Club News March 3

– It’s great to see our simplex nets in “off” weeks (2nd, 4th and occasionally 5th Wed) are well attended. We had 10 member check-ins last week. After the net, several of us switched to the digital mode C4FM (Yaesu Fusion) and were able to intercommunicate. We also had a Garland station join us. For fun, we’ll try that again at the close of our next net on March 11. If you have a Yaesu radio capable of the C4FM mode, have it ready!  In the future, we could try this with the other popular digital modes DMR and DStar.
– The club submitted the log for our Winter Field Day afternoon operation. In total, we contacted 47 stations and used six different bands. 
– This month on third Wednesday, March 18, we’ll hold our quarterly club meeting so there will not be a dinner. Instead, meet at the White Rock United Methodist Church, Room 204 at 7 PM. We will have a couple of presentations and maybe a door prize or two. 
– Our first Wednesday lunch is on for tomorrow, March 4 at 11:30 AM at Verona’s. Hope to see you then.

News for the Week of February 16

–         This week, we will host an informal dinner Wednesday Feb 19 at 7 PM at Verona’s Restaurant. You can see our informal agenda on our events page. Join us!

–          We now have a 16 x 46 inch blue vinyl banner with the club callsign, name and our website address; it will be great for display at our next public activity.  The source is www.hamcrazy.com, which has quite a few interesting items for hams.

–          The ARRL has provided us with 100 copies of a color one page flyer, “What is Ham Radio?”, with space on the back for our club info.

–          We have registered our club call as an Internet domain, so you can now access this website from wa5wrl.org in addition to whiterockhams.org.

–          The second podcast from the ARRL On the Air program is out. Listen in at http://www.arrl.org/on-the-air-podcast

Club News: February 9

–  Our last lunch set a new attendance record, with 11 folks eating and talking ham radio!

–  Our bylaws require that we hold at least one official meeting each quarter; ours will be the evening of Wednesday March 18. David, KG5VSR, has offered a short training session on formal message handling.

–  We will continue calling a simplex net every Wednesday in which we don’t have a lunch or dinner.  We’ll be rotating the net control station (NCS) responsibility to all members that would like to help; David, KG5VSR will be NCS this Wednesday Feb 12.  Check in at 7 PM on 147.52 MHz.

– Reminder: the Dallas County SKYWARN spotter class will be held this Saturday Feb 15 at the Granville Arts Center in downtown Garland. Start time is 8:30 AM.

Club News: January 19, 2020

This week, we have two upcoming activities:

–         On Wednesday, January 22 at 7 PM, Tony, NT5TM, will host a net on our club simplex frequency, 147.52 MHz. Please check in if you can.

–         Saturday, January 25 is Winter Field Day. Dave, K5YR, and David, KG5GSR. are leaders for this event at Dreyfuss Club Point. They will have two HF stations on the air operating in the contest, one using digital keyboard modes and the other using SSB (voice). We’ll also have a VHF/UHF digital voice station, demonstrating the three digital voice modes (Yaesu Fusion, D-Star and DMR).  Setup is at noon, with operations running from 1 to 5 PM.  As a club activity, we can use our new club call WA5WRL for the first time. Weather looks great for Saturday; hope to see you all there!

Club News for January 12, 2020

At Wednesday’s lunch, we distributed draft copies of the first two modules of our mentor program and asked for feedback. We’ll also have copies for those attending this Wednesday’s dinner, January 15, 7 PM at Verona’s. 

Also at the lunch, we discussed a club in New Hampshire that is really doing some great things, as highlighted in January 2020 QST. Here’s a link to their website.

Finally, this post from a ham blogger is highly recommended reading – “You’re a ham radio beginner. Now what?“

News for January 2, 2020

Next Wednesday, January 8, 2020, we will host our 1^st Wednesday lunch a week late.  Our Readiness Topic will be generators, and our Tech Topic will be antennas for handie-talkies. We will also discuss Winter Field Day at Dreyfuss Hill, planned for Saturday, January 25.  A week later, at our 3^rd Wednesday dinner on January 15, we will continue our discussion. We will also have more information on our mentoring program for new hams that is now in development. Check out the Meetings, Nets & Events tab here for more info. Hope you can join us!

