Anderson Repeater Club, Inc.

Below is another letter that Mike KC9AOM received in response to the email that he sent in regards to HB 1060.

Hello Mr. Dewey,

On behalf of Rep. Summers I would like to thank you for your input and concern regarding HB 1060. Through your participation in the democratic process, your voice was heard. Today an amendment was added to HB 1060 that exempted Ham Radio Operators from the legislation. Thank you again for your input.

Best Regards,

Jonathan L. Pullum
Indiana Black Legislative Caucus Assistant
Staff Member for Rep. Vanessa Summers
Staff Member for Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon
200 W. Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Ph. (317) 234-9331

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Below is a letter that Mike KC9AOM received in response to the email that he sent in regards to HB 1060.

Mr. Dewey:

Thank you for contacting me on HB 1060. This is a bill which has been assigned to the committee I chair, House Public Policy. There are always a number of bills assigned to each committee which simply do not receive a hearing. HB 1060 is one such bill. It will not receive a hearing this session. However, a bill regarding the prohibition of texting while driving will receive a hearing, most likely January 27th.

A colleague of both of us, Rep. Matt Pierce of Bloomington, has spoken to me about the concerns of amateur radio operators. I have told Rep. Pierce, and I am telling you, that if the language of any bill interferes with the service you provide, then I will change the language. Rep. Pierce has also committed himself to working with me in ensuring any language does not interfere with your service.

Thank you for contacting me. As legislators we are confronted with a multitude of issues. Without input from people like you who are impacted by any changes to the law, we cannot perform our duty of representing our constituents. Once again, thanks.

Sincerely,
Trent Van Haaften
State Representative
House District 76

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Below is a letter that was sent out by the ARRL concerning legislation that is being considered by the Indiana State Legislature. It needs to be addressed imediately! Some things that you might mention are:

We volunteers are trained "commuicators"
The percentage of time actually "talking" on a two-way radio is quite small as compared to typical cell phone use
This affects all types of volunteers including Emergency Management, Volunteer Fire Departments, Reserve Police Officers, Any County Official using "State SAFE-T Radios", county or department issued handheld radios, etc.
The Unintended consequences of this could discourage the Volunteers that we so desparately need in time of emergency or to suppliment understaffed County first responders.

Ask them to exempt Amateur Radio Operators and other volunteers.

Hello Fellow Hams,

We are writing to let you know that it is time to write our Indiana State Representatives and let them know that we need to be exempt from House Bill 1060 (HB1060) concerning the use of handheld communications devices. We need all hams that are represented by the members of the State Public Policy Committee listed below to email their respective representative.

HB1060 basically reads:
"Use of telecommunications devices while driving. Prohibits the use of a handheld personal communications device by a motor vehicle operator...." This means our handheld radios and even microphones would not be allowed for our use. If your State Representative is listed below then they are on the committee that decides the fate of this bill. Please email them and tell them they need to exempt Amateur Radio Operators from this bill. They will listen to you if you are in their district because you vote for them. If you are not in their district, they will probably not listen, so only email your representative.

Simply ask them to please add an exemption to HB1060 for Amateur Radio Operators on the basis of our continuing support to Indiana communities and governmental agencies in time of emergencies.

Whether or not you are an ARES/RACES member makes no difference, as this bill will affect all hams using a radio while driving. Please write your representative and ask for the exemption of Amateur Radio Operators. Their email address is listed at the end of their respective listing. If you don't know who your State Representative is, then use this easy link to find out:
http://district.iga.in.gov/DistrictLookup

Indiana Public Policy Committee:

Trent Van Haaften, Democrat, District 076 (Evansville area) - h76@in.gov

Vanessa Summers, Democrat, District 099 (North and Central Indianapolis area) - h99@in.gov

Terri Austin, Democrat, District 036 (Anderson area) - h36@in.gov

Phil GiaQuinta, Democrat, District 080 (Ft. Wayne area) - h80@in.gov

Earl L. Harris, Democrat, District 002 (East Chicago area) - h2@in.gov

Scott Pelath, Democrat, District 009 (Michigan City and La Porte area) - h9@in.gov

Mary Ann Sullivan, Democrat, District 097 (South central Indianapolis area) - h97@in.gov

Matt Bell, Republican, District 083 (Ft. Wayne area) - h83@in.gov

Wesley Culver, Republican, District 049 (Goshen and Bristol area) - h49@in.gov

Thomas Knollman, Republican, District 055 (Fayette and Union counties area) - h55@in.gov

L. Jack Lutz, Republican, District 035 (Delaware, Hamilton, Madison and Tipton counties area) - h35@in.gov

Jackie Walorski, Republican, District 021 (South Bend, Elkhart, and Saint Joseph county area) - h21@in.gov

Thank you for the support. We, as your ARRL representatives, will be writing all of them to express our concern at the state level. But none of them are our representatives, so they may not listen.

