Events

Dale Hunt's having a bunny hunt (this one's designed for beginners) on a Saturday instead of his usual Sunday.

On June 25, we will be conducting our 20:15 net on the 145.13 repeater instead of the usual 147.26 repeater.

This repeater was installed by the Cowlitz County ACS group on Rainier Hill, a site with existing UHF repeaters known to reach from Chehalis to Camas. It will be interesting to test 2m coverage across the county through there.

It's a Yeasu Fusion repeater, supporting both FM and C4FM operation. -600kHz TX offset, 114.8Hz PL tone. The info for this and 10 other repeaters serving Cowlitz County can be found at:
http://www.w7dg.org/w7dgreference.html#repeaters

Mercury Mount St. Helens is offering $10 rides (Saturday only) for anyone who wants to go to SEA-PAC.  More information and sign-up at https://forms.gle/nbuxB75EM5FjhW8q7

Emergency Communications Workshop

When: February 11, 2023 from 0900-1215

Where: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
21720 NE 29th Ave, Ridgefield, WA 98642
(from I-5 take the Battle Ground exit, drive east to 29th Ave; building is on SW corner)

Cost: None

Who: Anyone interested in emergency communications, especially amateur radio operators, but also GMRS and others.

Program: The program will include 9-12 seminars presented in three periods of 50-minutes each.

Confirmed seminars include:

• Using WinLink to communicate. What is WinLink, what does it do, and why should I give it a try?

• Building your first station. You have a license, and want to get on the air. What to do?

• Radio service options for emergencies

• Antennas, antennas. Antennas are the key to a successful station. Even a so-so radio with a good antenna will allow many contacts.

• EYEWARN: Emergency status reporting. Learn about a local program that can help our county during an emergency.

• Public communication support. Learn about various groups and approaches to support others during an emergency.

• Go Kits: Just starting to mostly prepared. Still working on a speaker.

• Fun operating portable. Learn how you can operate portable, which is likely during an emergency. Not to mention learning how is fun.

Questions? Send questions to NS7U@arrl.net.

PS. It would help greatly if you plan to attend to let us know so we have a approximation of attendance.

Want a good excuse to try working up to 109 repeaters north of you? The Puget Sound Repeater Roundabout is for you! It's a two-day event that starts at midnight this Saturday, November 19th.  It includes repeaters in the Olympia area and even the Baw Faw repeater that anyone should be able to hit.

For your convenience, they provide a CHiRP file with all the repeaters, corresponding to a list they have on their website that shows locations; also, they've plotted them on a map.

See their website for more details. There's also an introductory Zoom mtg w/ Q&A Tuesday, Nov 15th @ 7PM. 

9:00-12:00 "Two Weeks Ready" emergency preparedness event for children & adults

More complete info can be had @ https://www.eventcreate.com/e/twoweeksready

ARRL Field Day is here again!  This year's official event is June 25-26, but you'll find some Sabbath-observing groups camping overnight June 24-25. For more information about Field Day, see posts from 2011 and 2012.

LCARA is likely to have their club house open for a while, but I don't believe that they have an organized event this year.

CCARC is holding their usual Field Day activities by SEH America, near NE 112th Ave & 39th St in Vancouver.
The "Come & See" public event is Saturday 12:00-16:00, w/ a GOTA station and displays by emergency/communications/public svc organizations.
Tailgate swapmeet from 10:00-14:00.

I hear that the Columbia Amateur Radio Association (CARA) is going to be setting up at Trojan Park, but as of the Wednesday before, there's no solid info on their web site.

The Ridgefield Stake Hams of the Church of Jesus Chrost of Latter-Day Saints are holding a brief Field Day activity on Saturday from 11AM-2PM at the stake center on 219th St.

Find more sites w/ the ARRL Field Day Station Locator tool. If you're running a site, register it so others can find you!

For the next 3 Sundays, our usual 2 nets (Longview/Woodland) will be consolidated into a single net on this repeater:

• Call: N7DEM

• Location: Rainier Hill (overlooks Longview)

• Frequency: 145.130 MHz

• Offset: -600 kHz

• Mode: FM, standard 5 kHz deviation

• CTCSS: 114.8 Hz

Please check in, and let us know how your path to that site compares to the 147.260 Longview and 147.300 Woodland repeaters.

