W5SLA Ozone Amateur Radio Club Proudly Serving St. Tammany and the North Shore Since 1964

QRM NewsletterNewsletterNewsletterNewsletter

Volume 5, No. 1 January 2014

2 Meter repeater

147.27 MHz (+)

PL 114.8

440 Repeater

441.100 MHz (+)

PL114.8

Packet Digi

145.01 MHz

W5SLA-4 Digi-peater only

W5SLA-3 Mailbox

W5SLA-5 NWS-TNC

ARES Net

Every Tuesday at 8:00 pm on the 2m repeater

2 Meter Net

Every Friday at 7:30 pm on the 2m repeater

10 Meter Net

Every Friday at 8:00 pm on 28.425 MHz USB

OARC Elects 2014 Officers

January 2, 2014

The Ozone Amateur Radio Club held it’s first 2014 meet-ing, and elected officers for 2014. Last year’s slate of officers ran unopposed and were reelected to serve another year with the exception of Wayne Tamborella KC5DEZ, who chose not to run. Our 2014 officers are as follows:

Paul Strickland WB9SUG, President

Ron Riviere WB5CXJ, Vice president

Tom McCullough KD5GFG, Treasurer

Frank Skiles WA5VCS, Secretary

Board Members:

Jay Charbonnet KA5KAE

John Guthans AA5UY

Tom Goertz W5HWQ

Congratulations to all our officers. Thank you for agree-ing to serve the club with your time and expertise!

Ozone Amateur Radio Club

PO Box 553

2190 Fourth St.

Slidell, LA 70459

http://www.w5sla.net

President

Paul Strickland WB9SUG

Vice President

Ron Riviere WB5CXJ

Secretary

Frank Skiles WA5VCS

Treasurer

Tom McCullough KD5GFG

Board of Directors

Jay Charbonnet KA5KAE

John Guthans AA5UY

Tom Goertz W5HWQ

Station Call

W5SLA

Mike White KM5LS

Newsletter Editor

Debra Corcoran KF5UTQ

Emergency Coordinator

Paul Strickland WB9SUG

From the Editor:

Dear Friends,

I hope everyone has had a good holiday season and is off to a

great start in 2014. Colin and I have been busy with lots of things

from experimenting with PSK 31, family and friends, homeschooling

with Madeline, and trying to get back to the routine schedule, as

well. I am continuing to enjoy my adventures in amateur radio,

though, I must confess I wish I were finding more time for it. I

have a number of interesting submissions for everyone this month.

Several regional area events are upcoming, so be sure to check the

next page and mark your calendars. SELARC in Hammond is host-

ing their annual Hamfest on January 18th. There’s a Capitol City

Hamfest 2014 and Mississippi State Convention in Jackson, Missis-

sippi coming up on January 24-25. And in March, Rayne, LA is gear-

ing up for the AARA 54th annual Hamfest and Delta Division Con-

vention. Also, we have the first in a series of articles on getting

started in packet radio, pictures from our December Eat & Meet, and

a special Silent Key memorial and history submission dating back to

the Ozone Best Amateur Radio Club, OARC’s predecessor.

It’s already become sort of a tradition now to share at least one fun

recipe. I didn’t get a reader submission this time, but a long dis-

tance friend did share with me recently a fabulous brownie recipe.

See you on the air waves…

Debra KF5UTQ

Chuck’s Rich Fudge Brownies

Grease a 13x9 pan, and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Melt the two sticks of butter, and then add the cocoa. Stir until smooth. Add the two cups of sugar. Keep on stirrin'. Add the eggs one at a time. Yeah...stir... Add the Vanilla, salt and flour. Stir until just combined. Now you have some good batter. Add the chips and/or walnuts. Smooth batter into pan and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes.

