Red River Valley Amateur Radio Club

Amateur Radio in and around the Red River Valley Area of Northeast Texas

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Club News

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12/30/2022 UPDATE:

This is likely our final update for the year and there is a lot of info to cover.

Please mark your calendar that the next Club meeting is on Saturday, January 28th. That is also the same day as Winter Field Day. We know you can’t be in two places at once, but we do hope you will do one or the other.

Club meeting – At the January 28th Club meeting there will be two presentations/activities. Dan Beard (KB7JZI) will continue with his table-top fox hunt. There were a lot of laughs during the start of that engagement at our last meeting and we expect more when it is continued. And Steven Lott Smith (KG5VK) is going to update us on ARRL happenings.

Winter Field Day – In a first in many years we will have Club members conducting Winter Field Day exercises. Charles (WA5VHU) and Cindy (KD5CCB) Penry initiated things and will be at the Doctor’s Creek Unit at the Cooper Lake State Park at Jim Chapman Lake for Friday the 27th through Sunday the 29th. There is a forum write up on the subject at this link. Please go read up on it at the forum link, post any questions and/or comments you may have and join in the action!

Charles also scored the W5W 1X1 Special Event call sign for the function. Getting a Special Event Coordinator issued 1X1 is something the Club has been doing at Summer Field Day for the last few years. When the process of looking into that was initiated the alphabet was scanned for something easy. There are 750 total 1X1 signs in the pool. W1W-W3W were taken so we selected W4W. It had nothing to do with anything other than being the next available call sign. But some rightly pointed out that our Club is technically in Call Sign Zone 5. They thought our use of W4W was confusing and that W5W was more logical since that aligned with our Club geographically.

When Charles reserved the W5W 1X1 for Winter Field Day he investigated if it was still available for Summer Field Day and surprisingly it was. The Club relinquished the W4W 1X1 and will now use W5W at both 2023 events. Going forward the Club officers will also attempt to reserve it for future events.

In the summer of 2022 Charles really stepped into the breach to get Club Field Day activities up and running. Recognizing that he has the technical skills, energy and willingness to take the position on, Club President T. Wayne More has appointed Charles the Red River Valley Amateur Radio Club WB5RDD Field Day Coordinator. Please thank Charles for his willingness to help out with the important tasks associated with that position.

Yaesu announces end of FTM-400XDR & FT818 Production – Leo Salas (N5JEP) informs us of this sad notice.  While we have not seen anything official from Yaesu, there are stories on the topic all over the Internet.  Please click here and read Leo’s forum post on the topic.

Erroneous Dues Notices – In an effort to keep Club expenses down we use as many free or very low-cost website tools as we can. One downside to that is that free can have a lot of limitations. An example of one of those limits is dues administration. The membership website tool will only do membership for one year at a time. Some members have paid for more than one year and then are confused when they get an erroneous dues reminder. If you get an erroneous automatic dues reminder from the website, one you know is not right, please disregard it. As the Club budget improves and allows for such things, we will upgrade that feature of the website. In the interim dues is managed manually. We try and update the site monthly, but those erroneous automatic notices may still be sent. If you have any questions please call or drop an email to Club Secretary Phillip Beall (W5EBC) or Club Treasurer George Haneke (NV7Z).

Unofficial WB5RDD Call Sign List – Thanks to all for pointing out errors and omissions on previous versions of that list. We have updated it to incorporate your input and believe it to now be accurate.  If you spot any other errors please let us know! And if your copy does not say v4 at the top, please click on this link and download the latest.

Please be safe and have a wonderful New Year’s celebration. We believe 2022 was a really great year for the Club and looking forward to our May 2023 50th Anniversary we believe 2023 will be even better!

73

RRVARC WB5RDD Officers

 

CLUB NEWS – CLUB NEWS – CLUB NEWS – CLUB NEWS – CLUB NEWS – CLUB NEWS
12/21/2022 UPDATE:

Club Meeting Update:  On 12/17/2022 another Club meeting was conducted and once again FUN BROKE OUT!  Please click here to read a forum post debrief of the meeting, access links to presentation materials and an updated unofficial WB5RDD call sign list.

SKYWARN Training:  Jerry Keisler (WA5KZA) provided this – A 2023 SKYWARN Schedule list of classes is now available at this link.  Of note, the National Weather Service is cutting back on the number of classes they do so please look that information over carefully.

