April 2004

MONTACHUSETT AMATEUR RADIO ASSOCIATION

Vol 46 No. 8

Next Meeting 1

Watt's Happening 2

LEMA Communications Team 2

March Meeting 3

Contest Chatter 5

Contributors To This Issue:

Jerry AA2T, Pauline KB1JXJ, Gordon N1MGO

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The scheduled speaker for the April MARA meeting is Jacques Patry WD1I, proprietor of Groton Electronics to talk about repairing equipment. Jacques always has some interesting tidbits to throw into his presentations.

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In addition to spring showers, the month of April brings the start of public service season-the time when we as Amateur Radio licensees demonstrate to the public what it is we do that earns us the privilege to all the radio spectrum that the FCC allocates to us.

The River Rat canoe race in Athol (17^th), the Lion's Club canoe race in Townsend (17^th), the Boston Marathon (19^th), and the Groton Road Race (25^th) all are in need of your services as volunteers.

Participation in these public service activities is as important an activity to protecting Amateur Radio Spectrum as is monetary donations to a spectrum defense fund. This is where we prove our worth and where we create a good and lasting impression in the minds of our neighbors.

Want support for putting up that tower? Your town officials can only be positively inclined when they know that you volunteer your time for these civic tasks.

So please volunteer; talk with Gary K1YTS, Paul W1SEX, or Ralph KD1SM.

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Two candidates were served at the March VE session. One new Technician license and one upgrade to Extra were earned. Volunteer Examiners assisting were John KB1HDO, Charlie KT1I, Gordon N1MGO, Paul KD1YH, Chat WA1FIA, Gary K1YTS, and Ralph KD1SM.

Exam sessions are held on the 4^th Wednesday of the month when at least one candidate has preregistered. Contact Paul KD1YH to register for a session. Examiners should contact Ralph KD1SM.

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Sundays, 0830 local 3937 Western Mass Emergency Net. Alternate frequency is 3942 in case of QRN, QRM, or frequency in-use. Also a good idea to scan up and down 10kHz if you cannot find the net.

Wednesdays, 2100 local 28.341 Harvard Repeater Club

10 meter sideband net "Activity Night"

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 1800 local 3942 MHz Western Mass Traffic Net (phone)

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 1900 local 3562 MHz Western Mass Traffic Net (cw, slow)

First Wednesday, 2000 local 3915 K1ARC Red Cross Net

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de Jerry AA2T

28 February 2004

There instructions available on how to install the grid and mount things up. Ceiling is holding us up from putting in the sprinklers, lights and vents for heat ducts. Also, the TVs with brackets needed are ready to be mounted.

Volunteers welcome on Tues and Thurs nights. We are on the home stretch. The city wants to hold the April Dept heads meeting at the EOC so we need your help.

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de Pauline KB1JXJ, Secretary

Secretary's Report for Meeting on 3/10/04

7:30 PM Gary called the meeting to order.

In attendance: (15) Gary K1YTS, Paul KD1YH, Gordon N1MGO, Pauline KB1JXJ, Charlie KT1I, Brian KB1KLQ, Bill N1UZ, Bruce KC1US, Bill W1UD, Paul W1SEX, Norm W1LXE, Tom K1JHC, Nancy KB1KEF, Bob KB1JZU, Jerry WB1HIB.

Meeting began with a book raffle brought in by Bill, N1UZ. Gordon N1MGO won the operators Manual, 7^th edition.

Informational guest speaker Bruce KC1US. Bruce is a member of Crocker Public Service Group and was requesting operators for:

The May 2, 2004 Project Bread walk for Hunger. Need 6 hour blocks.

June 13 Positive Spin for ALS 100 mile bike race Wayland to Mt. Wachusett, needs operators in the Mt. Wachusett area.

Gary brought to the Club's attention that the Townsend Canoe race is the same day in the AM. Arrangements will be the same as last year, 6 to 10 operators needed. It is possible to do both races if desired.

Gary called for a Field Day update. Pauline, KB1JXJ, passed around samples of the Invitation to Field Day with the organizational meeting listed and samples of the Reminder - follow up flyer to go out the 1^st part of May. Invitation flyers to distribute were given to: Gary for the Pepperell and New Ipswitch NH groups; Bruce to the Crocker Public service group and his Burlington Club; Paul, W1SEX, for the Mohawk club; Pauline - for the Harvard Club, at the annual dinner on 3/13/04.

Pauline reported: 1) News article to come and hopes of a News Photographer at the 22 May meeting. 2) Reminder / follow-up flyer with RSVP to Gordon, will go out via Email and mail the first week of May.

Bill, N1UZ is going to write to the State to get the permit for the use of the mountain.

Bob, KB1JZU will bring a projector for the 22 May Field Day meeting.

7:45 PM Business Meeting

Reports:

Vice President, Paul KD1YH - nothing to report.

