The Indianapolis Radio Club Newsletter Founded 1914 “The oldest continuously operating Amateur Radio Club in the United States” January, 2007 Newsletter [][]Upcoming Meetings: February 9, 2007: “Legacy Radios”—Antique and classic Rigs and memorabillia. Theme for the night, “Dip the Finals”. March 9, 2007: How to get certificates and awards, such as WAS, DXCC, etc… April 13, 2007: Tentatively scheduled is a tour of WISH-TV’s facilities May 11, 2007: D-Star digital radio presentation June 8, 2007: Annual equipment auction [][]Highlights of the January 12, 2007 meeting: To start off the meeting, club President Tom Chance, K9XV, asked that those in attendance observe a moment of silence in memory of Paul Bohrer, W9DUU, who passed away on December 21st. Tom reported to the membership that the Officers and Committees of the club had had a productive planning session that evening. Tom announced that the club would once again be organizing a bus trip to the Dayton Hamvention® on Saturday, May 19. Pricing and other details will be forthcoming. Tom also announced that beginning in February, the IRC will be sponsoring the monthly VE exam sessions that were previously held at the Red Cross. See more details under “Ham Radio News” in this newsletter. When Tom asked for announcements from the floor, Mike, N9FEB, announced that Betty Martin, KE8SP, had passed away. She was known as “Santa’s Partner” on HF, and she and her husband, Tex, ran the “Santa Claus Net” on HF, and locally on the 146.700 repeater. Mike also announced that he had started a “Classified Ham Ads” section on his web site. See more details under “Ham Radio News” in this newsletter. Tom next asked that everyone introduce themselves. There were a 12 year old ham and 13 year old ham, along with several first timers among the approximately 50 attendees. Next, Vice President Dave Miller, K9RTT, went over what was in the works for upcoming meetings. At this point, Tom introduced Dave Spoelstra, N9KT, who had a presentation regarding electronic forms of QSLing, namely ARRL’s Logbook Of The World, and the eQSL system. Dave stated that right now, there are over 118 million QSOs in LOTW. When QSOs are uploaded to LOTW, they are added to, and compared to the existing database. If any matches are made, they become QSLs. Then, these LOTW QSLs can be combined with paper QSLs for DXCC credit. Dave gave an interesting presentation on the “nuts and bolts” of the LOTW system, including getting initially set up on the system, which takes a few steps and a certain amount of time, due to the fact that once you sign up on the system, information is mailed to your address on file with the FCC to verify that you are you. After the intial set up, the filing with LOTW is fairly streamlined, especially if one uses one of the logging software packages that support direct integration with LOTW. Dave also gave a brief presentation on eQSL, which is a for-profit system that was started before LOTW. There are several eQSL awards available, but currently, eQSLs do not count toward ARRL awards credits. To complete his presentation, Dave demonstrated a live upload of QSOs from the W9IMS log to the eQSL system. After Dave’s presentation, the winners of the chili cook-off were announced. Bob Northern, W9VCS, won the cook-off, and was presented with a backup powered AM-FM radio, which Bob in turn presented to Noah, KC9IFV, a 12 year old extra class operator (that’s right, a 12 years old extra!). John Wampner, K9GZR, was presented with the “Pepto award” for his chili. To wrap up the evening, there were numerous door prizes distributed that had been carefully selected by Bob Osterhous, W9PSE. [][]Ham Radio News: []Paul Bohrer, W9DUU – Silent Key "The Amateur Radio Community has lost a Great Contributor", as Indianapolis Radio Club president Tom Chance, K9XV, put it.  Paul Bohrer, W9DUU, passed away on the evening of December 21st.  As Tom put it, "He will be remembered as one of the most progressive people to introduce VHF and UHF repeater systems and ATV in the Indianapolis area.  From the first 34/76 to the many repeater systems today, he linked the community."  Tom Weber, KC9GMJ, of the WISH-TV engineering department, wrote:  "Most all of you know that Paul had been a pre-eminent engineer here in Indy for about 45 years, most of them with WTTV-4 (and later WTTK-29 as well), and the last 15 or so with WISH-8.  He was also a fixture in the Ham Radio Community for even longer than that.  We've all lost a tremendous resource, and a plain old good person." []Betty Martin (Santa’s Partner), KE8SP – Silent Key Betty Martin, KE8SP, passed away Thursday, January 11. She and her husband, Tex, KE8SQ, ran a “Santa Claus Net” on HF for years and locally on the 146.700 repeater. [][]FCC MODIFIES AMATEUR RADIO SERVICE RULES, ELIMINATING MORSE CODE EXAM REQUIREMENTS AND ADDRESSING ARRL PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION Washington, D.C. – On December 15, 2006, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration (Order) that modifies the rules for the Amateur Radio Service by revising the examination requirements for obtaining a General Class or Amateur Extra Class amateur radio operator license and revising the operating privileges for Technician Class licensees. In addition, the Order resolves a petition filed by the American Radio Relay League, Inc. (ARRL) for partial reconsideration of an FCC Order on amateur service rules released on October 10, 2006. ….. Today’s Order eliminates the Morse code requirement for General and Amateur Extra licensees. This change reflects revisions to international radio regulations made at the International Telecommunication Union’s 2003 World Radio Conference (WRC-03), which authorized each country to determine whether to require that individuals demonstrate Morse code proficiency in order to qualify for an amateur radio license with transmitting privileges on frequencies below 30 MHz. This change eliminates an unnecessary regulatory burden that may discourage current amateur radio operators from advancing their skills and participating more fully in the benefits of amateur radio. Today’s Order also revises the operating privileges for Technician Class licensees by eliminating a disparity in the operating privileges for the Technician Class and Technician Plus Class licensees……..With today’s elimination of the Morse code exam requirements, the FCC concluded that the disparity between the operating privileges of Technician Class licensees and