 

12/16/2012 UPDATE: Two quick items:

Master Channel Plan (MCP) – Anyone who still needs to have the Master Channel Plan (MCP) programmed into their TYT radios, please remember to bring them to breakfast tomorrow.  If you want the programming file, please bring a jump/thumb drive.

WB5RDD Unofficial Call Sign List – Ever wonder who you are talking to on the radio?  Click here (Version 4, reformatted for size, call sign corrected and members added) and download the WB5RDD Unofficial Call Sign List.  It is a courtesy list the Club has been providing for a number of years.  It is in PDF format so you can download it to your phone, print it out and stick it up in the ham shack, whatever you wish.  Is your call sign missing or have an error in it?  We make human mistakes.  If you have a correction, please email Phillip Beall and let him know.  A small number will be available at the Club meeting on 12/17/2022.

12/11/2012 UPDATE: Please click RRVARC Christmas Party 2022 – It’s a wrap! for an update on the Friday night (12/09/2022) Christmas party!

We are trying something new with the site.  General news is being posted to the forums and Club news is being posted on this page.  At least on a trial basis.  The reason is to make it easy for people to swing by the site and click the very first button on the second menu from the top “Club News” and get updates on recent happenings.  On the right we added a search box and a list of the next five upcoming events (Not visible on smaller screens such as smartphones or tablets in portrait mode.).

Please make a forum post or email us with comments and let us know what you think of this page and the new format.  Whether you suggest that we move something on the site to make it easier to find, you discover that something is not indexing correctly so the search gets a bad result or you want us to bump up the number of calendar events displayed on the right; please just let us know by writing admin@wb5rdd.org.  This is your Club and your website so we want it to reflect your wishes.

Short notice alert: From Club member Wyndell Ferguson (K5WJF) – This coming Thursday (December 8th) from 7pm-8pm the National Weather Service (NWS) Shreveport office is going to conduct a Winter Skywarn Spotter Training webinar.  Here is a static image of their notice:

If you are interested in taking this training please click – NWS-Shreveport Virtual Winter SKYWARN Class – and sign up.

Reminder: The Club Christmas party is this coming Friday, December 9th, from 7pm-9pm, at Magel’s Grill.  There is no RSVP this year, just show up and join the festivities!  We look forward to seeing all of you there.

Reminder: The Club membership voted to move the December meeting from the weekend following Christmas to the weekend before Christmas.  The new meeting date is 12/17 and the location will be High Cotton.  0900 pre-meeting breakfast, 1000 meeting.  There will again be two presentations.  One will be a primer on Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) by Charles Penry (WA5VHU), Leo Salas (N5JEP) and Phillip Beall (W5EBC) and a mystery interactive presentation by Dan Beard (KB7JZI).

VE Testing Report: On Saturday, December 3rd, three people tested.  Two for General and one for Technician.  They were from from Greenville, Mt. Vernon and one near Commerce.

New feature: Have you ever tired of searching high and low for the manual to a radio or other piece of gear?  Maybe the piece of equipment did not come with a printed manual, maybe it is a specialized “additional” manual for a piece of gear (i.e. the Yaesu FTM-400 “APRS” or “GM” standalone manuals) or maybe you simply lost the one you previously had?  Well, suffer no more!  We have added a new page to the Club website – “Manuals”.  There we have provided links to the manuals for some of the equipment that we know some Club members own.  Here is a screen grab illustrating how to get there:

We prepopulated the list, but there will be more that need to be added.  Please, if you want us to add anything to that page just email admin@wb5rdd.org.

A Club meeting was held and FUN BROKE OUT!  – Club Meeting 11/19/2022 @ High Cotton – In case you you were unable to attend we had a Club meeting on November 19th.  Everyone present said it was really enjoyable and some even used the word FUN!  Wow!  Club meeting and fun used in the same sentence!  The Club officers are devoted to try and make that a frequent event.  For a complete rundown of the meeting please read the forum post at this link.

Great News! – In the debrief of the last meeting (please click that “forum post at this link” above) the Club not only received our Lion’s Club fair distribution (~$1,400) but we also received a $500 personal donation.  Subsequently, another member anonymously donated 10 $100 bills ($1,000) to the Club.  A heartfelt thank you to those that have recently made these generous donations to the Club!

This page will be updated frequently so please do check it often!

73

RRVARC Officers

Disregard below here.  Work in progress.

