2014 has been a great year for GNARC. We had a fantastic summer picnic at Paul’s (WB2JVB) house, Field Day had great food and great DX, and most recently we had the holiday party.
But, while these events are fun, we do them every year. Starting in January 2014 we changed our meeting place to the brand new emergency operations center at the Norwalk Fire Headquarters, which was a huge step up from Stop and Shop or Shop Rite. We finally had a room where there was a place to project presentations, and have the seating for people to see it! Not only that, but we weren’t freezing while doing it! We were finally able to hold meetings without having to hear “cleanup, Aisle 3”. As if that wasn’t enough, after many years of being a wandering club, in September we acquired a new place to call home. The new Emergency Communications Center at 100 Fairfield Ave. is the permanent official home of the Greater Norwalk Amateur Radio Club.
Prior to this, the only physical place where the club existed full time was a P.O. box and a storage trailer, and neither one of those places is very inviting for a prospective ham. We only had a tiny 2 hour window each month with which to introduce someone to our club, after which all we could do was point them to a website. Even then, all they were able to experience was a business meeting and a presentation where (with a few exceptions) a radio was never even keyed up. I recall one meeting where I had invited a friend, whose impression of it was “Where are the radios? You’re a radio club, right?” Which leads me to another point; through the hard work and dedication of a group of members, we now have a station that can be used to show prospective and new hams what our hobby is all about.
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Tim W1GIG and Betty KC1PUP were honored at the annual GNARC holiday party. Both were awarded lifetime memberships in GNARC.
Over the years Tim has devoted significant time and resources to GNARC. His current role as a full time adviser to the board is indispensable. In the past he was the liaison between GNARC and the local emergency services. As the estate manager, he coordinates all donations to the club, and he then spearheads the annual trip to the Antique Wireless convention in Rochester, NY. At the convention, Tim and other GNARC members sell a large portion of these donations, providing significant funding for the club. His background in engineering has allowed him to design the trailer mounted tower we use every year for field day, and more recently he engineered the installation of the tower at the comm center. For these reasons and more we have presented him with a life membership. Betty KC1PUP has always supported the club’s activities, including public service events and is also awarded a lifetime membership.
At this year’s holiday party, Charles and Erika were among those recognized for supporting the club above and beyond the call of duty. Charles revamped the club web site, partnered with Curt W1FSM to greatly upgrade our repeater systems, and initiated a liaison with Norwalk’s Emergency Management Group. GNARC now sits in on the monthly EMD meetings, which is a great partnership.
But the major milestone in 2014 was the establishment of a GNARC communications center. With Chris WO1T, Charles was able to secure a permanent space for the club in one of the FD buildings. He managed virtually all of the project, including the installation of the tower (which first had to be removed from the old Red Cross building!), beam and all sorts of other equipment. We would not have the center without his work. Charles led the clean up, painting and outfitting of the space, and organized the many many GNARC volunteers who helped.
In recognition, Charles received a beautiful painting of his boat, crafted by our artist in residence, Dan N1ZZ.
Erika KC1BLS has given up much of her time to work on the center as well. From cleaning, painting, organizing to installing the beam, she pitched in wherever needed! And she puts up with Charles spending so much time with us. For this, she was awarded dinner for two at Paloma restaurant.
Some photos from the recent GNARC 2014 holiday party.
Effective Tuesday, November 18th 2014, the Norwalk 440 repeater will be converted to a new digital mode called “DMR”. Digital Mobile Radio, which is based on international standards, allows repeaters to carry multiple “talk groups” and be linked regionally, nationally, and of course worldwide.
For this experiment (which is what ham radio is all about!), the analog repeater you are familiar with at 448.075 will be digital for a test period of several months. If you have programmed your radios to scan this frequency, it will stop and just hear digital white noise.
The normal New Canaan 440 repeater will be back to analog on Wednesday, and we are actively looking at moving echolink/irlp over to that machine as it will not be available on Norwalk during the digital test.
Thank you for your patience during this test of an exciting new mode of operation!
If you would like more information about DMR, please reach out to W1FSM, WB2JVB, N1LLL or N1PLH.
This link has good information on DMR: http://www.dmr-marc.net/
Here are some other FAQs about DMR: http://www.k1tmm.info/dmr-faq#faqnoanchor
Several GNARC members have bought a ConnectSystems CS700 radio to experiment with DMR. It costs about $180. Look for the “CS700” at the web site below:
http://www.connectsystems.com/
As discussed at the November meeting last night, an online sign up sheet has been created so any member can come help with THEIR club communications center. Please see the link to the right.
Please check often to see when the center will be open for work to be done, and of course hang and chat with your ham pals at the same time!
Emails will be sent on the reflector when the signup sheet has new items on it.
You do not HAVE to create an account on signup genius. You can just select the item, click the large sign up button on the bottom and fill in your info. If you want to create an account you can, but it is not needed.
Thank you in advance for your help!