John, W3ML
ARRL Indiana Section Manager
David, N9KT
ARRL Indiana State Government Liaison

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On November 1, 2009, the Anderson Repeater Club provided communications for the annual Run the Mounds. Several members participated and Brian KC9NCR took some pictures of the event. Some more pictures have been added taken by Alan KC9JWO.
Click here to see the pictures of the Run the Mounds 2009.

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On October 21, 2009, Steve Riley successfully upgraded his amateur licenese to extra. You might want to congratulate him when you see him. If you know anyone that is thinking about getting an amateur license or if you want to upgrade your licenese, the Chief Anderson ARC gives exams every month. The dates for the exams are posted on the calendar on this website. The next 2 dates are November 18 and December 16.

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On Sunday September 13, 2009 the Anderson Repeater Club participated as observers for the Corporate Challenge. Steve WA9CWE explans the excercise and critiqued the event.

Click here to see Critique and pictures from Corporate Challenge Exercise.

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On August 30,2009 Pendleton held their annual Safety Day. All of Pendleton's Emergency equipment was on display. Hazmat-1 and MCU-1 were also there. Tom Ecker KA9SYP took some pictures. Steve Riley WA9CWE also mentioned that we have new RACES signs that we can use anywhere we have our amateur activities.
Click here to see the pictures from Safety Day'09.

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On July 18,2009 the summer State RACES Test was held. The EOC was actvated and checkins were taken on the .82 Repeater. The results were reported to the State EOC, using several amateur bands and commumication modes.
Click here to see the results of that test.

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On Sunday July 19, 2009, the following email was received on the Anderson Repeater Club email address. If anybody can help Harold out, please send him an email at:
K9JYA@verizon.net

After high school in the 40s I went to the NYA camp in Anderson. Our instructor was Albert J. Titus who I believe was engineer for the Anderson PD. We learned the code and elementary electronics. The camp was close to where I think the airport is now. I remember we had to cross the river from the camp when we were taken to town in the morning. The camp joined the Mounds State Park.

I have forgotten Mr. Titus's ham call and hope someone there can let me know what it was. I remember he had a daughter who he called "Red".

I hope someone can refresh my memory.

Harold Marlette, K9JYA
Paoli, Indiana
K9JYA@verizon.net

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On 07/07/09 a table top exercise was presented at the Anderson Public Library. The purpose of the exercise was to see how prepared were emergency services if Anderson was hit with a major incident. The scenario was a train derailment in downtown Anderson. Anderson Fire, Anderson Police, and Madison County Hazmat team were the key players in setting up a command post and determining what other resources were needed. Included in the list of resources were CFX, county fire departments, Health Department, EMA, hospital staff, and City of Anderson personnel. Everyone involved found out how quickly such an incident can grow and the large number of resources that would be needed.
Click here to see some pictures from that Exercise.Courtesy of Tom Ecker, MCEMA.

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On Monday, June 29, the Mobile Communications Unit was dispatched to a Madison County Health Department "Point-of-Distribution" Exercise at the 4H Fairground in Alexandria. The purpose of the exercise was to determine how quickly the entire facility could be set up and operational for the distribution of Pandemic Flu medicines. This exercise was per the Operational Procedure developed by the Health Department and tested a number of times over the last year in both Table-top and functional exercises.

The MCU was dispatched and made fully operational at the scene as a supporting resource. We made radio contact with the State EOC in Indianapolis, The Madison County Sheriff Department, Indiana State Police at the Pendleton Post, Alexandria Fire Department, Alexandria Police department, and the Madison County Highway Department. We also dispatched our Operations Division personnel to the scene. Each of these agencies have a responsibility when this POD is established at the Fairgrounds building. On-scene we had members of the Health Department, Madison Co. EMA, Indiana State Dept. of Homeland Security and the Alexandria Fire Department. The other agencies were not requested to actually have personnel at the building.

