On Saturday, August 10th 2024 the Maple Grove Radio Club will be using the 146.910 repeater to coordinate West Net Control for the 2024 Antique Car Run that goes from New London, MN to Long Lake, MN in New Brighton. They will be using the 146.910 repeater from 6:30AM to 1pm or until they switch over to East Net Control. Please refrain from regular use of the repeater until they are done or until after 2PM.

Willmar Area Emergency Amateur Radio Club Constitution, By-Laws and Membership Fees

Updated 9/10/2023

Welcome to the Willamar Area Emergency Amateur Radio Groups.io This group will be used for club announcements, operating events and discussion of all aspects in ham radio. Feel free to ask questions and join the conversation.

Hello members, the next quarterly meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 23rd at 6:30 pm. The meeting location will be at the Kandiyohi Rescue Squad building 213 Lakeland Dr NE, Willmar, MN 56201 We will be holding our annual officer elections during this meeting.

Ben W0AYE, Tony WD0HXV and myself N0QBH swapped the Kantronics packet TNC out for a Winlink VARA FM gateway today at the HHS site. As I mentioned before, we don't have Internet access at this site yet, so it will act as a mailbox and a tall VARA digipeater for local users. The Gateway callsign is N0QBH-10 and it's frequency is 145.070 MHz. The radio has 50W power out to an antenna at 400'. The digipeater call is N0QBH-4 and can be used to access the W0AYE-10 full service gateway near Olivia or other user stations in P2P mode. Simply connecting to N0QBH-10 for an email check will add your call to the local white pages allowing others to send email to you here at N0QBH-10 and vice versa. 73 Mike N0QBH

Leon KF0OUA and I will be doing a Parks On The Air activation at Monson State Park at 9am 7/14/24. We're going to try to do a 10m activation so anyone with their technicians license is welcome to come try their luck at the park as well. Everyone else is welcome too. I will be monitoring 146.520 simplex for a talk in frequency if anyone gets close and wants directions. 73

I'm kind of excited to announce the club has been given the go ahead to shift our packet radio station on the 400' HHS tower to a Winlink Gateway running VARA-FM (callsign W0AYE-10). I was able to locate the Kenwood TKR-750 radio programming software and with lots of help from Tony WD0HXV, we were able to reprogram it with 16 frequencies in the 2m digital portion of the band. Presently, it's back on 145.670 (the MN packet freq), but will switch to 145.070 (MN VARA FM freq) when Ben W0AYE connects his gateway to the radio. With 50 Watts 400' up, we should be able to solidly serve our present and new users over a much wider area. Purpose: Winlink VARA will allow it's users to send and receive emails including attachments up to 100k via 2m voice radios and a Windows pc with free software. They can also transfer mail and larger files directly between two stations using a peer to peer mode. It's very automatic and fast! This isn't meant to replace your present email, but to give you another way to connect to the rest of the world. I use mine for anything Ham related. That way, I stay proficient in it's use and spread the word with my @winlink.org address. There is also a separate VARA Chat program that lets two stations keyboard and transfer files as well. While sending and receiving email may seem old hat, remember, we are doing it over radio, quickly - look Mom, no wires! Stay tuned... 73 Mike N0QBH

Sometimes as Hams we hear the terms pre emphasis and de emphasis and how it improves our audio quality. This is the best, short description I've seen for us laymen. In signal processing, pre-emphasis is a technique to protect against anticipated noise. The idea is to boost (and hence distort) the frequency range that is most susceptible to noise beforehand, so that after a noisy process (transmission over cable, tape recording...) more information can be recovered from that frequency range. Removal of the distortion caused by pre-emphasis is called de-emphasis, making the output accurately reproduce the original input. For more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphasis_(telecommunications) What they don't mention is the process also distorts the phase of the signal. This is why we bypass these circuits when we want to do high speeds like 9600 baud packet or fast VARA FM. 73 Mike N0QBH