Testing for all 3 license levels (Technician, General, Amateur Extra). Get your license or upgrade -- 3 days before the FCC's $35 application fee kicks in!

Other locations hosting exams this day:

• Vancouver (Vanc. Stake Center) by CCARC (following their General class) [$15 fee]

• Longview (LCARA Clubhouse) [$15 fee]

• Centralia (Mtn View Baptist Church) [unknown fee]

See  calendar entries for details. If you can't find the info you need, contact Charles Boling.

Technician license class packed into 4-5 hours over 2 days. 1st session is Saturday, 2nd is Wednesday.

Update: Also offering the 1st half on Tuesday.

See  calendar entries for details.

The Clark County Amateur Radio Club is offering their 2-weekend General Class amateur radio license class series on April 8,9,15,16. See the calendar entries for details.

The Clark County Amateur Radio Club is offering their 2-weekend Technician Class amateur radio license class series on March 11,12,18,19. See the calendar entries for details.

Herb Weiner, AA7HW, a member of the Cascade Amateur Radio Society, is teaching an Amateur Radio General Class License class via Zoom on Friday, March 4, from 4 - 7 PM Pacific Time, continuing on Saturday, March 5, from 8 AM - 2 PM. The class is free and open to all.

For more information, or to register:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/8050f4ba9ae2babfa7-general6 .

Rick Ouzts is teaching a 3-part Technician license class, based on an old ARRL video in our collection. For more information about the class, call Rick at 274-8207.  To watch the videos outside of class, email Charles at a d 7 u f @ w 7 m s h . o r g  or phone him at 673-2258 x1.

Charles Boling is teaching a 6-part Technician license class series, with an electronics emphasis. For more information, email him at a d 7 u f @ w 7 m s h . o r g  or phone him at 673-2258 x1.

Jeff Edgecomb and Loyd Huggins are teaching a 4-part Technician license class series on January 13,14,20,21 at the 30th Ave. building. See the calendar entries for details.

The memorial service for Randy Greeley is being held at 2:00 PM at the New Life Fellowship Church / 2441 42nd Avenue, Longview, WA

The Clark County Amateur Radio Club is offering their 2-weekend Technician license class series on January 7,7,14,15. See the calendar entries for details.

Dave Carleton, K7DSR, ECS for the Spokane storehouse region, has been asked to coordinate activities throughout the state [Official title: Emergency Communications Coordinator (ECC)]. This is a welcome development that will improve collaboration between groups and increase training opportunities.

(2021-09-24) Cowlitz ACS held an exercise this morning, detailed in the document below. I was disappointed at the low turnout -- we certainly could've used some more people! We only had 4 rovers. Nevertheless, those that participated had their hearts and energy into it, and the exercise was executed pretty well. I (Charles) operated from home (I figured that if we were simulating a flood, I could get away with claiming that a swollen river & landslides kept me from leaving), and kept two radios busy monitoring the repeater, logging simplex signals & status reports, and occasionally playing w/ packet (mostly APRS).

ACS put a lot of work into planning this exercise, it was a fine opportunity to hone our skills, and I'd sure like to see more MMSH members taking advantage of it the next time!

Links to the video & handouts from the seminar are now being distributed to everyone who registered for Wednesday's seminar.

It's not too late to register! Sign up to be able to access the recording of the seminar and the other materials.

https://tinyurl.com/mnw-gmrs-seminar

If you want to be notified of future seminars (and aren't already on the list), you can subscribe to the notification list by sending an email to: seminar_list+subscribe@w7msh.org

We're co-sponsoring a seminar (via Zoom) about using GMRS and other technologies in church-led  emergency communications. Some of the covered topics apply to ham radio too.

WHEN: Wednesday, Sept 15th, at 7:00 PM PDT.

For more details about the seminar, or to register, visit:

https://tinyurl.com/mnw-gmrs-seminar

Registering allows you to attend the live seminar, and will give you access to a recording and handouts afterwards.

All are welcome. Questions can be directed to: gmrs_seminar@w7msh.org

Google "Classic Sites" officially retires tomorrow, so Mercury Mount St. Helens has moved to the new version of the web hosting platform.  Some features are gone (e.g. RSS feeds, automatic pagination of blog-style sections), some are about the same, and there are a few new capabilities to be used.  Nearly all of  content of the old site is still available, though slightly mangled in places.  Plans for new content and tools abound, so stick with us and watch the site grow.