Our January 25 General Meeting had a record attendance of 74 people! What a great way to start the
New Year.
The Winlink training was well received and prepared us for the Saturday Drill from Home on January 27. We were burning up the air waves with Winlink traffic all around the county. We were very interested to see how the Winlink email forwarding would work from the ARES trailer. The messages sent to Nathan through the N7MCU gateway were held and then forwarded via Pactor to HF gateways in Nevada and Utah. This demonstrates our ability to get the messages out if no local Internet is available. Thanks to everyone who participated and a special thanks to our team leaders and shelter leaders who had their hands full replying to all the traffic. In all we had 45 members working from home and in the
field.
The next weekend, Saturday, February 3, was the copper J-pole build held by our training manager, John KI7LYP. In all, 14 people went home with a new antenna all tuned and ready to go. There was much excitement as everyone learned to cut and solder simple copper pipe into a nifty new antenna ready to boost their radio signal. We hope to hear these new antennas in our next simplex test. If you missed out on the February build session, John is keeping a list of interested folks for another weekend workshop. You can contact him at training [at] multnomahares [dot] org.
Finally we have received all the materials for the repeater kits and the build process has started. There will be one full-on portable UHF repeater and two portable VHF/UHF kits that can either cross-band repeat or be digipeaters. These kits have robust power options with big 105 amp-hour batteries, solar charging, and propane converted Honda inverter generators. The antenna and mast systems are also robust with Diamond X50 antennas and tripod masts that can reach over 30 feet in height. Testing with these kits should start this Spring.
On Saturday, February 24 from 12:00 to 16:00, I will be conducting a Hardware Workshop. This will be a show and tell type session with plenty of hardware to touch and talk about! There will be a presentation about many of the different types of hardware used in ham radio stations, what they do, and when you need or don’t need them. Some of the items will include antenna tuners, TNCs, antenna switches, SWR meters, amplifiers, keyers, antenna analyzers, and many more.
After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session, then some additional time to actually see various pieces of equipment.
Attendance will be limited to 20 attendees with priority given to active MCARES members although all hams or interested parties are invited if space permits. Contact training [at] multnomahares [dot] org to sign up and get location details.
This session will be repeated on June 2.
Please join us for our general membership meeting on Thursday, February 22 at the Portland Fire and Rescue training center at 4800 NE 122nd Ave in Portland. There will be a Q&A session and informal gathering for new members from 18:15 to 19:00. The main meeting will run from 19:00 to 21:00. You do not need to be a member to attend – everyone is welcome!
We will meet in the main room at 19:00 for leadership updates and general business, and then break into two groups for introductory and advanced discussions of radio operations. You are free to choose either session, based on your level of experience.
John KI7LYP will lead the intro session in the main room, where he will cover the basics of operating VHF and UHF FM using local repeaters and simplex. Robert WX5TEX will lead the advanced session in the Annex. He will discuss HF operations, focusing on propagation and MUF, SSB operations, and a brief mention of digital modes in use on HF.
Additional information about our monthly meetings can be found on the meeting page.
Join me in welcoming our newest members. Nick KI7PTT has joined the Bravo team, Barbara KI7QLC has joined the Charlie team, Ken KI7RUN has joined the Echo team, and Ed KI7QID has joined the Charlie team. Jeremy W7BIO has also joined and is an employee with Multnomah County; he will be listed as a Supporting member.
Originally licensed as WN7ULT when I was 13, I have always had an interest in radios and electronics. My hobby and ham radio lead me through school and into a career in the US Navy working on communications and radar equipment. My entry into the Navy was busy with boot camp, dating and marrying my wife Patti KB7GMM, but then things settled and I returned to ham radio with my new Tech license WH6AVQ.
I finally worked up my CW speed and upgraded to General class (KH6XG) and, with the new privileges and also a Navy MARS license, I spent many hours, both on ships and ashore, running phone patches for sailors all over the Pacific as well as working the DX stations and acquiring quite a collection of QSL cards from all over the world (my favorites are still my QSL cards from the islands of Vanuatu and Naru).
After retiring from the Navy, I continued to work in computers and electronics and to this day, I still enjoy finding and repairing old communications equipment.