Tech Committee, Paul KD1YH - Reported: It has been approximately 2 years since the repeater last serviced. Work was done on the receiver, bringing it back on frequency. Another trip is needed to finish tuning up the duplexers and band-pass cavities. Julian, KB1AAH assisted in the repairs. Tom, K1JHC commented the repeater is significantly improved.

Minutes of last meeting, as published in the news letter, accepted at 08:03 PM.

Are we Incorporated or not? - Appears the question is in limbo at this time. It is not related to our Non-Profit status.

Gary announced Elections in May for President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary.

Gary asked for a Field organization update from Bill, W1UD.

Bill reported ARES is going well, has good section managers.

Western MA has no problems, Eastern MA is in turmoil.

Gary asked for a Sunday Net report from Charlie, KT1I. Charlie reports strong participation with 12-13 check-ins most weeks.

08:09 PM Call for old business: None noted.

08:10 PM Call for new business: None noted.

08:10 PM Meeting Adjourned.

Presentation by Gordon , N1MGO, on N1MM Contest logger.

Radio talking to the computer is not needed, but the program shines

DX Cluster hook-up makes the program really shine! (for contests that allow assisted logging)

May meeting for the Club, Gordon, N1MGO, will have a computer and projector for more logging presentation.

April meeting is booked with Jacques presentation on Repairs.

09:10 PM Meeting adjourned.

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Contests coming up in April:

Contests coming up in May:

Plus many State QSO parties throughout the month's of April and May.

For more contests and information, with links to the rules see:

This month I will start the Field Day setup examples. Please remember that on Saturday, 22 May, we will have a Field Day meeting at the Fitchburg Fire station, time is 09:00 to 12:00. We will be setting up computers and radios to test a networked multistation setup that will be capable of doing all modes on all HF bands. The goal here is to test and allow hands on training and demonstrations of the software that will be used by W1GZ for Field Day this year. We will be using Writelog, version 10.46G, or newer. This will allow full networked operation of all the computers.

The networking of Writelog can be one of the problem areas to get working, especially in a networked environment of different windows versions, Win98, WinME, WinXP, for example.

The computers need to have the same Microsoft Windows Networking WORKGROUP name. How this is setup depends on which version of Windows you are running. In WinXP you can get to the information by right clicking on "My Computer" and selecting "Properties". This will bring up a window titled "System Properties". Select the "Computer Name" tab. Within this tab you will see the Computer description, Full Computer name, and Workgroup. See Picture 1.

Note that the Workgroup in this example is shown as "PRCGAL". This is the name for the workgroup that all computers on the network must use. If you are mixing WinXP or Win2000 computers with Win98 computers, the login names and passwords used must match and be all the same case. See Picture 2 for win98 networking setup. Note that in both setups that the Workgroup name is the same and all UPPERCASE.

If both computers can see each other on the network the next test is to try to get writelog to connect. You should be running the same version of writelog on all computers.

Start writelog, click on the "Setup" menu, "Register to accept network

connections" sub menu. This should bring up the "Accept network

connections" window. See Picture 3. Ensure that the computer name

[photo]

Picture 3, Accept network connections window.

displayed is not the same as any other computer on the network that will be using Writelog. Enter a letter that will be different for each computer, then click on "OK". Now bring up the connect dialog by clicking on the "Setup" menu, then the "Link to Network" sub menu.

See Picture 4. Enter the name of the computer that you want to connect to, that is running Writelog and click on "OK".

After entering the password requested (W1GZ for our Field Day), you will see the "Writelog network status" window. See Picture 5. It may start up minimized.

Note that you should see no errors reported. The number of QSO's reported will vary with how many have been logged. Congratulations! You now have 2 computers running Writelog, with the two writelog programs tracking each others logged contacts. All computers running writelog, that are networked, will have all contacts logged, regardless of which station makes the contact! There are many other advantages to networking Writelog, which are explained on various web sites and in the operators manual.

Some links for more information:

Gordon - N1MGO

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The MARA W1/GaZette is published by the Montachusett Amateur Radio Association just prior to the monthly meeting. The newsletter is distributed free to members and friends of Amateur Radio.

Contents copyright (c© 2004, MARA. Permission to use in other Amateur Radio publications with credit to MARA is hereby granted.

NEWSLETTER STAFF:

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION:

Club Secretary: Pauline Carulli, KB1JXJ

Annual Dues: Regular $25

Family $30

Fixed income $15

Meetings: 2^nd Wednesday, 7:30pm

September to June

Mailing address: MARA

PO Box 95

Leominster, MA 01453

OFFICERS:

Gary Busler, K1YTS President

Pauline Carulli, KB1JXJ Secretary

Gordon LaPoint, N1MGO Treasurer

Charlie Cayen, KT1I Trustee

MARA owns and operates the W1GZ repeater providing emergency autopatch service on 145.45 (CTCSS 74.4) in Fitchburg.