Watch this youtube video and learn about why this is an issue in the first place and what the FCC is doing about it.
Experimentation
W4FSV
Breadboard Radio – Ham Radio Kits that are easy to build and fun to use!
KM4ACK
Build-a-Pi will allow you to get up and running fast with a Raspberry Pi for ham radio.
Winlink for Emergency Communications: Beginners Workshop
Wait what? Last month’s Ham and Eggs attendees received a USB key packed with tools and software for Winlink, JS8Call, and VARAChat. Perfect timing, there is training posted at ARES-SC.org that will take you through Winlink A-Z. More details are below:
NOTE: This is will a late evening event, it is posted to be a 7 pm PST time, making it 10 pm for the east coast.
COLUMBIA SKYWARN STORM SPOTTERS TEAM
Midlands Skywarn Newsletter Sign-up
The Columbia SKYWARN Team assists the Columbia National Weather Service with Ground-Truth weather observations during severe or dangerous weather. The Columbia NWS forecast area covers much of South Carolina and is divided into August/CSRA, Midlands, and Eastern Midlands.
The Columbia SKYWARM Team holds NETS and Virtual Training/Meetings weekly and monthly. More Information can be found at the Columbia Amateur Radio Club Calendar
Important Links:
- How to Report Severe Weather to the NWS Office in Columbia: https://www.weather.gov/cae/severe_reports.html
- Storm Reporting to NWS: https://inws.ncep.noaa.gov/report/
- Storm Prediction Center: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/
- Richland County Emergency Preparedness: https://richlandcountysc.gov/Emergency-Preparedness
Founded in the 1970s, the information provided by SKYWARN Spotters, coupled with Doppler radar technology, improved satellite, and other data, has enabled the NWS to issue more timely and accurate warnings for tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and flash floods. SKYWARN Storm Spotters form the nation’s first line of defense against severe weather minutes that can help save lives.
In most years, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and lightning cause hundreds of injuries and deaths and billions in property and crop damage. The National Weather Service (NWS) established SKYWARN with partner organizations to obtain critical weather information. SKYWARN is a volunteer program with 350,000 and 400,000 trained severe weather Spotters. These volunteers help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service. Although SKYWARN Spotters provide essential information for all weather hazards, the focus is reporting on severe local thunderstorms. In an average year, the United States experiences more than 10,000 severe thunderstorms, 5,000 floods, and more than 1,000 tornadoes. (Information courtesy of the Columbia NWS)
Interested in learning more, have questions, or want to sign up for training-Newsletter-meetings?
Use the orange form at the bottom of the page to contact us, or visit the Columbia NWS at https://www.weather.gov/cae/skywarn.html
Community Emergency Response Team Training
Community Emergency Response Team – CERT Training – STARTING Tuesday, October 10 at 6 PM at the Richland County EOC.
This is the 20-hour Community Emergency Response Team Class. This training is scheduled for three consecutive Tuesdays & Thursdays in October. We have openings and need additional participants to register with Sharon Long by the close of business on Wednesday, October 4, to avoid canceling this training.
Link for the schedule: CERT October 2023 Link for the application: COMMUNICATIONS EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM APPLICATION FORM
For more information, Contact Mark Goddard @ [email protected]
ARRL Special Service Club Award
Congratulations! The SSC status has been approved for the Columbia Amateur Radio Club, W4CAE.
Thank you for being so supportive of amateur radio.
Sincerely,
Mike Walters, W8ZY
Field Services Manager
ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio®
Columbia Amateur Radio Club is now a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador!
The Columbia Amateur Radio Club is now a Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) Ambassador.
The Columbia Amateur Radio Club is excited to collaborate with NOAA/NWS to help strengthen our nation’s readiness against extreme weather, water, and climate events. If you would like more information, please visit the Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador Frequently Asked Questions. And if you need any additional information, email WRN anytime at [email protected]. You can also find WRN on X (previously Twitter) @WRNAmbassadors.
