President's Letter January 2015

Details

Published on Tuesday, 20 January 2015 01:13

Written by Administrator

Hits: 62

Greetings to club members, Friends of the KCRA, and all fellow HAM’s!

Last month’s Operation-Santa at JFK we had a very good turnout for operators! 26 local HAM’s assisted us with about four thousand special children, all wanting for Santa to arrive on a Jet!  It was a fun event for those of you that never participated in an ARES event before.  

Our club, along with NYCRA and NYC ARES attended HRU at Briarcliffe College the beginning of the month.  There was a much larger turnout this year, and several new lectures were added. 

This month’s meeting, Andy will be demonstrating how to tune up a radio for optimal performance. 

Februarys’ meeting we will have a guest speaker, Walter KA2RGI, demonstrate the principles of antenna basics.  He will visually show you with ‘live’ RF how Omni directional and beam antennas work. It is a very interesting demonstration for all levels, even if you never built one.

This spring we will be doing Satellite DX hopefully in Owle’s head park with the assistance of a guest lecturer from AMSAT.  Peter is a member of AMSAT and has hands on experience building Satellites, and is an avid sat-hunter using portable handheld equipment.  We will be doing this demonstration on a sunny spring weekend, everyone is invited for picnic in the park.

Some of the events we are looking forward to doing in 2015:

1. Dayton HAMvention – looking for a group of people to go

 - Friday, May 15-17, 2015

   http://www.hamvention.org

2. Field-Day – looking for a great place to hold one

 - Saturday, June 27, 2015

   Time: 1800 UTC Saturday until 2059 UTC Sunday

3. National Night Out – we will be at South beach SI

 - Tuesday, August 4, 2015

4. International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend – New York Harbor

 - Sat-Sun Aug. 15-16, 2015

   http://www.illw.net/

5. 911 Special Event Station – date/location to be determined

Become Radioactive!   Come to the KCRA meetings!  Learn something participating in our Hands-On-Labs! The Kings County Repeater Association needs your support at our monthly meetings!  If you have any ideas that pertain to amateur radio, we would like to hear from you.

I think most of us are members of the ARRL.  If you are not, I would like you to consider becoming a member of the ARRL. The ARRL has a lot to offer you in many ways, and they protect the amateur radio bands from commercial use!

73’de KB2PSI, Vinny

Club Website Heartbleed Free

Details

Published on Sunday, 13 April 2014 09:05

Written by Gary, KB2BSL

Hits: 3910

I am pleased to report that our club website is not suspect to the vulnerability known as the Heartbleed Bug. Then again you probably never knew our site was sucurely accessible via SSL (for the NSA parinoid out there), give it a try: https://www.kc2ra.org

Your Membership Dues at Work

Details

Published on Monday, 08 April 2013 17:55

Written by Gary, KB2BSL

Hits: 2851

You may wonder what the club does with your $35 annual membership dues and other funds we raise. If you haven’t renewed or joined yet, perhaps this will give you some incentive to do so.

As a non-profit corporation, the KCRA uses its funds in various ways, both for the benefit of its members, and for furthering the radio art. By the time 2013 is over the club should have:

Sponsored several FREE licensing classes, helping to bring about 100 new people into the hobby. One class has completed, another is underway with yet a third in the planning stages.

Sponsored two EC-001 Emergency Communications classes, one exclusively for NY Guard soldiers. These classes are free, with a $15.00 test fee for the ARRL certificate.

Sponsored six totally FREE licensing exam sessions, held at the Guild for Exceptional Children every other month. That’s right, with our LARC team, you can upgrade or take the technician exam without any fee whatsoever.

Repeater improvements galore! This extensive, multi-year refurbishment plan to both our 2m analog and 70cm D-Star systems are nearing completion. Once complete, both repeaters will consist of completely new (NOT used) flexible and modern equipment that should last many, many years, at a cost of many thousands of dollars, and much hard work.

Let’s not forget the cost of insuring this equipment, our liability insurance, activates such as Field Day, Light House Weekend, Elmer 101, Hands on Labs, our regular meeting activities, and the donations we make to retain our meeting facility.

Of course this is not a complete list of what the club does, but as you can see, we stretch every dollar as far as possible.

If you’re not already a member, or have not renewed, please consider doing so today!

{jcomments on}

Big Apple Traffic Net

Details

Published on Monday, 13 August 2012 06:43

Written by Gary, KB2BSL

Hits: 3471

The Big Apple Traffic Net can once again be heard on the KC2RA repeater system!

The net is held each Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 8:00 PM. The repeater will automatically join the appropriate IRLP reflector at 7:45PM, and will automatically disconnect at 8:45 PM, the net may also be heard on the following repeaters: KC2LEB (440.550, +5, PL 141.3). KC2GOW (445.125, -5, PL 141.3), K2CJP (145.410, -.6, PL 114.8), and of course KC2RA (146.430, +1, PL 136.5). Echolink access to the net is via node 132967 (KC2LEB/R).

If you would like to participate as a net control operator, or for more information on the Big Apple Traffic Net, please visit WWW.BIGAPPLETRAFFICNET.ORG.