January 11 ARRL Pacific Division Town Hall Zoom Meeting

Robert Kelly, K6VNR, Appointed Yuba-Sutter ARES Emergency Coordinator

Effective January 1, 2025, Robert Kelly, K6VNR, is appointed ARES Emergency Coordinator for Yuba and Sutter Counties, replacing Neil Bossard, N6CNY, who is leaving our area for family reasons.  Thank you, Neil, for your years of service and Welcome Aboard, Robert!

QST To All Radio Amateurs:

On Thursday, January 16, 2025, ARRL Sacramento Valley Section will hold a Section Wide Net, first on the WD6AXM FM repeater atop Sutter Buttes near Yuba City on 146.085 MHz, plus 600 kHz offset, tone 127.3 Hz.  Please wait for Net Control to call the 2 meter ARRL Section Net after the 7 pm Yuba-Sutter ARES net has closed, usually around 7:20-7:30 pm Pacific Time.

For those who are unable to access the WD6AXM repeater, our HF net will commence IMMEDIATELY after the VHF SV net signs off, on the 80 meter frequency of 3880 kHz +/- 3 kHz for QRM.

Important:  If you do not hear net control over your radio, please check in anyway and listen for net control to acknowledge you via the Half Moon Bay WebSDR or the Northern Utah WebSDR.

All ARRL members, club presidents, Section appointees, and all appropriately licensed radio amateurs are encouraged to join us for the ARRL Sacramento Valley Section nets. Section News and items of regional and national interest to all radio amateurs will be the topics of discussion.

ARRL Sacramento Valley Section Wide Nets are conducted only on the third Thursday of such months as announced via official bulletin and on www.arrlsacvalley.org 

Sacramento ARES supports the 2024 California International Marathon

December 8, 2024 by Jay Ballinger, N6SAC, ARRL ARES Sacramento County EC

“The event safety coordinators, about 15 in all, can hear our radio traffic and quickly build that mental picture of the event,” reports Jay. “We are the fastest and most complete communication network for the event.”

Over 10,000 runners participate each year. Considered the #1 Qualifier for the Boston Marathon, the elite runners will finish the run in just over two hours, but the team commits to staying on station for the full eight hour event.

Sacramento ARES supports many running and biking distance events throughout the year, and all of that training leads up to this big event each December.

“The team does great,” Jay confirms. “This has all of the elements of an emergency activation – operators are given a tactical callsign, they are sent to remote locations, they must be self-reliant for several hours, they have reporting assignments, and they must integrate with a directed net. I could not be more proud with how well they performed.”

During 16 hours of operation, volunteer operators NorCal Skywarn President Paul Young, KA6PDY, and NWS Meteorologist Chris Hintz, K6DX, made 175 radio and Echolink contacts around the country which was a new record for them. Some newly licensed radio amateurs and other new visitors also attended. 

This Special Event is based after ARRL’s Field Day, but they made contacts on HF, VHF, UHF, Digital, EchoLink, IRLP and others.  The WX6NWS operation was live streamed on the K6IS FM repeater, 145.190 MHz, - offset, PL 162.2, and by way of the EchoLink Conference Server SKY_GATE Node 868981.  

NWS offices in Hanford, Oxnard and the Monterey/SF Bay Area also participated on the air during Skywarn Recognition Day.

There will be a SRD special event from 0000 – 2359 UTC on the day.  The objective is for all amateur stations to exchange QSO information with as many Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters and National Weather Service Stations as possible on the 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6, 2-meter and 70-centimeter bands.

The Samuel F. Morse Amateur Radio Club in Sacramento invites you to participate in the 2025 ARRL Straight Key Night. This 24-hour event is not a contest; rather it’s a day dedicated to celebrating our CW heritage. W6SFM will get on the air and simply make enjoyable, conversational CW QSOs. The use of straight keys or bugs to send CW is preferred.

The event begins on Wednesday, January 1, 2025 at 00:00 UTC and concludes Wednesday, January 1 at 23:59 UTC. That's 4:00 PM Tuesday, December 31 PST until Wednesday, January 1st 3:59 PM PST.

During this event, W6SFM operators will post CQ frequencies in the Live Chat spotting aid on https://w6sfm.org/arrl-straight-key-night

January Sacramento Valley Section Announcements

An ARRL Pacific Division Town Hall Zoom Meeting is scheduled for January 11, 2025 at 10:00 AM PT.  All our Section Members are invited to register in advance for this meeting at https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/xH7c04IVQrSMaVNqGp34SQ

Our Thursday evening, January 16, our ARRL Sacramento Valley Section VHF and HF Nets will be conducted, first on the WD6AXM FM repeater on 146.085 MHz, then on 3880 kHz LSB +/- 3 kHz for QRM.  Seasonal propagation changes cause our ARRL Section HF nets to move to 80 meters during autumn & winter months.

