Wisconsin Association of Repeaters

As we break out of July and into August, I wanted to talk about a few subjects.

First, we are just over 30 days before our next WAR membership meeting. It is being held in Eau Claire again, and I encourage everyone who can attend to do so. It will be on Saturday, August 31st promptly at 10:00 AM, so registration will begin at 9:30 AM. Josh posted earlier this month on the specifics, and more details are on both our website and Facebook page.

Next, I drove down to Indianapolis this month to attend the Indiana Repeater Council membership meeting, and had a great time. The meeting was held at the same time as the annual Indianapolis Hamfest, so not only did I get to visit with the IRC, but also got to look around at all the ham radio gear for sale (held firm – didn’t pull out the credit card) and attended many of the forums. One in particular was very good. It spoke of the growing technology of hotspots – something many of you have probably heard of, and perhaps even own one.

On a personal level, while I appreciate the manufacturers helping forge new technologies for ham radio operators to use, I’ve always felt that it was more about branding. C4FM (Fusion) can only talk to other C4FM users, specialized (and therefore more expensive) radios, etc. Thankfully, some of that is changing. With the new set of hotspots, digital technologies can be different, yet still talk to each other. Someone on Fusion can join the same “chat room” as someone running D-Star, or P25, and that chat room trans codes the conversation to each specific user’s technology. Still a lot of work to do, but personally I’d rather have a hobby where everyone can talk to each other versus only people using one manufacturer.

Also, this month WAR also sponsored another conference call with the adjacent states. Indiana is looking at a web-based coordination database, and part of the reason I went to Indianapolis was to see a demo of what they are working on. Illinois is also working on an alternative to Radio Mobile (terrain modeling based on various repeater parameters) that is open source and runs on Linux. I look forward to hearing from our neighbors on how they have been progressing.

Lastly, I want to remind everyone that volunteers are still needed. If you have some time to spare, and are interested in what this organization does, talk to any of our Board of Directors.

Again, I look forward to seeing all of you at your membership meeting in August.

Until next time, 73 de Dean KB7QDI

Attention Members –

As we enter the month of July I wanted to make sure everyone was aware that we will be holding our next bi-annual membership meeting on August 31st back at the Jamf office in Eau Claire, WI. This is the same location we hosted the bi-annual membership meeting in August of 2018.

As a reminder, this location is a secured location. What does that mean? It means that you will need an escort up to what we call “Town Hall” where the membership meeting will take place. We will be opening the doors for registration at 9:30am and the last elevator up will be promptly at 10:00am, at which time we will start the meeting. So please ensure you arrive early so you don’t get locked outside.

Please note: We will also be attempting to stream the meeting live online via web conference. This is going to be our first time streaming, so access is not guaranteed and during this test we are only planning to offer one-way communication and no voting will be allowed over the web conference. We will be posting the details for access to the web conference in the coming weeks. The hope is that it we’ll be able to eventually host our membership meetings across multiple locations with full transparency.

Below, please find a diagram that will explain where you can park in the area. Please also note that on Saturday mornings from 7:30am until 1pm the Farmers Market will be going on across the street in Phoenix Park as well.

There is ample parking in the area and I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful 4th of July! We look forward to seeing everyone on August 31st in Eau Claire, WI.

73,
Josh KC9WWH

Hello everyone. Just wanted to post that there have been cases where the information that WAR has in our database is no longer valid. If you or your organization has changed the primary contact, Holder of Coordination, phone number(s), as well as email and/or mailing address, please make sure to update us to those changes. Any correspondence that WAR sends usually goes to the primary contact, so if that has changed we definitely want to know.

Also, a reminder that the frequency pair that has been approved for you is based on the criteria that you submitted. If things have changed, i.e. new antenna, more power, changed PL/CTCSS, etc, then a updated form needs to be submitted to us BEFORE you actually make the change. The new criteria may cause an issue with another repeater on the same frequency, or even a repeater on a adjacent frequency, and we want to make sure that any possible interference is kept to a minimum. From our website, you can fill out a New/Modify Coordination form and send it to us via email or USPS.

Lastly, we are still looking for more volunteers to help with the organization. Please reach out to any of the board members, or Corey KB9BNA, for more information.

Other than that, I hope to hear many of you during the ARRL Field Day coming up June 22nd and 23rd.

Until next time, 73 de Dean KB7QDI