 

December 12, 2022 Update

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CLUB NEWS – CLUB NEWS – CLUB NEWS – CLUB NEWS

We are trying something new with the site.  General news is being posted to the forums and Club news is being posted on this page.  At least on a trial basis.  The reason is to make it easy for people to swing by the site and click the very first button on the second menu from the top “Club News” and get updates on recent happenings.  There is a screen grab posted further down the page.  On the right we added a search box and a list of the next five upcoming events.  Please make a forum post or email us with comments and let us know what you think of the new format.  Whether you suggest that we move something on the site to make it easier to find, you discover that something is not indexing correctly so the search gets a bad result or you want us to bump up the number of calendar events displayed on the right; please just let us know.  This is your Club and your website so we want it to reflect your wishes.

Short notice alert: From Club member Wyndell Ferguson (K5WJF) – This coming Thursday (December 8th) from 7pm-8pm the National Weather Service (NWS) Shreveport office is going to conduct a Winter Skywarn Spotter Training webinar.  Here is a static image of their notice:

If you are interested in taking this training please click – NWS-Shreveport Virtual Winter SKYWARN Class – and sign up.

Reminder: The Club membership voted to move the December meeting from the weekend following Christmas to the weekend before Christmas.  The meeting location will be High Cotton.  0900 pre-meeting breakfast, 1000 meeting.  There will again be two presentations.  One will be a primer on Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) by Charles Penry (WA5VHU), Leo Salas (N5JEP) and Phillip Beall (W5EBC) and a mystery interactive presentation by Dan Beard (KB7JZI).

VE Testing Report: On Saturday, December 3rd, three people tested.  Two for General and one for Technician.  They were from from Greenville, Mt. Vernon and one near Commerce.

New feature: Have you ever tired of searching high and low for the manual to a radio or other piece of gear?  Maybe the piece of equipment did not come with a printed manual, maybe it is a specialized “additional” manual for a piece of gear (i.e. the Yaesu FTM-400 “APRS” or “GM” standalone manuals) or maybe you simply lost the one you previously had?  Well, suffer no more!  We have added a new page to the Club website – “Manuals”.  There we have provided links to the manuals for some of the equipment that we know some Club members own.  Here is a screen grab illustrating how to get there:

We prepopulated the list, but there will be more that need to be added.  Please, if you want us to add anything to that page just email admins@wb5rdd.org.

A Club meeting was held and FUN BROKE OUT!  – Club Meeting 11/19/2022 @ High Cotton – In case you you were unable to attend we had a Club meeting on November 19th.  Everyone present said it was really enjoyable and some even used the word FUN!  Wow!  Club meeting and fun used in the same sentence.  The Club officers are devoted to try and make that a frequent event.  For a complete rundown of the meeting please read the forum post at this link.

Great News! – In the debrief of the last meeting (click here to read all about it) the Club not only received our Lion’s Club fair distribution (~$1,400) but we also received a $500 personal donation.  Subsequently, another member anonymously donated 10 $100 bills ($1,000) to the Club.

 

Hamfests coming up

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Hamfest!!
HAMFEST/CONVENTION

02/25/2023 – Orange (Texas) Hamfest 2023
Location: Orange, TX
Type: ARRL Hamfest
Sponsor: Orange Amateur Radio Club and Jefferson County ARC
Website: https://www.qsl.net/w5nd/index_files/HAMFEST%20INFO/hamfest%20info.htm
Learn More
Fort Bend County Fairgrounds
HAMFEST/CONVENTION

03/03/2023 – 03/04/2023
Greater Houston HamFest – ARRL Texas State Convention
Location: Rosenberg, TX
Type: ARRL Convention
Sponsor: Brazos Valley ARC
Website: http://houstonhamfest.org

ARRL Grant Web Site (Re Posting to insure all members are aware)

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This is the post/email from Charles Penray.

Apparently there are two seperate grants available; the first one i looked at was only $1000

and not a good fit for our club (IMHO)

This one is $2500 to 25,000; there are links on the page for applications.

https://apply.mykaleidoscope.com/scholarships/arrlgrantapplication

News from ARRL for VEs

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Hi, I just rec’d this today so I thought I’d update the web site. Rick

FCC $35 Amateur Application Fee Effective Date will be April 19
Important Message from ARRL VEC

By Maria Somma, AB1FM, ARRL VEC Manager

 

The FCC released a Public Notice on March 23, 2022, stating that the amateur radio application fees, including those associated with Form 605 application filings, would become effective on April 19, 2022. The Federal Communications Commission’s authority to impose and collect fees is mandated by Congress.