In late 2015, I was recruited into the Multnomah County ARES group, and I finally gave up my well used Hawaiian call and went back to a 7 district call, KI7LYP.
Happy New Year! We hope everyone is ready to have a fun and productive year in the amateur radio world. We certainly started off with a great simplex net on January 3.
The Leadership team met on December 10 for an all-day planning session and reviewed the membership survey. We believe that the coming year is full of opportunities to sharpen our members’ skills and continue training of our newest members. We will continue to have team exercises and have added a couple of all team drills to the mix. This year Multnomah County ARES will have its own Field Day on June 23-24. A central location is being finalized.
Thanks to Rachel KI7NMB for volunteering to take on the Net Manager position and to Patti KB7GMM for taking the Net Content Coordinator position. We look forward to adding content to our weekly nets. Patti will be working hard to make this happen. Emily N7EMH has agreed to take on the Bravo Team Leader position; Matthew AF7PV will stay on as the PBEM Station Chief for the time being. Thanks to Emily for taking on this important role.
Our new training manager, John KI7LYP, has a great line up of training topics for the monthly meetings and several Saturday workshops throughout the year. Many of our monthly trainings will start off with all members and then split into beginning and advanced classes. Hopefully this will add a better learning experience for both our newer and older members. The Saturday workshops – the first being the February 3 J-pole building party – are designed to help with equipment needs and operating skills. We hope our members will take advantage of these opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills, and to build their stations and go kits to a higher level.
A quick review of 2017 shows we had a total of 2,596 volunteer hours for the year. Way to go everyone! We are starting the New Year with 83 active members and we will continue our membership drive in hopes of reaching the goal of 100 members this year. We appreciate everyone’s efforts on passing the word to friends and family as 2017 was a very high growth year. Please keep up the great work! If you have any outreach ideas, let Steve W7SRH know at PIO [at] MultnomahARES [dot] org.
The UASI grant order for the repeater kits has been completed and we are expecting to pick up the equipment any day now. The kits will include a full UHF Ham repeater and two portable VHF/UHF cross band repeaters that are also capable of being digipeaters. This will greatly enhance our abilities should there be a failure of the usual repeaters that we now rely on. Expect to see these kits being used in upcoming exercises as we test and train on their use. Our thanks to both Multnomah County Emergency Management and Portland Bureau of Emergency Management for their help and support in obtaining this grant!
If you would like to build your very own J-Pole, here is your chance! On Saturday, February 3, I will conduct a workshop where participants will build a copper pipe J-Pole antenna for the 2-meter band. This is the antenna build we demonstrated at the November, 2017 General Membership Meeting.
There will be a fee of $15.00 per person to cover the cost of materials. Space is limited, and advance registration is required so we can procure materials. Contact training [at] multnomahares [dot] org to sign up.
Please join us for our general membership meeting on Thursday, January 25 at the Portland Fire and Rescue training center at 4800 NE 122nd Ave in Portland. There will be a Q&A session and informal gathering for new members from 18:15 to 19:00. The main meeting will run from 19:00 to 21:00. You do not need to be a member to attend – everyone is welcome!
We will meet in the main room at 19:00 for leadership updates and general business, and then break into two groups for introductory and advanced discussions of Winlink operations. You are free to choose either session, based on your level of experience.
John KI7LYP and Eli W7ELI will provide an introduction to Winlink software for newer users. Bring your laptops and join in while they demonstrate how to configure the software, find forms, and create and send messages. We will be using the WiFi in the training facility to send and receive real messages.
Adam KF7LJH will lead the advanced session for more experienced users who would like to learn how to operate/interface with a TNC and SignaLink, find gateway stations, and operate using a packet session.
There will not be a general membership meeting this month, due to the holidays. Instead, the Leadership team will be meeting for a day-long planning session to work out our training and event schedule, and other business, for 2018. Have a great holiday month, and we’ll see you in January!
Join me in welcoming our newest members. Justin KI7QBU will join the Echo team, Jay KI7QOZ will join the Alpha team, and Peter K7LEE will join the Charlie team.