2 sticks of butter 1 cup of cocoa 2 cups of sugar 4 eggs 4 tsp of Vanilla Extract

1/2 tsp of salt 1 cup of flour 1 cup of walnuts, optional 1 cup chocolate chips, optional

*** HAMMOND HAMFEST 2014 ***

FREE ADMISSION & FREE PARKING 33rd ANNUAL HAMFEST

8:00am - 1:30pm Saturday, January 18

Magnuson Hotel & Conference Center

2000 South Morrison Blvd (I-55 Exit 28) Prizes - Forums - VE Testing

Details at www.selarc.org/selarchamfest.htm

Grand Prize: Icom IC-7200 HF Transceiver Second Prize: Icom IC-V8000 2m FM Transceiver

Third Prize: MFJ-259B Analyzer Foruth Prize: Icom IC-V80Sport 2m Handheld

Capitol City Hamfest 2014 and Mississippi State Convention

http://hamfest.msham.org/

Trade Mart building at the Mississippi State Fairgrounds

1207 Mississippi Street

Jackson MS 39202

January 24, 2014, 5:00 PM –8:00 PM

January 25, 2014, 8:-00 AM—4:00 PM

Admission is $8.00 and includes one door prize �cket. For $15.00, you receive admission

plus 10 door prize �ckets. Children 12 and under FREE

Guest Speaker:

Mike Corey KI1U

ARRL HQ staff,

Emergency Preparedness Manager

AARA 54th Annual

Hamfest

& Delta Division

Convention

Rayne Civic Center

March 13 & 14, 2014

Rayne, LA

See www.w5ddl.org/hamfest/ for

more information.

Bill Stoltz (K5YRT) writes…

My long time and very dear friend, Steve Bryan – K5SLW, died on Thanksgiving

evening of a massive heart attack. He was a Slidell native, licensed continuously

since 1958 and was a founding member and the first Secretary/Treasurer of the

Ozone Best Amateur Radio Club, the forerunner of the OARC.

After graduating from LSU, Steve started his professional life as an Electrical Engi-

neer, working on Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) for the F-111 and later for the F-

15. When the system senses that the aircraft has been “locked on”, it emits a burst

signal ten times the strength of the received signal in many directions. So, the ag-

gressor has no idea where the plane really is. I once asked him how successful it

was, and he replied that the score was 115 to zero. F-15s had never been shot down

in a dogfight.

Tiring of the big company/government bureaucracy and moving his family as de-

fense contracts moved around, he repurposed himself in the mid-1970s, graduated

from LSU Dental School and practiced Dentistry for over 25 years in Kentwood. In

1998 he had bypass surgery and the anesthetic killed both of this kidneys and his im-

mune system. While on dialysis daily for 18 months, he finally had time to achieve

his DXCC. His wife, Kathy, was a match and donated a kidney to him in late 1999,

which served him well until his heart gave out.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Bill, Steve’s family, and friends, and all that knew

him. He will be long remembered and dearly missed.

In addition to this sad news and tribute to his dear friend, Bill was also able to share

some interesting history about our club’s predecessor, Ozone Best Amateur Radio

Club, that Steve had written some time back. Please see the facing page.

The Founding of the Ozone Best Amateur Radio Club By Steve Bryan – K5SLW

from 2008

I was licensed in 1958 as KN5SLW and passed my general in 1959. Those would have been my sophomore(58), junior and senior years at Slidell High School. At that time SHS was located on 3rd street and PA Ave. where Slidell Jr. High is now. All this stuff has significance in the early history of what has originally the Ozone Belt ARC. I will try to tie it all together as best as I can. The name "Ozone Belt" was derived from the fact that the area in the piney woods on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain was thought to be more healthful because of an extra content of ozone in the air. There was even an "Ozone Apartments" just northeast of Brock Elementary School. I remember studying their sign from the front door of the school as I waited for my school teacher mother to get off school bus duty. The OBARC was formed in 1958-59. It began as on-the-air meetings of Slidell area hams on 75 meter AM (not SSB.....that was still several years away). Unfortunately, my log book from that time frame has been lost, so I am working from a fuzzy memory. The founding fathers that I can remember were Nick Roberts W5ANA, Lou Hargas W5FSA, Easy Ezell W5PYJ, Bill Tillet K5CVK, Jim Spencer K5???, Steve Bryan KN5SLW (I listened on 75 meters until I got my general), Bob W5EWW from Picayune, MS. Bill, K5YRT, must have joined us sometime in 1960. The first meetings were at W5ANA's house. I am pretty sure that W5ANA was our first presi-dent. I was the first secretary/treasurer. It was while we were meeting at W5ANA that the club decided to purchase several Heathkit Sixers so we could have a local mobile ability in case of some disaster need. In 1960 we got permission to establish a meeting location in the old Slidell High School cafeteria. We had a lockable cabinet built in what was the original SHS cafeteria kitchen. By that time there had been a new junior high building built along 4th street and north of PA Ave., so the old cafeteria was no longer used. It was a good meeting place. Someone donated a Heath kit DC-100 and a receiver. We put a multiband vertical on a push-up pole and Windom strung between the pine trees. I climbed the trees. (My father was not too happy about me climbing the trees.) In the spring of 1961 under the leadership of W5ANA we held a HamFest at the cafeteria. I do not remember how many hams showed up but I do recall that we were pleased with our first effort at such a thing. We even had a few XYLs and a YL ham show up. That pretty much end-ed my contact with the club because in the fall of 1961 I left Slidell to go to LSU. I hope this is helpful and again, I am sorry that I don't have any QRMs and that it took me so long to get back to you. From the time I got your email to now, we sold our home in Ham-mond, moved to a temporary location in Austin, TX, bought a new house in Austin and moved into it. We are still digging our way out of all the boxes. I don't have any antennas up yet so I am not on the air. I am hoping to change that soon.