Technician Plus Class licensees should not be retained. Therefore, the FCC, in today’s action, afforded Technician and Technician Plus licensees identical operating privileges. Finally, today’s Order resolved a petition filed by the ARRL for partial reconsideration of an FCC Order released on October 10, 2006 (FCC 06-149). In this Order, the FCC authorized amateur stations to transmit voice communications on additional frequencies in certain amateur service bands, including the 75 meter (m) band, which is authorized only for certain wideband voice and image communications. The ARRL argued that the 75 m band should not have been expanded below 3635 kHz, in order to protect automatically controlled digital stations operating in the 3620-3635 kHz portion of the 80 m band. The FCC concluded that these stations can be protected by providing alternate spectrum in the 3585-3600 kHz frequency segment. [] To view the entire 41 page Report and Order, point your browser to http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-178A1.pdf. Editor’s note: Thanks to those of you who submitted comments on the elimination of code requirements. Unfortunately, there is no room for them this month, but I’ll try to get some in as space allows.Links to new frequency allocation chart and bandplansThe Amateur Radio frequency allocation chart can be found by pointing your browser to and the ARRL Band Plans are at on the ARRL Web site, and have been updated to reflect the band changes. Revised FCC Part 97 Amateur Service rules reflecting all changes detailed in the FCC Report and Order in WT Docket 04-140, also are available at . []VE Testing moving from Red Cross to ITC Beginning with the Saturday, February 3 test, the Indianapolis Radio Club will become the sponsor of the monthly VE test sessions. The location of the test sessions will be at the Indianapolis Training Center, 2802 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis. Tests will continue to be on the first Saturday of each month, starting at 9:00 a.m. Due to the number of Race related events in May, there will be testing on the first and last Saturdays of April, and no testing in May. The tests will continue to be coordinated by the ARRL VEC and WCARS VEC on alternating sessions. []Solar cycle 24 – Looks like it could be a whopper! Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago, " says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. For the complete article, point your browser to http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/21dec_cycle24.htm?list69914 []Local Classified Ads starting up Mike Palmer, N9FEB, Marion County ARES EC, is starting a local ham radio classified ads section on his web site. The classified ads can be found by going to http://indyhams.org/ads/Buy-Sell-Trade. If you would like something posted, send a message to Mike at N9FEB@comcast.net. []FCC suspends vanity call sign processing The FCC has put new Amateur Radio vanity call sign processing on hold while it modifies the software that handles vanity applications. The suspension is a result of a rule change that went into effect December 15 to discourage the filing of multiple applications by one individual for the same call sign. The FCC is still processing vanity call sign renewal applications. "The Commission continues to accept vanity call sign applications," says a brief announcement on the FCC's Universal Licensing System (ULS) Web page, http://wireless.fcc.gov/uls/. "However, these applications will not be processed until software changes in accordance with the recent rule making have been fully implemented." Just when that might happen is not known. As revised in the FCC's recent Report and Order (R&O) in WT Docket 04-140, §97.19(d)(1) stipulates that if the FCC receives more than one application requesting a vanity call sign from a single applicant on the same receipt day, it will process only the first application entered into the ULS. "Subsequent vanity call sign applications from that applicant with the same receipt date will not be accepted," the rule concludes. The FCC says that when it resumes processing new vanity applications, it will handle pending applications "consistent with the date order in which they were received." This suspension affects new vanity call sign applications submitted on December 18 or later. Typically, it takes 18 days from the time the FCC receives a vanity application until the call sign is issued -- or the application is denied. The FCC granted the last new Amateur Radio vanity call signs on January 4 for applications received December 15. All vanity call sign renewal applications, including those for club stations, must be filed via the ULS. The current vanity call sign fee, payable for new applications as well as renewals, is $20.80 for the 10-year license term. []ARRL Outgoing QSL Service revises rates The ARRL Outgoing QSL Service http://www.arrl.org/qsl/qslout.html has announced a new rate structure, effective January 1, 2007. The new basic rate will be $5 per half-pound (8 ounces -- or approximately 75 cards) or any portion of a half-pound. That's a change from the current rate of $4 per half-pound or any portion. One pound will cost $10, and larger packages will be assessed $5 for each additional half-pound (or portion thereof). For example, a package containing 1.5 pounds of cards will cost $15, while a package containing 1.75 pounds of cards will cost $20. For smaller packages, the new fee is only $1.50 for 10 or fewer cards, $2.50 for 11 to 20 cards and $3.75 for 21 to 30 cards. [][]Upcoming Area Radio Events: * Bus Trip to Dayton “Hamvention” Saturday, May 19 More info to follow. * USS Indianapolis “Museum Ships OTA” Station June 8 – 10 (local) Stations will be set up close to the USS Indianapolis Monument, same location as last time. Go to http://www.indyradioclub.org/ussindy.htm for more information. [][]Current IRC Club Officers: * President: Tom Chance, K9XV - ..EMAIL k9xv@arrl.net * Vice Pres.: Dave Miller, K9RTT - ..EMAIL dmiller@ivytech.edu * Sectretary: Ken Bandy, KC9GLQ - ..EMAIL kc9glq@arrl.net * Treasurer: Judy Gardner, AA9GW - ..EMAIL aa9gw@juno.com * Chief Operator: Dave Craig, N9QVO - ..EMAIL slough@svs.net * Dir. at large: Bob Osterhous, W9PSE - EMAIL rosterhous@iquest.net * Dir. at large: Tom Price, WB9UNG – EMAIL pricetr@comcast.net * Dir. at large: Hank Wolfla, K9LZJ – EMAIL hwolfla@insightbb.com [][]If anyone has any items for the newsletter, please send them to Ken Bandy at kc9glq@arrl.net 6