As expected it took one hour from our notification to being fully (communications) operational at the scene. This is typical for a "non-Signal 10" run for the MCU. It takes about 10 minutes to get the MCU situated, leveled, slide-out, security barrier, all radios on, computers fired up etc. once we arrive at the scene.

For this exercise we did not request additional RACES Communications Division personnel. Had this been an actual event where the duration was long we would have requested added help and established an around-the-clock staffing calendar. Even though the "MCU Team" members hold primary responsibility for the MCU we count upon the remaining Communications Division members to provide the added experienced communicator skills as needed.

Steve Riley
Director of Communications

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On 06/11/09 a severe thunderstorm hit the Pendleton area. Paul Hughes KC9BKZ took some pictures of damage in the area around his home.
Click here to see some pictures from that storm.

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On 06/10/09 there was an anhydrous ammonia spill south of Pendleton at 900S and 300W. Several agencies were on scene including Pendleton Fire, Hazmat, Ingalls Fire and Richland Township Decon Team.
Click here to see a picture from that spill.

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On 05/21/09 there was a hydrochloric acid spill at the Brown Swimming Pool in Pendleton. The hazmat team was called in to cleanup the spill. Several other agencies also responded including MCEMA Hazmat, Richland Township Decontamination Team, MCEMA OPS, Pendleton Fire and Pendleton Police. Several state agencies also responded. Click on link below to see some pictures of the incident.
This shows that we always need to be prepared. If the situation had been worse the MCU and communication personnel could have been requested.
Click here to see some pictures from that spill.

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On 04/18/09 Chesterfield Fire Department dedicated their new tanker, rescue truck, and ladder truck.
Click here to see some pictures from that dedication.

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The Anderson Repeater Club applied for and was assigned the call W9OBH. This call belonged to Burr Stephens and was done in recognition of the major contributions he was responsible for.
Click here to see the plaque honoring Burr Stephens.
Below is an email we recieved from Burr's daughter.
Hello everyone.

Just a short and gracious thank you from Burr's daughter.

My mom informed me of your choice to use Dad's call letters for the club. This is a very nice gesture and we feel very honored. Dad would be pleased.

I grew up at many of the repeater club meetings in Lynville(Linwood) with my dad and have many wonderful memories. I never thought about it, but I always felt so safe with the bunch of guys my dad chose to hang around with. Often when I think of him, the repeater club and all the call letters I knew by heart are in those memories. His time with the club was a time filled with zest and enthuesiasm. He loved being a ham.

Thank you again, and please tell everone thank you from my entire family.

Barbara Basalyga

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Steve Riley WA9CWE explained the new rules for narrow banding at the Anderson Repeater Club meeting on March 3, 2009. Below is a link on how the new rules will affect UHF and VHF commercial bands. Click here for more information on narrowbanding.

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This is a follow up to what Mike Dewey KC9AOM presented at the last meeting.

I have been running the Uniden BCD996T and the GRE PSR 600 scanners side by side with the same programming and here are the results that I have observed:

I have a base scanner antenna in my attic with RG-8 low loss coax and a low loss commercial grade splitter at my desk. Both scanners are fed with low loss RG-8 coax patch cord with BNC connectors from the splitter.

VHF band the Uniden picks up more and better signal quality than the GRE.
UHF band they both receive the city and county UHF very well.
800 mhz Madison County LTR system the GRE the signal is weaker than the Uniden.
800 mhz SAFE-T system both appear not to be much difference between them.
Overall the Uniden has better reception than the GRE on all bands.

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This link is from Doug Rose, N9DR, a past member of the ARC who is currently located in ElPaso, Texas. The amateur organization in ElPaso participated in the "SKYWARN Participation Day" and provided a number of pictures of the National Weather Service facility in ElPaso, and also of the Amateur operation on that day. They established low band stations in addition to VHF and IRLP. There was also a balloon launch!
Click Here to see some pictures from the El Paso SKYWARN Participation Day.

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Over the weekend of 11/14/08-11/15/08 some members of MCEMA participated in an exercise at Muscatatuck. Here are some pictures taken by Tom Ecker KA9SYP. If you would like to see more of the pictures, let Tom know or send an email to the repeater email address and we will get some more pictures put on the website.
More pictures added 11/18/08.
Click Here to see some pictures of the Muscatatuck Exercise

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Here are some pictures of the electronic equipment upgrade in the MCU. These pictures were taken by Jed Dye and submitted by Tom Ecker KA9SYP
Click Here to see some of the new equipment.