submitted by Bill Stoltz– K5YRT

December 7, 2013

OARC Holiday Eat and

Meet

NOLA Southern Grill

1375 Gause Blvd

Slidell, LA 70458

33 club members and family

attended.

A great time was had by all!

Merry Christmas

& Happy New Year!

from the Ozone Amateur

Radio Club

INTRODUCTION TO PACKET RADIO - PART 1 by Larry Kenney, WB9LOZ

WHAT IS PACKET RADIO?

A Short History - How it all began It was in March, 1980, that the Federal Communications Commission approved the transmis-sion of ASCII for Amateur Radio in the United States. That was a year and a half after Canadian hams had been authorized to transmit digital "packet radio", and the Canadians had already been working on a protocol for it. Doug Lockhart, VE7APU, of Vancouver, British Columbia, had developed a device that he called a terminal node controller (TNC). It worked with a modem to convert ASCII to modulated tones and convert the demodulated tones back to ASCII. Doug had also formed the Vancouver Amateur Digital Communications Group (VADCG) and named his

TNC the "VADCG board".

Hams here in the U.S. started experimenting with the VADCG board, but in December, 1980, a ham from the San Francisco Bay Area, Hank Magnuski, KA6M, put a digital repeater on 2 me-ters using a TNC that he had developed. A group of hams interested in Hank's TNC started working together on further developments in packet radio and formed the Pacific Packet Radio Society (PPRS). AMRAD, the Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation, in Wash-ington, DC became the center for packet work on the east coast, and in 1981 a group of hams

in Tucson, Arizona, founded the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corporation (TAPR).

Working together these groups developed a modified version of the commercial X.25 protocol called Amateur X.25 (AX.25) and in November, 1983, TAPR released the first TNC in kit form, the TAPR TNC1. In 1984, a great deal of packet experimentation was done, software for packet bulletin board systems was developed, and packet radio started becoming more and more pop-

ular all across the U.S. and Canada.

Packet Radio was one of the major developments to hit the world of Amateur Radio and thou-sands of hams soon caught the "packet bug". If you're wondering what it's all about and why so

many people got so excited about it, continue reading. You're about to find out.

Packet Radio - What It's All About

Packet seems to offer something different from other facets of Amateur Radio, yet it can be

used for everything from a local QSO to a DX contact thousands of miles away, for electronic

mail, message transmission, emergency communications, or just plain tinkering in the world of

digital communications. It presents a new challenge for those tired of the QRM on the low

bands, a new mode for those already on FM, and a better, faster means of message handling

for those on RTTY. Packet is for the rag chewer, the traffic handler, the experimenter, and the

casual operator.

Robert Miller (AF5JH) submitted to us a series of articles on using packet radio. They were originally written by Larry Kenney, WB9LOZ in 1988 to appear in Nuts & Volts, the newsletter of the San Francis-

co Amateur Radio Club. The series has been widely distributed since then, with revisions issued in 1991, 1993, and 1995. Occasional revisions were made to this version on the web thereafter, in the late 1990s.

The author is no longer active in packet radio and is unable to provide up to date information on packet radio; however he has left this material on the Internet for access by those who might find it helpful. If

you’d like to read ahead, you can find them on the web at http://www.choisser.com/packet/.

