90th Anniversary Special Event Station

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:25:52 +0100

An upcoming Special Event Station is being planned for April 13, 2013 to celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the BVARA.

Stay tuned to our club newsletter for more details including frequencies, times, modes, and special awards!

Proposed Amendment to BVARA By Laws

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:15:05 +0100

At the September 8, 2011 regular club meeting, the general membership approved the following:

Motion to amend Constitution and By-Laws, Article 7 Section I. If a member or non-member requests the BVARA to sell used amateur radio equipment, the BVARA shall receive a consignment fee of 50% unless the equipment is directly donated to the BVARA.

As per the BVARA's By Laws, this motion has been posted to the club website and will appear in the next issue of the eQRM newsletter.

A final vote to approve this motion will be taken at the October regular business meeting.

Section News - May 2011

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:19:30 +0100

From the ARRL

The next few weeks will be filled with a lot of activities for area hams. This weekend will be the annual Armed Forces cross band exercise. Amateurs can contact various services while working split and make a contact with these groups. It is a fun event and also a good exercise in operating your equipment in the split operation mode.

Next week is the annual Dayton hamvention. I know many area clubs and individuals will be making the trek to Ohio for the event. There will be a great many vendors and flea market sellers as well asmany interesting forum talks on various topics. Don’t forget to stop at the ARRL area and say hi to the folks working there.

For those of us unable to make the trip to Dayton on June 5 is the big Breezeshooters hamfest held at the Butler Farm show grounds. Additional information on the hamfest is available at http://www.breezeshooters.net/index.htm This is by far the largest hamfest in the section and always a worthwhile event. I will be there and we will also be conducting forums on ARES and the ACS program as well as discussions on ARES and clubs. Larry Keller, AB3ER, SEC will also be conducting the seminars.

Larry is also looking for individuals interested in leadership positions in the ARES organization. Many counties are without emergency coordinators and we also are in need of a few individuals to oversee the districts. While on the subject of ARES the online registration program that we attempted using the ARRL website has been eliminated. The form was available however there was no easy way to sort and distribute the data to the field. The online form is gone and we are sorry for the problems associated with this. We currently have some people working on providing this on our section website and when completed we hope that everyone will use it to help get a positive roster.

There seems to have been confusion at times in emails I have seen on various groups list servers. The Section Traffic Manager Bob Bashaw decided to move the 2 meter traffic net from the 88 repeater in Pittsburgh to a repeater in Derry, Pa. At NO time did the repeater trustees or the North Hills club ask the net to move. This was a decision that the traffic manager made. I want to thank everyone involved with the years of service provided to area hams by the owners and sponsors of the 88 machine.

The NBEMS software has seen many updates in the past few months. Be sure to download and install the latest version of this software. The improvements have made the use of NBEMS for Emmcomm service even better than in the past. You can get the latest software at http://w1hkj.com/download.html We were all glad to hear that Dave and his family had no major problems from the terrible storms in the south. Thanks Dave for all your support and help.

Looking at the calendar we are only a short 6 weeks away from Field Day. Field Day 2011 will take place the weekend of June 25-26. You can download a complete Field Day package with rules and forms at http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Field-Day/2011/2011_FD_Packet.pdf download the information and print it for reference. While you are at it be sure to register your field day location so others can find you and stop by for a visit. Let me know your location as well and I will try to stop for a visit while I travel around the sections. Be sure to check the ARRL store and order your field day pins early as these are always a sellout.

I encourage you to join one of the various traffic nets and help deliver messages to individuals in your community and throughout the country as operators struggle to keep this activity running strong.

The section net is on 3983 every evening at 6 PM now that the time change has taken place. The CW net is at 3585 at 7PM local time. Also please check in on the Saturday morning ARES net. This net is conducted at 9 AM local on 3983Hz. On Tuesday evening a PANBEMS net is conducted at 6 pm also on 3583.5 USB. Another net is held Sunday mornings at 10AM. Please check in for valuable information. Additional information
on various NBEMS nets is available at http://panbems.org/ there are also several nets on various vhf-uhf repeaters. Join the nets and lets all get Radio Active.

73

John V. Rodgers, N3MSE
W. Pa. Section Manager