Friday, January 5, 2024

SM043 - Checotah Hamfest Saturday

Checotah Hamfest

Crossroads Amateur Radio Club (CARC) presents:

2024 CARC Ham Fest

The Checotah, OK hamfest is scheduled for Saturday, January 6, 2024. The doors will be open from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Start your year off right at the CARC Ham Fest

This year’s hamfest will be held at the Granite Station Covenant Church – 1128 White Stag Ave –  Checotah, OK 74426. Directions here

  • $10 at the door includes one door prize entry.
  • Extra door prize entries are available for $2 each or 6 for $10.
  • $20 vendor tables also include one door entry.
  • $15 individual tables.

Preorder your table/tickets at www.carcradio.org/hamfest

Forums

10:00 Oklahoma Link & Wires-X AE5ME

11:00 ARRL N5HZR ARRL Oklahoma Section Manager

See you there! 

Sunday, December 31, 2023

SM042 – The Board is Back In Town

A message from our West Gulf Division Director, John Stratton N5AUS. Our Oklahoma/Texas leadership supports this Motion. However, they are currently in the minority. Feel free to contact the leaders that John lists below and contact your friends outside the region so they can review this information and take appropriate action:


 

“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.”                       A centuries old truism often attributed to Mark Twain — it is applicable to any elected organization with the power to alter the lives and rights of others — public, private, or governmental — including the ARRL Board of Directors.        While the Agenda for the Board Meeting is always published before a Board meeting, the many motions to be considered by the Board have rarely ever been published before a Board Meeting. The most recent and notorious exception occurred before the January 2018 Board meeting when the Executive Committee and Lisenco motions intended to juice the 2017 “Code of Conduct” were leaked to the general Membership. The overwhelming Membership outrage resulting from the unintentional disclosure was instrumental in the punitive proposals being withdrawn. The 2017 Code of Conduct was itself overturned by a newly elected Board in January 2019.     The Members’ voices were heard — and their wishes were honored.     It is my belief, that of a small minority of Directors, and Vice Director Lee Cooper’s, that the Members should be permitted to have advance notice of the substantive matters to considered by the Board of Directors at its meetings.     To that end, the West Gulf intends to publish to its website the substantive motions scheduled to be considered at the January Board meeting and subsequent meetings.     It is our intent to discuss each known January 2024 motion in a separate email, although we will publish to the website each motion as it becomes available.     At present, there are three known motions. The Agenda for the January Board meeting and each of these three motions are available for review and download at:                 https://westgulfdivision.org/motionThe first motion we wish to discuss is the:   Motion To Honor Membership Contracts        In July 2023, the Board voted to raise the annual dues from $49 to $59 and to eliminate the delivery of a printed copy of QST or On The Air, effective January 2024, unless a Member paid an extra $25/year.        The West Gulf Division, the Atlantic Division, the Southeastern Division, and the Southwestern Divisions voted against both proposals, but the two proposals passed by an 11-4 vote.        While a dues increase was long overdue and actually needed, the West Gulf Division voted against it because it was tied to the termination of the delivery of a printed copy of QST/On The Air unless a Member paid an extra $25/year.        The four divisions argued it was a breach of the ARRL’s legal contract with those Members — both annual memberships and 3-year memberships — to terminate their promised printed copy of QST/On The Air before their membership contracts expired. The membership applications in use at the time promised, in writing, the delivery of QST/On The Air magazines by “standard mail.”        Besides the risks attendant upon a breach of contract, Article 11 of the ARRL Articles of Association prohibits the Board from terminating or reducing the rights of any Member. The stripping of the delivery of printed copies of QST/On The Air from unexpired Memberships constitutes a reduction in the rights of the affected Member.        Both the Membership Application and Article 11 are promises — and the League should stand on its promises. That is the reason we have filed the Motion To Honor Membership Contracts.        The ARRL is a membership organization, and the opinions of the Members are important.        I have been asked by each of the West Gulf Division Section Managers — NTX SM Steve Smith (KG5VK), STX SM Stuart Wolfe (KF5NIX), WTX SM Dale Durham (W5WI), and OK SM Mark Kleine (N5HZR) — to share that they each support the Motion To Honor Membership Contracts.     If you believe the Motion has merit and it should pass, it would be important for you to share your support for the Motion with the ARRL President, Rick Roderick, and the other Directors. All of their email addresses can be found on Page 15 of QST or at http://www.arrl.org/divisions . If you choose to share your views, please be respectful — we choose to disagree, but need not be disrespectful.John Robert StrattonN5AUSWest Gulf Division DirectorLee H. CooperW5LHCWest Gulf Division Vice Director

Saturday, September 30, 2023

SM040 - Tulsa/Rogers SET 2023 Comm Plan

 By Paul Teel WB9ANX Tulsa Emergency Coordinator and Jeff Scoville AE5ME

Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) Tulsa and Rogers County volunteers.  We are less than one week away from the annual Simulated Emergency Test (SET) on October 7th.  Operations will begin at 0900L time.

The two documents that you will need, the ICS-205 communications plan (pages 1 and 2), are available at https://aresok.org/ics205. The planned participation is growing in Oklahoma, and we encourage you to join in. We also have stations from international locations, including Germany and the Philippines.

In Tulsa or Rogers County

  • If you are in the local Tulsa market, please check in to the staging net on 145.110 at 0900.
  • Advise Net Control if you are.
    • Operating on emergency power,
    • Have Winlink or NTS message traffic,
    • Are available for additional assignments (meaning you are not a check-in only).  You will be given instructions on what to do next.

Outside of Tulsa or Rogers County

  • You may not be able to reach the 145.110 staging net.
  • If so, you can still participate in the exercise in the following ways;
    • Check-in with the Net Control Operator (NCO) on DMR talk group 3140 (statewide)
    • Check-in with the NCO on Oklahoma Link talk group 314022
    • Send a Winlink message to Jeff Scoville.  Address it to AE5ME in Winlink.  You can send that message via FM on any Winlink gateway near you (145.03 statewide or 145.04 in OKC).
    • Send a Winlink message to Jeff AE5ME via HF.  Frequencies are in the ICS-205.

This is a very ambitious project and would not be possible without the ARES Tulsa Team—many thanks to them.

  • Jeff, AE5ME (Winlink NCO)
  • John, N9JYJ  (Winlink NCO)
  • Ray, K5CFY (Rogers County Operations NCO)
  • Ian, KC9THI (Tulsa County Operations NCO)
  • Russ, KF5UZG (Staging NCO)
  • James, KI5DAZ (Tulsa Emergency Management Agency NCO)
  • Greg, AI5HV (DMR 3140, Okla Link 314022 NCO)

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