INTRODUCTION TO PACKET RADIO - PART 1 by Larry Kenney, WB9LOZ Continued

A ham can get involved very easily with relatively small out-of-pocket expenses. All

you need is a transceiver, a computer, and a TNC or special packet modem and soft-ware. A two-meter rig is preferred, since that's where most of the packet activity is

located. You probably already have the rig and the computer, so all you need to buy is the TNC, which costs just over $100, or the special modem and software, which sell

together for about $50.

The TNC, the Terminal Node Controller, is a "little black box" that's wired between the computer and the radio. It contains software for controlling the outgoing and incoming

transmissions for your station and a modem that converts the data from the computer into AFSK tones for transmission and changes the tones that are received by the radio

into data for the computer. The TNC modem works much like a modem that's used to

connect your computer to the telephone lines. It's a simple matter of wiring up a plug and a couple of jacks to become fully operational on packet. If you prefer to use the

small modem instead of a TNC, you'll need special software for your computer to re-place the software in the TNC. Either method works equally well.

Packet is communications between people either direct or indirect. You can work

"keyboard to keyboard" or use electronic mailboxes or bulletin board systems to leave messages. Due to the error checking by the TNC, all of it is error free, too. (That is, as

error free as the person at the keyboard types it!) As the data is received it's continu-ously checked for errors, and it isn't accepted unless it's correct. You don't miss the

information if it has errors, however, because the information is resent until it is cor-

rectly received.

The data that is to be transmitted is collected in the TNC and sent as bursts, or pack-ets, of information, hence the name. Each packet has the callsign or address of who

it's going to, who it's coming from and the route between the two stations included, along with the data and error checking. Since up to 256 characters can be included in

each packet, more than three lines of text can be sent in a matter of a couple of sec-onds. There is also plenty of time between packets for several stations to be using the

same frequency at the same time.

If all of this sounds confusing, don't let it bother you, because the TNC or special

packet software does everything for you automatically. Packet radio might seem very

confusing at first, but in a day or two you'll be in there with the best of them. In this

series I'll be telling you all about packet radio - how you get on the air and how to use

it. We'll talk about the little black box, the TNC, and tell you about all its inner-most

secrets. We'll discuss mailboxes, bulletin board systems, and the packet networks that

allow you to work stations hundreds, even thousands, of miles away using just a low

powered rig on 2 meters, 220 or 450. The world of packet radio awaits you!

Part 1 last revised February 8, 1997.

source: http://www.choisser.com/packet/part01.html

Solar Flux Record High Could Herald Better Conditions

From ARRL News 01/06/2014

The 10.7 centimeter solar flux index (SFI) jumped to a Cycle 24 record of 262 on Janu-

ary 4, suggesting that Cycle 24 has not yet begun drawing to a close and may be ap-

proaching or at a “second peak.” The previous peak for the current cycle was 190 on September 24, 2011. As NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) explains, the

flux of the sun’s radio emissions at 10.7 centimeter (2.8 GHz) is another indicator of so-lar activity levels, since it tends to follow changes in the solar ultraviolet that influence

Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere.

“Many models of the upper atmosphere use the 10.7 cm flux (F10.7) as input to determine atmospheric densities

and satellite drag,” NASA/MSFC notes, adding that SFI “has been shown to follow the sunspot number quite

closely.” The January 6 sunspot count was 225. The Cy-

cle 24 sunspot count peaked at 282 on November 17, 2013, according to WM7D.net.

Canada’s Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory

(DRAO) indicated an “official” flux of 262 at 2000 UTC on Saturday, January 3. The official figure for Sunday, January 5, was 217.5. ARRL solar observer Tad Cook, K7RA,

who reports 10.7 centimeter flux numbers in his weekly “Solar Update” bulletins, sug-gests that they are not as valuable as sunspot numbers in predicting radio propagation.

The solar flux was over the weekend was far higher what was anticipated, judging by predictions Cook reported in his January 3 “Solar Update” for this past weekend and

the week ahead. NASA/MFSC indicates a 95 percent predicted flux for the month of Jan-

uary at 146.5, continuing at about the same level through the first half of the year.