 

The $35 application fee, when it becomes effective on April 19, will apply to new, renewal, and modification applications that request a new vanity call sign. The fee will be per application.

 

Administrative updates, such as a change of name, mailing or email address, and modification applications to upgrade an amateur radio licensee’s operator class*, will be exempt from fees. (*this new information was just confirmed by FCC staff on Tuesday, March 29.)

 

VECs and Volunteer Examiner (VE) teams will not have to collect the $35 fee at exam sessions.

Once the FCC application fee takes effect, new applicants will pay the $15 exam session fee to the ARRL VE team as usual and pay the $35 application fee directly to the FCC by using the CORES FRN Registration system. VEC and VE team licensing procedures will not change.

 

When the FCC receives the examination information from the VEC, it will email a link with payment instructions to each qualifying candidate. The candidate will have 10 calendar days, from the date of the application file number being issued, to pay. After the fee is paid, and the FCC has processed an application, examinees will receive a second email from the FCC with a link to their official license or, in very rare instances, an explanation for why the application was dismissed or denied. The link will be valid for 30 days.

 

Per usual procedures, examinees that pass multiple exams at one session, will have one application transmitted to the FCC reflecting the highest-level license class earned. Again, our procedures will not change. The new license candidates will have an extra step before the license is issued. VE teams can point candidates to our FCC Application Fee webpage. Our new ARRL VEC CSCEs also include information about the application fee and points candidates to the webpage. The FCC rule pertaining to CSCEs will not change. CSCE credit will continue to be valid for 365 days, starting from the date of issuance.

 

For VE teams holding exam sessions the weekend before April 19, the FCC advised that applications not received by the FCC before April 19 will be subjected to the fee. The ARRL VEC urges teams to upload sessions via our documents upload page to get your sessions to us as quickly as possible. Assuming the FCC electronic batch filing (EBF) system is functioning properly on Monday, April 18, the VEC staff will work to get these to the FCC before April 19. Email the VEC department at VEC@arrl.org for the upload instructions.

 

Additionally, the FCC stated that the fee for applications processed and dismissed will not be refundable. This includes vanity requests where the applicant does not receive the requested call sign. However, returned applications that are missing information will not require an additional fee, if the missing information is submitted to the FCC within the proper amount of time.

 

Youth Licensing Grant Program

Anticipating the implementation of the fee in 2022, the ARRL Board of Directors, approved the ARRL Youth Licensing Grant Program in July 2021. Under the program, ARRL will cover a one-time $35 application fee for license candidates younger than 18-years old for tests administered under the auspices of the ARRL Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (ARRL VEC). Qualified candidates also would pay a reduced exam session fee of $5 to the ARRL VEC. ARRL is finalizing details for administering the program.

 

Further news and instructions will follow as the FCC releases them. Details for the ARRL Youth Licensing Grant Program will be posted when available. For additional information, visit the resources below.

 

ARRL VEC Application Fees webpage:

arrl.org/fcc-application-fee

 

ARRL News Story: arrl.org/news/new-amateur-radio-license-applications-fee-to-become-effective-april-19-2022

 

FCC CORES Video Tutorials: fcc.gov/licensing-databases/fcc-registration-system-cores/commission-registration-system-video-tutorials

 

FCC Registration Help: apps.fcc.gov/cores/publicHome.do?help=true
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FCC License Fees Update

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Hi, I was a bit confused on this and today I got the needed clarification (see below)

New FCC Application Fee Will Not Apply To Amateur Radio License Upgrades

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FCC logoFrom ARRL News:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) staff has clarified in response to an ARRL request that the new $35 application fee will not apply to most license modifications, including those to upgrade an Amateur Radio Licensee’s operator class and changes to club station trustees. The FCC staff explained that the new fees will apply only to applications for a new license, renewal, rule waiver, or a new vanity call sign. As previously announced, the new fees take effect on April 19, 2022.
“We are pleased that the FCC will not charge licensees the FCC application fee for license upgrade applications,” said ARRL Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (VEC) Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM. “While applicants for a new license will need to pay the $35 FCC application fee, there will be no FCC charge for future upgrades and administrative updates such as a change of mailing or email address. Most current licensees therefore will not be charged the new FCC application fee until they renew their license or apply for a new vanity call sign.”
ARRL previously reported that the new $35 application fee for Amateur Radio licenses will become effective on April 19, 2022. Further information and instructions about the FCC Application Fee are available from the ARRL VEC.