Hey Everyone, Just found this out tonight…. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/arrl-cyberattack-takes-logbook-of-the-world-offline/ American Radio Relay League cyberattack takes Logbook of the World offline The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) warns it suffered a cyberattack, which disrupted its IT systems and online operations, including email and the Logbook of the World. ARRL is the national association for amateur radio in the United States, representing amateur radio interests to government regulatory bodies, providing technical advice, and promoting events and educational programs for enthusiasts around the country. On Thursday, the ARRL announced that it suffered a cyberattack that disrupted its network and systems, including various online services hosted by the organization. "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," explained ARRL in a press release. Amateur radio enthusiasts use three-letter codes that start with the letter Q, which are called "Q" signals, and they act as abbreviations for commonly used phrases in ham radio. For example, the code QSO is shorthand for "I can communicate with _________ direct," and is used to denote a direct conversation between two stations. At the same time, QSL means "I am acknowledging receipt," meaning that contact is confirmed. Logbook of The World (LoTW) is an online database that allows amateur radio enthusiasts to submit electronic logs of successful contacts (QSO) and confirmations (QSL) between other users worldwide. Enthusiasts can use these logs of successful communication on LoTW towards operator awards. In a Friday update, the ARRL took steps to allay members' concerns about the security of their data, confirming that they do not store credit card information or collect social security numbers. However, the organization confirmed that its member database contains some private information, including names, addresses, and call signs. While they do not specifically state email addresses are stored in the database, one is required to become a member of the organization. It is unknown if the organization suffered a ransomware attack or another cybersecurity incident. BleepingComputer contacted the ARRL with further questions, but a reply was not immediately received. KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch On Sun, May 19, 2024 at 11:02 AM KBØDCO Thomas via groups.io <Kb0dco@...> wrote: Hello Everyone, During the WØCRC Club Picnic… I was having issues logging into LOTW. I tried again today to log in there, but I’m still unsuccessful in doing so. If you’re doing FT8 or having auto updates to LOTW… I would double check that you most recent contacts got uploaded after LOTW has been restored to normal operation. Here is what I found on the ARRL website: https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-systems-service-disruption ARRL Systems Service Disruption 05/17/2024 Updated 5/17/2024 Some members have asked whether their personal information has been compromised in some way. ARRL does not store credit card information anywhere on our systems, and we do not collect social security numbers. Our member database only contains publicly available information like name, address, and call sign along with ARRL specific data like email preferences and membership dates. Original story below: 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. KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch

This was forwarded to me from Rick N0BJN and may be useful to anyone connecting to the DARC Room using YSF through a Hotspot. Hi Everyone, 6/25/24 19:09 You are being notified because your Openspot, Zumspot, Pi Star, Raspberry Pi or other Device was seen on the old FCS 004-29. The old FCS 004-29 is no longer Linked to the DARC Room 40012. The new DARC Room Bridge is on FCS 001-55 & is called the NØANC-LINK. If you wish to get into the DARC Room 40012 with your Device, please Link it to FCS 001-55 & that will Bridge you into the DARC Room 40012 on Wires X Fusion Digital DN ( Digital Narrow ). The old FCS 004-29 is not linked anymore due to Outages 4 weekends in a row lasting over a day each. The new FCS 001-55 has been working good since 4/21/24. Thank you for being part of the DARC Room on the new FCS 001-55 NØANC-LINK Bridge to the DARC Room. If you have any questions, please ask. Please join us for the DARC Digital Net Saturdays 8:15 PM Central Time in the DARC Room 40012 on Wires X or FCS 001-55 or NØBJN-L Echolink Node 925804. Any & all stations are welcome. 73's Rick Houle NØBJN ( alias Mark Adams ) Little Falls, MN

Due to an outage involving the Willmar EOC W0AYE-10 Winlink gateway, I have put my backup gateway on line here at my Ringo Lake QTH. Operationally the same VARA FM and the frequency is still 145.070. It's on a comparable tower a few miles north of W0AYE-10, so it should still work for most. 73 Mike N0QBH

On Saturday, June 1st at 9 am to 11:30 am, I'd like to get a few people to help look over the communications trailer. It will be light duty involvement like chasing antenna coax and power supply leads to figure out where they go. There is a couple repairs that need to be made but I'm not sure we'll get to that on this go around. If you feel like lending a hand for a couple hours, it would be greatly appreciated.

Hello Everyone, During the WØCRC Club Picnic… I was having issues logging into LOTW. I tried again today to log in there, but I’m still unsuccessful in doing so. If you’re doing FT8 or having auto updates to LOTW… I would double check that you most recent contacts got uploaded after LOTW has been restored to normal operation. Here is what I found on the ARRL website: https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-systems-service-disruption ARRL Systems Service Disruption 05/17/2024 Updated 5/17/2024 Some members have asked whether their personal information has been compromised in some way. ARRL does not store credit card information anywhere on our systems, and we do not collect social security numbers. Our member database only contains publicly available information like name, address, and call sign along with ARRL specific data like email preferences and membership dates. Original story below: 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. KBØDCO Thomas Gagnon Sent from my IPAD 4th Gen. Air Touch