Effective January 1, 2025, Robert Kelly, K6VNR, is appointed ARES Emergency Coordinator for Yuba and Sutter Counties, replacing Neil Bossard, N6CNY, who is leaving our area for family reasons. 
Thank you, Neil, for your years of service and Welcome Aboard, Robert!

Thanks to Sacramento ARES EC Jay Ballinger N6SAC and all the ARES volunteers for their comm support for the December 8 California International Marathon.  

Congratulations to Paul Young, KA6PDY, and NWS Meteorologist Chris Hintz, K6DX on their successful Skywarn Recognition Day event on December 7.

January operating events are Straight Key Night on January 1, Kids Day on Jan 4, RTTY Roundup Jan 7-8, NA QSO Party CW Jan 11-12, NA QSO Party SSB Jan 18-19, ARRL January VHF Contest Jan 18-20, and Winter Field Day on Jan 25-26.

Our next ARRL Section event will be the Loomis Hamfest in March 22 at the Historic Loomis Train Depot.  Watch the Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club website W6EK.org for updates. 

This is the news from the Redding Veterans Amateur Radio Club,

W6VET is our callsign (pronounce phonetically: Whiskey-Six-Victor-Echo-Tango).  We have been operational since 2018.  We are grateful to have a dedicated space for our station within the Veterans Home of California-Redding. 

When the Covid 19 pandemic hit, we had to curtail our activities.   During this last four years, some of our members have become Silent Keys.  Nonetheless, the club has persevered, and even grown in directions that were not contemplated during our beginning period.  One of these activities, has been: HAM RADIO VISITORS DAY.

Over the last year, we have brought more than twenty-three visitors into the radio station to experience the fun and scope of the amateur radio hobby.  Most of our visitors have been residents of the Home.  These experiences demonstrated how to mentally escape the “four walls” and avoid “cabin fever”.  Hearing real men and women respond from...New Zealand, Ireland, Prince Edward Island, Jamaica, and all-over South America, Alaska, Hawaii, and every other State in our Union, convincingly opens the doors to a greater world than is experienced in our small radio room.  This activity continues. 

However, we have installed a new Club Advisor to W6VET; Butch Ascherman, KI6WAC; with the former Advisor, Steve Mosconi, K6KS, continuing as Trustee; and as well taking on the duties of Contest Coordinator for the Redding Veterans Amateur Radio Club.  

Winter Field Day Event

The upcoming activity for the Reddings Veterans ARC will take place at the end of January  during Winter Field Day 2025.  It is an activity to promote essential skills used during an emergency; a trial opportunity to operate under conditions less than ideal and be effective.  Three club members will be participating in this event. 

More information about past and future events can be viewed on the internet website:  https://www.qrz.com/db/W6VET

ARRL Systems Service Disruption Update

From ARRL News

Updated 12/27/2024

The following is an update on DXCC® application processing:

In October, we reported that the ARRL DXCC® System had been returned to service. Since then, over 3,000 DXCC applications have been logged into the DXCC System for processing. It is important to understand that the queue of submitted applications is very large, and has included nearly 6 months of applications for processing. ARRL Awards staff and additional staff and volunteers have been working extended hours and weekends to process applications.

DXCC is ARRL’s most popular award. Even while previously submitted applications are being processed, new applications are being submitted and received every day. We continue to appreciate everyone’s patience as we process the large queue of submitted applications.

This story will be updated with new developments. 

Go to ARRL News to read the full story

Original story: 5/16/2024

We are in the process of responding to a serious incident involving access to our network and headquarters-based systems. Several services, such as Logbook of The World® and the ARRL Learning Center, are affected. Please know that restoring access is our highest priority, and we are expeditiously working with outside industry experts to address the issue. We appreciate your patience.

Weekly NorCal WinLink Net Practices EmComm Messaging

NorCal Winlink Net Manager Michael Ellithorp, KF6OBI, conducts a weekly NorCal WinLink Net for EmComm messaging practice.  Please contact Mike if you wish to participate.

Watch WinLink author and developer Oliver Dully, K6OLI's, session on Vara FM for messaging via WinLink, a network of amateur radio and authorized government stations that provide worldwide email via radio.  The WinLink network extends global messaging capability to HF and VHF operators anywhere, even in the absence of internet access, and is ideally suited for routine and Emergency Communications (EmComm) message traffic.

