial, K1USN Slow Speed CW
Test and 4 States QRP Group Second Sunday Sprint are scheduled for
January 11.

The RTTYOPS Weeksprint, Worldwide Sideband Activity Contest and RSGB
Hope QSO CW Party are scheduled for January 12.

The RSGB Hope QSO RTTY Party, VHF-UHF FT8 Activity Contest, CWops
Mini-CWT CW Test, Phone Fray and QRP 40-Meter CW Fox Hunt are
scheduled for January 13.
          
Please see January 2021 QST, page 75, and the ARRL and WA7BNM
contest web sites for details.
NNNN
/EX

The latest ARRL DX Bulletin is always at the top here — ARRL DX Bulletin

Amateur Radio Newsline — Menu

– FCC EYES ADDING VOLUNTEER EXAMINER COORDINATORS
– BREXIT DOESN’T CUT ALL UK TIES TO EU SATELLITES
– WOODEN SATELLITES SEEN AS FIX TO ‘SPACE JUNK’
– SEA-PAC ANNUAL CONVENTION CANCELLED
– LAWMAKERS SEEK PROBE INTO ARECIBO COLLAPSE
– IOWA STUDENTS’ BALLOON CIRCLES EARTH A THIRD TIME
– PROJECT EYES DIRECT WAY TO GATHER SOLAR POWER
– SILENT KEY: JAMES GOLDEN KD0AES
– SILENT KEY: LOGGING SOFTWARE DEVELOPER DAVE PRUETT K8CC
– SILENT KEY: FORMER RAC PRESIDENT FARRELL (HOPPY) HOPWOOD VE7RD
– NOVA SCOTIA CONTEST WEATHERS THE STORM
– WHEN THE DX FINDS THE DXer IN FINLAND
– WORLD OF DX
– KICKER: FOR HUNTING DECOY MARKETER, THE COST OF RFI IS DEAR

SCRIPT

AUDIO

The Amateur Radio Newsline can be found at ARNewsline.org.

W5KUB – Amateur Radio Roundtable Video

The W5KUB YouTube channel link is here: W5KUB YouTube.

Ham Nation — Menu

The last half-dozen or so episodes are linked right here: Ham Nation

73 de Mark N5HZR

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