The Daily DX says the SFI is expected to remain above 200 for the next week (220, 220, 215, 215, 215, 205 and 200 for Monday through Sunday). “The last time the SFI

was above 200 was during Solar Cycle 23 in late October 2003, for about a week rang-ing from 210 to 298,” The Daily DX reported January 6. Editor Bernie McClenny, W3UR,

cites the recollections of Frank Donovan, W3LPL, who recalled SFI numbers above 200 were common 12 years ago during the second peak of Cycle 23, from mid-October

2001 through mid February 2002. It was during that period that the last instance of “almost-daily transatlantic” F2 propagation took place on 6 meters.

As Ian Poole, G3YWX, explained solar flux in his article, “Understanding Solar Indi-ces” in the September 2002 edition of QST, “[H]igh values generally indicate there is

sufficient ionization to support long-distance communication at higher-than-normal fre-quencies.” He pointed out, though, that it can take a few days of high values for condi-

tions to show improvement. “Typically values in excess of 200 will be measured during the peak of a sunspot cycle, with high values of up to 300 being experienced for shorter

periods,” Poole wrote.

Source: http://www.arrl.org/news/solar-flux-record-high-could-herald-better-conditions

Sun Emits X Class Flare to Kick Off 2014

From Nasa.gov

The sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at

1:32 p.m. EST on Jan.7, 2014. This is the first sig-

nificant flare of 2014, and follows on the heels of

mid-level flare earlier in the day. Each flare was cen-

tered over a different area of a large sunspot group

currently situated at the center of the sun, about

half way through its 14-day journey across the front

of the disk along with the rotation of the sun.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful

radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's

atmosphere to physically affect humans on the

ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can

disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and

communications signals travel. This disrupts the ra-

dio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, any-

where from minutes to hours.

This flare is classified as an X1.2-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as

intense, etc.

The Jan. 7, 2014, X-class flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection, or CME, another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of particles into space that can reach Earth one to three days later. These particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can af-fect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground.

The European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, captured an im-

age of the giant particle cloud as it burst away from the sun.

To see how this event may impact Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.

From Spaceweather.gov—

2014-01-10 01:15 UTC Modest Start to Geomagnetic Storm

The coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with the R3 (Strong) Solar Flare Radio Blackout event from

January 7th is now affecting Earth but the resulting geomagnetic storm is off to a modest start, with no

substantial storming occurring thus far. The initial structure of this CME has been relatively weak in

strength, but that said, it generally takes on the order of 24 hours or more for the full event to transpire

and stronger storming is certainly still possible. The ongoing Solar Radiation Storm, still just above the

S2 (Moderate) threshold, continues it slow decay toward background levels. Additionally, Region 1944 is

showing some signs of decay and no significant flaring has been observed in the last 48 hours. Stay

tuned for updates.

This pictures combines two images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on Jan. 7, 2013. Togeth-er, the images show the location of a giant sunspot group on the sun, and the position of an X-class flare that erupt-ed at 1:32 p.m. EST. Image Credit: NASA/SDO

Did You Know?

SkyWarn training is available online!

Click here to learn and test for

SkyWarn certification!

https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_course.php?id=23

KC4AAA to be Active from South Pole Station

From ARRL News— 01/08/2014

Joe Musachia, W5FJG, a telecommunications technician and trainer, has been assigned to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and will be operating fromKC4AAA, the Amateur Radio station there. The station offers a kilowatt into 6 element 20 and 3 element 40 meter monobanders fixed on the US and a tribander fixed toward Europe. He reports that KC4AAA does not have the ability to operate CW as it’s currently config-ured, so he will operate SSB only on weekdays and some weekends, through the winter season, until November 2014. He also hopes to have a 3 element 17 meter beam aimed at North America, that is supposed to go up this month. Listen for KC4AAA with W5FJG at the helm on or near 14.243 MHz. Almost all activity is currently on 20 meters. QSL to Larry Skilton, K1IED. — Thanks to The Daily DX

Contest Events

January 18-20

ARRL VHF Contest

http://www.arrl.org/january-vhf

February 15-16, 2014

ARRL International DX-CW Contest

http://www.arrl.org/arrl-dx

March 1-2, 2014

ARRL International DX—Phone Contest

http://www.arrl.org/arrl-dx