Radio amateurs are organizing direction finding (DF) teams in various localities to collect evidence of these incidents for further action. 
If you experience intentional interference, here below are several ways that you can immediately assist:

1. Dealing with a deliberate jammer is emotionally difficult. But if we’re to successfully get rid of them, everyone involved (and I do mean every single ham) must remain calm. We must also be patient, as it can take a while.

2. This may be the most important of all; do not attempt to engage with the jammer, or even acknowledge their presence. Although some of them may do what they do because they have a beef with the repeater owner, club, or another ham; most jammers do it for the same reason others engage in destructive behavior; to get attention. We must deny them that attention. So, control your anger and don’t tell them to stop, threaten them or even acknowledge that the interference is occurring.

3. If the level of interference allows it, continue with your QSO or net as if the interference was not there.
   If conversation is not possible, you may be able to QSY to an alternate frequency.  Otherwise, just sign off as if you’ve naturally finished and go radio silent until the jammer leaves. They may return when you do, so you’ll have to do this several times, until they get the message that they won’t get the satisfaction they’re looking for.

4. Do not discuss the jammer on the air, even when jamming is not present.  Understand that just one ham losing control and engaging with the jammer or acknowledging the interference, even in passing, is enough to undo the efforts of everyone else.

5. In cases of repeater interference, each repeater owner has the ability--or should have the ability--to constantly monitor the repeater and if all else fails shut it down in instances of abuse.   Running a repeater is not much different than allowing access to your home base station by anyone who wants to use it.

6. Control operators can and should immediately disable the repeater when any illegal activity occurs, and keep it disabled until attempts at the illegal activity end. They can monitor the repeater’s input frequency for this.

7. You should report a repeater's failure to control intentional interference to the ARRL-FCC Volunteer Monitor (VM) program. 
   Collect and submit recordings of the interference marking the date, time and frequency as evidence. 
   The ARRL-FCC VM program has the resources to motivate owners to control their repeaters responsibly.

How To Report A Possible Violation to the ARRL-FCC VM Program

To report clear violations of FCC Part 97, particularly instances of unlicensed operation, repeated deliberate interference, and operation outside of a licensee’s authorized frequencies, send the report via email to Riley Hollingsworth (K4ZDH), ARRL Volunteer Monitor Administrator, at K4ZDH@arrl.net.

Important: include the following information in your report…

- Frequency (MHz) of incident:
- Time of incident (UTC):
- Date of incident:
- Call sign(s) of station(s) being reported:
  - If a repeater, call sign of repeater involved:
- Description of alleged incident being reported:
- Your full name (person submitting report)
- Your call sign:
- Your email address:
- Your phone number:

All reports will be acknowledged, reviewed, and the person submitting the report will receive a response as quickly as possible.

Incidental Radio Frequency/Electromagnetic Interference (RFI & EMI)

posted February 3, 2018

ARRL and the FCC have a cooperative agreement in radio frequency interference matters. You may submit interference reports together with your supporting documentation to ARRL EMC Engineer Mike Gruber W1MG who then files the report with the FCC Gettysburg office.

You may also contact our Section Technical Coordinator Bob Wortman, WB6VYH for assistance. More information is posted under the "From the Section Manager" notes in the November 2016 Section News - Carol KP4MD

Bob Hess, W1RH, shares this helpful web page by NK7Z for identifying sources of incidental Radio Frequency Interference http://www.nk7z.net/rfi-snapshots

Each licensee has the final responsibility for the lawful operation of his or her station.  Unfortunately, the increasing automation in our radios has apparently accustomed some to falsely assume that the radio will correct for operator carelessness and ignorance of regulations.  Our cooperation with NTIA requirements is essential for our continued access to the 60m channels and for possible future access to the new ITU worldwide 60 meter allocation at 5351.5 to 5366.5 kHz. (See http://www.arrl.org/news/view/arrl-asks-fcc-to-allocate-new-5-mhz-band-retain-channels-and-current-power-limit and http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-invites-comments-on-arrl-petition-to-allocate-new-5-mhz-band). Please be aware of these requirements if you intend to or currently operate CW or digital modes on our shared 60m allocations. The ARRL Volunteer Monitor Program is documenting this matter and wishes to raise its awareness in the wider amateur radio community.

-Carol Milazzo, KP4MD

*The NTIA is the federal authority that coordinates radio spectrum use for the US military and federal government while the FCC serves in this capacity for US civilian radio spectrum users.

E-mail compliments, suggestions and submissions for inclusion in our Section News to kp4md (at) arrl.org

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