Can you believe it?
After a year of no club meetings, we’re on track to have our first in per-son club meeting on Tuesday, April 20th. A short survey done during the March 16th weekly net showed that the majority of us are ready for an in person meeting. The location is still to be determined. Keep checking the Tulsa Amateur Radio Club Facebook for the details.
The Tulsa Amateur Radio Club Weekly Net is going strong and thanks to some really good presentations by Ron KB5VDB, Mark KG5ZZV and Bart N5TWB a lot of hams are checking in and enjoying learning. We’ve had discussions about Weather Net protocol, First Aid, what is involved in helping out with bike rides, and the National Traffic System. Future presentations will include what ARES is all about and what Winlink is. Of course we always have time for anyone that has a challenge or ques-tion about ham radio. We have lots of Elmers that can give you some good advice.
Have you ever done this? I have a Yaesu FT-8800 VHF/UHF dual band radio that I use as a home station. I check in to nets and usually have it scanning the local repeaters. It is a dual band, dual watch radio, which means I can listen to both sides of the radio receivers as they are scanning and I can transmit on one side or the other, but I have to activate which side by the push of a button. I said, it’s necessary that you need to acti-vate one side or the other, depending on which side you want to transmit on. So, during on of our recent nets, I was ready to check in with the usu-al “this is WA5MA and I do have traffic for the net” and after a couple of other hams checked in, I keyed my mic and sent my transmission. I don’t know what caused me to look, but I glanced over at the radio and I saw that I forgot to activate the side of the radio that I wanted to transmit on for one of the local repeaters that the net was on. I couldn’t believe that I had just sent my transmission on the Superlink system which covers all of northeast Oklahoma, lower Kansas and western Arkansas. The Superlink System had been pretty quiet all evening until I broke that silence withmy errant transmission. I’ve been licensed since 1986, so I guess that shows that it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been around this great hobby, we’re still human and make mistakes. I just hoped that not all hams across Green Country heard mine!
So, I still have to ask if you’re ready for storm season? You should have your go bag packed by now and when was the last time you checked your spare batter-ies and flashlight? Do you have the Tulsa area repeat-er frequencies loaded in your HT memories? Paul, WB5ANX our Tulsa County Emergency Coordinator has some terrific information about what to pack in your go bag. Go to the TARC website at www.w5ias.com and click on “What’s New” for his ARES Communications Readiness Series presenta-tion. If you plan on helping with some of the upcom-ing TARC events you’ll need to be ready! So………if you haven’t already, now is the time to start preparing!
Jack W5JHC has been using NetLogger to log check ins for the weekly net as well as the monthly on air meetings and has been doing an excellent job. How-ever, one of the things that we want to do is provide training and opportunities for other hams to learn and serve our ham radio community. I will not be doing net control for the weekly net forever and I’ve asked Jack to take over net control after our April meeting. That opens up an opportunity for someone to learn logging. Paper logging can come first and then when you feel comfortable, you can start using NetLogger. Don’t worry, we’ll give you all the training and help that you need. If you want to do more than just check in to a net or two every week, this is a chance to get trained and get your feet wet on the air.
TARC yearly dues and due now. We’re working on adding a PayPal account to our website, but this year the best thing to do is to mail in your dues. Dues are $20 per year for each Full Mem-ber and each Patron Member. For Family mem-bership, dues shall be $ 10 per year per person.
Be safe, be a good friend, get on the air!
Mark WA5MA
President Tulsa Amateur Radio Club