Also, we have revised our website, and now have a tab for Getting a Ham License and another, Info for New Hams. Please let us know of useful additions to these pages. 

Latest News from White Rock Hams – 12/22/2019

We rounded out our first month as a club with great attendance at our December lunch (9) and dinner (10)!

Mark your calendars for our first group event, Winter Field Day, on Saturday January 25. Dave, K5YR, and Dave, KG5VSR, have participated in this event in the past at Dreyfuss Point and have agreed to lead this activity. It will be a chance to see portable HF equipment in action, and we will also have VHF and UHF analog and digital rigs for you to try. Here’s more info on national Winter Field Day.

The National Weather Service Fort Worth office has published its SKYWARN class schedule for 2020. The Dallas County class will be held Saturday February 15 from 8 AM until 3:30 PM at the Granville Arts Center in downtown Garland.

All upcoming club activities are posted on the Meetings and Events page of this website. If you use Google Calendar, the club calendar is now available as an add-in. For best results, from a PC or Mac browser screen. go to the Meetings and Events page, then click on the shared calendar link to add the club calendar to your existing Google calendar. It will then be available as a clickable layer on your personal calendar from any of your devices.

We will all be enjoying New Years Day the first Wednesday in January, so our next get club together will be a lunch the second Saturday of January, 1/8/2020.

December 2019 Meetings & Other News

• Our next meeting will be an informal dinner 12/18 (3rd Wed) from 7 to 8:30 PM at Verona’s on Garland Road. All hams and those interested in ham radio are invited to attend,
• To add some structure to our get togethers, we will highlight a ham topic and a readiness topic each month. On the ham side in December, let’s discuss 2020 club goals and ideas including a pilot mentoring program. Our east Dallas CERT coordinator Robinson, KG5UVN, will lead the readiness discussion. This month’s readiness topic is testing systems, putting a routine in place to test availability. And, Rich N5CSU will discuss battery use of a medical device, BiPAP (breathing machine for nighttime apnea) .
• For new hams (and those working on getting a ham license), the Getting q License tab on our website can be a valuable resource. There’s now a link to a terrific YouTube video series that discusses everything you need to know to pass the Tech license exam.
• In the new year, with your help, we will develop and pilot a mentoring program. We’re going to put some real thought and effort into this. What is the best way we can help new and budding hams? We value your ideas and input, either at a club lunch or dinner, or email Rich at n5csu@arrl.net. A successful mentoring program can help inactive hams get back on the air, and get new and prospective hams up and running faster (and have more fun in the process). 

Presenting… The White Rock Lake Amateur Radio Club!

It’s official! The informal White Rock Hams group has blossomed into a full fledged radio club. With the online approval of members behind us, we made it official at our dinner meeting November 20 by signing FCC Form 605-C requesting an amateur radio club license.

The initial officers are

• President: Rich Casey N5CSU
• Vice-President: Tony Mendina NT5TM
• Secretary/Treasurer: Randy Durham W5WXY

We emailed the club callsign application to the ARRL HQ VEC Thursday, and already received our club call, KI5HIH. We will now look at getting an appropriate vanity call sign.

Our next get together will be an informal lunch on December 4 (1st Wednesday) at 11:30 AM.

Our Next Meeting: Dinner November 20

We had a great lunch meeting with six hams and hams-to-be on Wednesday November 6. Our roster continues to grow; we are now up to 17 members, including three folks working on getting their amateur radio licenses.

Our next get together will be a dinner meeting on Wednesday November 20, 2019 at 7 PM at Verona’s.  All hams and those interested in our hobby are invited to attend. Those on the groups.io list will receive an RSVP as a poll. Please respond so we can give the restaurant a rough head count.

Dallas area hams (and those interested in obtaining a license) should join the White Rock Hams group on groups.io to receive meeting notifications, RSVPs and other interesting tidbits.