Hello all, Just a quick little post to add some study links for VE training.
Please Bring a Smart phone or print these out for your use during the meeting. I look forward to seeing all of you on Thursday.
N0DND
All posts by n0dnd
Greater Midwest amateur radio show April 28, 2018
The Third Annual Greater Midwest Radio Show sponsored by the Amateur Radio Association of Nebraska will be held SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2018, AT THE ADAMS COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS, 947 SOUTH BALTIMORE, HASTINGS, NEBRASKA, FROM 0800 T0 1300.
Antique radios, vintage electronics, AMATEUR RADIO, antennas, microcontrollers, project items, hobbyists, swap meet, comercial vendors, demonstrations, presentations by the National Weather Service, DOOR PRIZES, PHENOMENAL REFRESHMENTS, ARRL approved, contests for beautiful and ugly sets, auction, and even MORE! Admission is $3.50 in advance or $5.00 at the door. Table rental: http://www.greatermidwestradio.org.
KD0RLZ. 73.
Moved the Shack (and the family)
Well it has been a very busy year for me this year. Besides the 12 hour work days I have had to endure, we were able to spend a lot of the summer on the boat on the lake learning how to fish, which is something I would probably be doing right now if it were not for the fact I uprooted my family, and the shack and moved across town. Now that the kids have grown up and are well on there way to starting there own lives in there own locations, me and Deb have decided to up-size. I now have a location that is very friendly to ham radio in so many ways.
One of the great things about moving is when you start to plan out your new shack you can do just about anything you want to do, the only limits being space and time. I am very lucky in that I was able to commandeer a whole room area about the size of two walk in closets that was both completely empty, had the power distribution box conveniently located, and where my antenna cables can easily go right out the foundation with the addition of a few holes.
As you can see the shack is coming together quite nicely. While I wish I could have spent more time on Ham radio, it has not been a bad year.
I hope to see you all on the air, we hold a little round table net starting about 5am on the 94 repeater on most week day mornings, all are welcome. See you there….N0DND
Welcome
Current Announcements:
Well we have the site back on the Web after a brief period where we lost the domain. But as you can see Stan did a fine job finding a replacement that is close to what we had. It will take time for me to go thru everything and update it with current info but I will try and get this done over the next couple of weeks.
Time for officer elections. It is time for some of the new members to pick up the mantel and run with it. The club needs to have your participation. If you are interested in serving in office that would be great. We also need net control stations, if you have time to call one or two nets that would be excellent. We have plenty of nets and any of them can be something you may be interested in, it is excellent experience. Please step up and make a contribution!
Here is hoping for a successful and healthy 2019. There is a lot going on this year. I hope that we get good attendance and participation. We hope to achieve many difficult things this year and with all of your help we can make that happen.
We are still looking for a secretary, if interested let one of the officers know.
- The Bylaws and the charter documents for the new combined club is posted on the meeting agenda page found here
- The proposed bylaws governing the joining of the clubs has been approved. GIARS is now a chapter of MARC, Mid-Nebraska Amatuer Radio Club. We will still operate on some things independently, and will also be able to draw on resources that exist across the tri cities. A win win.
- GIARS ARES Emergency communications plan has been accepted, all club functions will be considered incidents and we will function in that capacity. Please become familiar with ICS documents and take the ICS courses if you have the time.
- New ARES Page under construction with links to field operations guides and other Emergency information.
- An Agenda will be posted and featured every month along with minutes from the last meeting. If you have something you want added to the agenda please post it in comments for discussion or contact an officer. If you have comments please post them on the website for further discussion. We would like to save our meeting time for fun time as much as possible. Also keep an eye towards the recent comments to keep up with what people are saying.
- New monthly news email to be sent out to members for members only communications. If you are not on the mailing list and want to be please contact Dan N0DND and he will add you too the list.
Thanks for visiting the GIARS Web site.
The club meets every third Thursday of the month at the red cross building in Grand Island starting at 7:00pm for a meet and greet, and then we attend to business at 7:30. The public is welcome to attend. Additionally, every Saturday morning at 8:00am we meet at the State street McDonald’s for coffee and breakfast and a lot of good conversation. A lot has changed with the club, many new members and ideas, new technologies, and we seem to have more activities all the time. We look forward to seeing you at the meetings.
At the march meeting it was voted on and approved that all hams who have taken the test and became new licensees within the first year will have club dues waived for that year. We would love for you to join us no matter the reason you became a ham. there is something to do for all of us and that is what makes it fun.
We are looking for contributors to the website. If you have the ability and desire to write a story one or two times a month and post it on the site let Dan, n0dnd or Stan, n0yxv know and you will be given access. Stories can be anything interesting about ham radio or a member of the ham community. The format here is magazine like so the site can accommodate a lot of different styles and it is sure to fit in. We are looking for quality not quantity. Participation is a good thing and you will be proud of what you do.

Remaking the Club
As many of you know, the numbers of members who have been active in the club has dwindled down to the bare minimum to where we rarely have enough people to even make decisions and do the stuff required to live up to our commitments. So we have decided to make a few changes.
At this month’s meeting we will bring to order what could be the final decision actually made at the meeting If the vote is to the affirmative. We would like to have our business meeting on the air from now on. We will pick a time and place for the net. This way everyone can participate in the event and we will be able to save our actual meeting time for ham related activities.