Permanent link to this article: https://w4cae.com/fcc-crackdown-on-baofeng-ht/
South Carolina A.R.E.S. Statewide HF Net
New time and frequency has been announced 3.990 at 6pm Tuesdays for the A.R.E.S. HF net originating out of South Carolina. All are welcome.
Permanent link to this article: https://w4cae.com/south-carolina-a-r-e-s-statewide-hf-net/
Vara FM Digipeater Function is here
2021-01-28 00:34:04 Disconnected
2021-01-28 00:34:04 QRT Received
2021-01-28 00:33:39 Digipeating: WE5MAG <-> K4LLE <-> W1GTT-10 S/N: 2.0 dB
2021-01-28 00:33:37 Starting Digipeater: WE5MAG <-> K4LLE <-> W1GTT-10…
Click anywhere here for more information on Vara FM digipeater function and how to set it up.
Permanent link to this article: https://w4cae.com/vara-fm-digipeater-function-is-here/
Winlink Workshop
The SEC-ARES group conducts Winlink training that many operators can learn from. Please click on the WINLINK tab above for a list of the training conducted so far and links to the recordings.
Permanent link to this article: https://w4cae.com/winlink-workshop/
Winlink P2P Group
If you would like to join please send an email to [email protected] and ask for an invite to the slack channel. We are also experimenting with JS8call as the “on radio” platform to coordinate our activities in the event of no internet.
Permanent link to this article: https://w4cae.com/winlink-p2p-group/
Station Grounding & Bonding
Kevan attended the clubs August 2020 meeting and his presentation was very very interesting. Not at such a high level like some presentations but at a level we could implement his suggestions and understand why.
Note: all of the club business, opining and show and tell has been edited out by K4LLE. Which means this is a heavily edited video because the August club meeting was also a business meeting. For club business I direct you to the meeting minutes which will be posted under the tab MINUTES. This video is Kevan’s presentation and the Q&A session he ran afterwards. Also, because this MP4 is so big it could not be uploaded to this website. As such it was placed on a google drive with a sharable link. Click on this link and you will go to the google drive where you can download or view the full presentation.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15z6OOdXjGvNNUI5uP4QetKO2svu9rEas/view?usp=sharing
This video is a ZOOM recording of the Columbia Amateur Radio Clubs (CARC) August 3 2020 business meeting. The CARC is not responsible for anything you see or hear in this video. This video is rated G for all audiences.
Permanent link to this article: https://w4cae.com/station-grounding-bonding/
DHS SHARES LF Beacon
There is an LF beacon operating in the Columbia area. It can be received out to about 200 miles via groundwave – much further with skywave. This station is operating as a proof of concept Low Frequency alerting station, as part of a DHS SHARES trial program. Our Amateur HF community knows that long-range emergency communications can become unusable when HF skywave propagation is disrupted by a disturbed ionosphere. But groundwave communications independent of the ionosphere remain available. Such LF stations can provide essentially omni-directional blanket Alerting and low-bit-rate information coverage, nearly independent of mountains or foliage, etc.
The local station is transmitting on a center frequency of 194 khz. The best way to receive it is to tune your receiver’s USB Mode to 192.500 kHz, and use FLDIG or an equivalent program set at ‘1500 Hz CENTER,’ with a very narrow filter – the signal is only 36 Hz wide, so I use a 50 Hz filter for best reception.
The signal presently being transmitted is THOR-Micro, available free from fldigi. The signal is sent with a 50 second on, 60 second off duty cycle and runs 24/7.
We are very interested in getting signal reports, and prefer to get them taken near noon, when any skywave component is minimized. Reports of just the observance of the signal in a waterfall display, even of just an audable signal strong enough for CW (here: on/off as above), or of course, copy of the brief Alert text in the message window of THOR-Micro.
Send reports to Dan Goldston [email protected]
Permanent link to this article: https://w4cae.com/dhs-shares-lf-beacon/