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Like many other ham operators, I have been involved in the RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) aspect of the hobby for some time. RACES teams generally work with county emergency management agencies and support emergency communications. All of this, of course, rolls up to our corrupt FEMA/DHS bureaucracy and a lot of the ham physical resources are supported by FEMA grant money, strings attached. While the head is rotten, many of the local agencies are pretty good to work with while some aren't. I am seeing a number of hams expressing discontent with, or curtailing their level of activity...

ARRL Field Day Overview ARRL Field Day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada.  Each year over 35,000 amateurs gather with their clubs, friends or simply by themselves to operate. ARRL Field Day is not a fully adjudicated contest, which explains much of its popularity.  It is a time where many aspects of Amateur Radio come together to highlight our many roles. While some will treat it as a contest, most groups use the opportunity to practice their emergency response capabilities.  It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Amateur Radio to local elected community...

SNIPPET: "ARRL Field Day is June 26-27, 2010 ARRL Field Day is the largest on-the-air operating event in Amateur Radio. It draws tens of thousands to the airwaves each year, bringing new and experienced hams together for a weekend of fun!" SNIPPET: "ARRL Field Day Overview ARRL Field Day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada. Each year over 35,000 amateurs gather with their clubs, friends or simply by themselves to operate. ARRL Field Day is not a fully adjudicated contest, which explains much of its popularity. It is a time where many...

Getting your ham radio license is an idea well worth considering if you think comunications might be restricted under some circumstances.

[H]am radio operators will test their emergency communications capabilities with amateur radio clubs across the nation this weekend. The field day, the culmination of National Amateur Radio Week, known as the Nationwide Emergency Communications Drill, is intended to give the public a glimpse of the services amateur radio operators provide and a chance to meet the operators themselves. "In a disaster, when phone lines, cellphones and the Internet are all down, ham radio operators will be on the job," said Jon Clark, president of the Antelope Valley Amateur Radio Club. The club will set up at the north end of...

While doing a google search on the Iditarod Dog Sled Race I found lots of links that mentioned Amateur Radio in some small way… This one caught my eye… Courtesy State of Alaska Website Amateur Radio Week Printer Friendly WHEREAS, amateur radio operators have a long and illustrious history of providing communications worldwide for people in need. From the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake and the 1996 Miller’s Reach Fire in Alaska, to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi, amateur radio operators have given willingly of their time, equipment, skills, and energy to benefit close neighbors and faraway strangers...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/seattle_stso_flooded_in_place.shtm STSO 'Flooded In Place' Puts Radio Operator Skills to Good Use News & Happenings January 30, 2009 When more than two feet of snow gave way to rain and heavy flooding earlier this month, Supervisory TSO Donn Gallon of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport put his skills as an amateur radio operator to good use. As Gallon put it, he was “flooded in place” in his home on the Skookumchuck River in southwest Washington for more than two days. But from that vantage point he was able to report on water levels and other...

Romney "Disses" Amateur Radio In Televised Town Meeting Posted on Wednesday 16 November 2005 @ 15:48:10 Governor Mitt Romney dismissed the role of Amateur Radio operators in emergency communications during a televised "town meeting" program last night on WCVB's "When Disaster Strikes: Segment Two." The program featured public safety and volunteer organization officials from across Massachusetts among its audience. Host and moderator Natalie Jacobson asked an increasingly-agitated Governor Romney questions about communications interoperability, and communication without commercial power. Romney was next asked by Jacobson, "...so does it come down to ham radio?..." The Governor replied in a disgusted tone, "No,...

I have a collins R390a/urr that was given to me by a eldery vet for chistmas I have contacted a Chuck Rippel in VA but he said did not have the time to repair it I am posting this because free republic has good info and maybe someone knows how I could repair this it sat for a long time in a enclosed garage and needs cleaning as well as minor repairs( at least I hope)

Who: NØNJY/6Y5, KBØIRW/6Y5 (Rick and JoAnne Donaldson) What: Jamaica DXPedition When: 12-14 October 2007 Where: Runaway Bay, Jamaica, West Indies Why: For FUN! Island DXpedition (Celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary and 18 years as hams radio operators together!) QSL: Home call (NØNJY) Operational Times: APPROXIMATELY 17ØØ-21ØØ UTC on Friday and Saturday, and 17ØØ-2ØØØ on Sun Frequency: Split frequency operation during operations hours on 14.19Ø +/-1Ø KHz, TX, Listening 14.2ØØ – 14.23Ø (+/- 1Ø KHz) Equipment: ICOM IC-735, Alinco Power Supply, Home brew antenna (Pictures on blog site for equipment) Blog site with much more information for comments, and QSL information...

good source for used ham radios?