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Steve Riley WA9CWE has submitted an article on a portable VHF-UHF roll-up J-Pole antenna for Public Service.
Click Here to read how to make one.

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Do you remember the 50's and 60's? Here is a website that has a lot of nostalgia. Be sure to check out all the different sections on this page. Turn up the volume, lean back and remember how things used to be.
Click Here To Go Back to the 50's and 60's

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Take a stroll down memory lane. See how many you remember that you haven't thought about for a while.
Click Here  to stroll down memory lane.

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Here are some more pictures from the Hagerstown Air and Car Show taken by Dick Brown K9FOI
Click Here  for pictures.

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Here are some pictures from the Hagerstown Air and Car Show taken by Charlie Jones K9TZJ
Click Here  for pictures.
I hope to be getting some more pictures showing some of the 700-800 Model T Fords soon. This was the 100th year celebration of the Model T and Model T's of all kinds were there.

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Here is an article about the first President (and the Vice-President) of the ARRL...Hiram P. Maxim, W1AW....About early amateur radio and communications history.
This article was found by Tim Riley W9TCR. He passed it on to Steve Riley WA9CWE. Steve found it interesting and wanted to share it with others. Steve also notes "I also like the prose way that it was written. You just don't find writers like this today." This is a large file, please be patient and give it time to load.
Click Here to read: April 1936 QST.

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I just read the paragraph about the LST 325 and would like to add my experience. Shortly after the ship returned to the USA it was docked in Mobile, AL. and my wife and I toured it. It was still rough looking inside and out.

Then in June of 2005 I worked it on 20 meters while it was running up the east coast on a Memorial Cruise. The operator was W8AU, Perry.

Shortly after it moved to Evansville we were able to tour it again. It was looking better and better as the crew had a chance to work on her. The next year we escorted a high school classmate to tour it because her deceased husband was a Supply Officer on one in the South Pacific. Mary was glad to see where her husband Lou had served his time. If you want to see what Bob looks like go to "USS LST Ship Memorial". He is in picture #6.

Charlie, K9TZJ

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This letter was recently received on the club email address:

Hi KB9VE...
My call is WA9WCN...formally of Lapel, Indiana...I was a member for many years until retiring and moving to Henderson, NV during the Summer of 1998.... I was interested in your list of members. I knew several members such as W9EEL, K9IND, WA9CWE, Miller can't remember his call.... Due to living in a condo and the restrictions we have for antenna's I haven't been active since moving out here...But, of course there is plenty of other activities in the Las Vegas area...The hams out here are alive and well with several repeaters around the valley that are connected to various systems that reach up and down the West Coast....
I would like to hear from some of my former friends if they have the time to email....
My email address is: badams49@cox.net
Bob Adams WA9WCN....My address is in the callbook...

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Hams helping Hams

Last week our Club web site address got an inquiry from another Ham who had a problem that he hoped we could help with. Seems that his club repeater has the same RF package and Controller as our .82 repeater. He was having trouble with the interfacing of the two units. In an internet search he found our club information indicating that we had the same equipment. Tim received the message and passed it along to me (Steve). Due to the good documentation of the Technical Committee (WB9ZJR, W9EEL, WB9URL) when we installed our package I had the schematic and detailed information related to our programming. I forwarded it to him along with an explanation. Within two days the W9BFD/R 146.97 repeater in Peoria Heights, IL was on the air and operational. Bob Barbier, WD9IYS, reported back that our information had resolved their issues, and of course he was appreciative. A great example of how we amateurs work together.

As a side note I learned that Bob, (WD9IYS), is a member of the communications team that supports the LST-325 landing craft located at Evansville, IN. Dick, K9FOI, also a Navy veteran and LST radioman, has been on that Museum Ship in the past and will be again. Dick plans to look up Bob and have an eyeball QSO.
Submitted 3/28/08 - WA9CWE

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If you would like to learn HTML or to just play around with it, here is a sight that will show how to get started. http://www.w3schools.com/
You can see all the elements and their uses. It is a very good place to start learning how to do your own website. The question was aked how big is the complete website. I have 17 different folders, including ones for images, pdf files, pictures, and the clock. There are 30 separate pages, including a page for each newsletter and minutes, that total about 350kb of code.
Paul KC9BKZ

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