When we have a meeting we do whatever comes to mind. Hopefully that will include good food and good times. We will start with a few videos and some pizza
Greater Midwest Radio Show May 13th 8am-1pm
Echolink Enabled Repeater 444.750
As many of you know there has been an Echolink enabled repeater in the area for some time now. Over the Christmas Holiday and all the way thru now there has been a considerable amount of time put in to the underlying mechanics, the computer system. Echolink is standard windows program, which is an easily operated point and click operation, but as with anything windows is not stable long term, in other words it works great until enough time goes by then it doesn’t. So as with everything else in my shack I switched it over to a Linux based program. In the case of Echolink, the program I use is SVXLink. Over this long period, I have learned much about configuring this program and right along with it how to work in Linux, it was one of the best learning experiences I have had with the computer.
SVXLink is a very powerful piece of software, not only can it do Echolink, it can act as a repeater controller, a cross band link if needed, a weather machine, it will do a lot. Right now, it serves to link the 444.750 machine to the Nebraska Hub. The Nebraska hub has been a growing network of Nebraska linked repeaters. The link is established thru the KD0PGV link, which unfortunately at the time of this writing is down for repairs, but for the better part of a year it has been flawless. Should be back linked soon we hope. In the mean time I wanted to write a piece that gives instructions on how to link with other machines. SVXLink has a little different way of doing things than the standard Echolink software.
I will just give the codes here and what they do:
* SVXLink Status
1# Link Status
# Disconnect
If you have to deactivate the Echolink module you can re-connect by dialing 2#
If the Echolink Module is not loaded it will not recognize your commands.
For any node, enter the node number followed by the # key. Shortcuts to favorite destinations follows. If you have a favorite Echolink node that you want a shortcut added for then let us know and it can be added.
D1# Nebraska Hub – Non Operational
D2# kr1sto North platte
D3# N0IQ North platte
D4# WB0WLY Omaha area Linked repeaters
D5# Crossroads reflector
D6# Dodropin reflector
D7# Hi-Gate reflector
D8# Handiham reflector
D9# open
D10# kd0an
D11# kc0swg
D12# kd0efc
D13# Michigan – These people are a bit of a bunch of jackasses, so no kerchunking or anything out of the ordinary please. And if anyone connects here and hears something that should not be there please report it to the Sysop.
D14# World reflector
D15# USA
D16# KC0EQA – Hastings, NE – Possibly connected to the Allstar Network
Region 26 Emergency Management Center
A few weeks ago a few of us went to Taylor Nebraska to meet up with the folks at the region 26 Emergency Management Center. we had a great conversation and got to see how they do thing out in the Nebraska Sandhills. While our EOC is quite busy by Nebraska standards, Region 26 has a huge geographical area to manage.
It was a huge learning experience, and was really neat that we were welcomed with open arms. We were asked for advice on comms, repeaters, and we learned a little about what they had available for us to use if we ever had to go up and help them set up some kind of comms to Grand Island or elsewhere.
Here are a few Photos Of the trip.:
It was a lot of Fun, Thanks to the crew of Region 26!
Meeting Minutes January 2017
Sorry guys it has taken this long to post this stuff, But been busy with a project, like an itch it just couldn’t sit on the back burner. So here is the first minutes of the 2017 year. We had a great and productive meeting.
- Officers were Elected for the 2017 Year, President: Dan Bergman N0DND, Vice President Jeremy Smith, Kc0nuk, Treasurer Jay Rasmussen WX9R, And Secretary Still open looking for volunteers.
- The ARES Emergency Response Plan was voted on and approved by the club.
- The Bylaws for the Mid Nebraska Amateur radio club, hereafter referred to as MARC voted on and approved.
- In theory we agreed to see if we could obtain the old City hall building and Dan agreed to write the proposal which Brian agreed to Present to Wood River, to be used as a comm center and training facility.
- Jeremy talked about a field trip to the region 26 Emergency management Center
- It was discussed and agreed that due to an increase in costs, and having to now give a share of our dues to MARC that we would raise our dues to 25.00 A month.
- We discussed training and ARES, Our first goal would be to get everyone VE tested so we can have plenty of volunteers to train and test new recruits
January 2017 Club Agenda
Welcome to 2017 everyone. We have a lot of exciting things in store for 2017. We will be much more focused on training this year with an eye toward ARES and CERT as both organizations work to focus on the mission and being able to get the job done when call upon. I know the CERT guys are already on the minds of our city emergency manager, we have been told we are likely to see some deployments. In concert with that goal, and the goals of the Dept of Homeland Security, and the federal government, in order for us to remain a needed service in this nation it is important for us to train, and follow and practice the procedures that will be required during times of need, whether it is a disaster or simply working out at the parade. Our volunteers are needed, but in order to fill that need we have to be focused, determined, and well trained. There is no substitute for training.
I know it can be hard for some to get away, there are so many priorities in life as we are all aware. I hope that being a member of ARES, GIARS, and soon the Mid Nebraska Amateur Radio Club, becomes at least a small priority in your busy lives. It is not only needed by your ham community, but you are needed by the community at large, it could save your life or that of someone in your family. And besides all that mumbo jumbo, it will just plain ol fun.
This months Agenda:
- Election of new officers, please note November monthly minutes
- Training schedule for the year
- Discussion of new technologies we will be using
- Discussion of ICS, ICS Forms, and club incidents
- Adopting the Emergency response plan in General
- Adopting the New club Bylaws in General.
- Creating the ARES sub committee/ Who wants to be ARES
- News Letter good/bad/ugly?
- Wood River location.
- Bylaws for Mid Nebraska Amatuer Radio Club seen Here
- Charter Seen Here