Where Will Ham Radio Be in 50 Years? What will it be like? Or will it even exist?

May 12, Gleaner News (KY) Severe weather drill highlights the importance of ham radios. In a severe weather drill Thursday, May 11, negative temperatures, freezing rain and sleet turned Henderson, KY, and its surrounding counties into a veritable ice kingdom. The objective of this drill: For emergency responders within the seven counties of the Green River Area Development District to share information regarding disaster preparedness. The event comprised three hospitals and seven counties −− Henderson, Union, Webster, Daviess, Hancock, McLean and Ohio −− and each county had to communicate with each other. Some problems involved written communications between the agencies...

Collin County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) Skywarn Spotters were on the job last night when storms went through the Northern cities of Anna and Westminster that produced two tornadoes. At 8:30pm last evening the National Weather Service in Fort Worth alerted our appointed severe weather Assistant Emergency Coordinator (AEC)Ted Best, KD5JEO, of the severe weather potential for Collin County and asked that we activate our spotters. David Patrick, W7DAV, did a outstanding job as our Net Control Station (NCS) for this particular spotter activation. As is usually the case, a separate frequency was used to provide support from our...

Undelivered mail from 1956 comes back to DeLand DELAND -- It's been a long, mysterious journey for one little postcard. In 1956, George Hitz dropped a postcard into his Stetson Avenue mailbox, hoping a fellow HAM radio operator in Riverside, Calif., would soon get it. No one knows whether the postcard completed its cross-country journey, but it was returned to its starting place this week bearing a 1956 DeLand postmark and a "return to sender" stamp. George Hitz as a teenager at his HAM radio shack on Stetson Avenue in DeLand, from where he sent the card to California. Hitz,...

Radio Buffs Lobby to Make Historic 500 kHz a 'Memorial Frequency'For almost a century, 500 kHz was a lifeline for ships worldwide. Better known as 500 kilocycles, it was the spectrum reserved for ships and the shore stations that communicated with them in Morse Code (sometimes referred to as CW, for continuous wave). If you're a real radio old-timer, you might refer to the frequency as 600 meters. "To ensure that SOS calls were always heard, all ship and shore stations were required to monitor 500 kHz at all times," said Richard Dillman, secretary and chief CW operator of the...

Dennis L. and Brenda F. Alford consider themselves law-abiding citizens. He is retired from Volvo Heavy Truck Plant and a greeter at the Wytheville Wal-Mart. She is a registered nurse at Carrington Place at Wytheville Birdmont Center. Imagine their surprise Wednesday morning when county and town law enforcement officers descended on their Locust Hill Road home. A search warrant was executed and eventually five two-way radios, four scanners, a computer, a power supply, radio tuners and an amplifier were seized. "They made us go in the living room and sit there," recalled Mrs. Alford. "They kept us under surveillance. It...

"Why don't you take a picture of our antenna up there above that Rising Sun?" Larry asked. "A kamikaze plane hit the Lex right there in 1942." The decal on the superstructure of the USS Lexington shows the location of a kamikaze aircraft hit during an engagement in World War II. To the right and above it is the ship's ham station Hustler 5BTV antenna. Larry Boudreau, W5LDB, was the host during my operation in the 2004 Texas QSO Party aboard the USS Lexington. We were standing on the busy gangway leading up from the beach to the entrance...

CQ CQ CQ - Doctor Raoul has kindly asked if I would ping the Ham List in the hopes that a technically skilled Freeper may be able to assist with repairs to PA systems to be used in Freeps. Excerpts from his Freepmail appear below: ========================================================= I have a number of Amplivox portable PAs. It may be that I'm not aligning the prongs on the battery case or perhaps corrosion. Have a schematic on bottom of case. Need them checked out and then we can send them to people doing counter-protests. I think it's possible to wire them up to...

Last month, a briefly worded press release went nearly unnoticed. It simply read: "Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging Services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage." After 155 years, and millions of telegrams and Telex messages, a major part of American history quietly slipped into obscurity. For more than 100 years, Socorro was part of that history. With today's telephones, cell phones and e-mail, we can contact almost anyone we wish immediately and cheaply. This wasn't always the case. In Socorro's early days,...