There were many questions from newer members at last night’s meeting about emergency operations. A good place to start is the FEMA online classes that explain the Incident Command System. The first two courses give a foundation for how the system works. Here are links to those courses.

https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-100.b
https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-200.b

Submitted by KW1LL, White County Emergency Coordinator

From ARRL

New Bands! FCC Issues Amateur Radio Service Rules for 630 Meters and 2,200 Meters

03/31/2017
It’s been a long time coming, but the Amateur Service will get two new bands in the near future. The FCC on March 28 adopted rules that will allow secondary Amateur Radio access to 472-479 kHz (630 meters) and to 135.7-137.8 kHz (2,200 meters), with minor conditions. The FCC Report and Order (R&O) spells out the details. It allocates 472-479 kHz to the Amateur Service on a secondary basis and amends Part 97 to provide for Amateur Service use of that band as well as of the previously allocated 135.7-137.8 kHz band. The R&O also amends Part 80 rules to authorize radio buoy operations in the 1900-2000 kHz band under a ship station license. The new rules become effective 30 days following publication in The Federal Register.
Continue reading “New Ham Bands” →

From Harris County (TX) ARES Training Website

Getting to Know Your Radio

Knowing how to access the basic functions on the radios that you use during an emergency response is an important skill as emergency communicators. I have seen incidents during public service events where an operator could not change a parameter such as frequency, tone, power, etc. This affected net operations since an operator was not able to communicate due an issue such as the wrong tone being selected. The time to learn how to operate communications gear is not during a response.
Continue reading “Knowing Your Radio” →

By Ken Reed for Emergency Management (govtech.com)

Where to go During a Communications Shutdown

Local radio amateur group volunteers can help maintain communications until the normal operations resume.

If you’ve been in meetings and exercises that simulate a total communications loss, you’ve likely wondered what you would do in the event of a catastrophic failure that takes down cellular, Internet, power, and even your own systems.
Continue reading “Article about Communications Shutdown” →

From ARRL:

International Crystal Manufacturing Going Out of Business

International Crystal Manufacturing (ICM) of Oklahoma City has announced that it will be going out of business, probably at the end of May. Royden Freeland Jr., son of the company’s founder, posted a letter this week on the ICM website.

“We will be honoring all orders that we have already taken and will be able to fill a limited amount of new orders, dependent upon raw materials available,” Freeland said. “We would like to thank you for your past business. The success of ICM over the previous 66 years has been largely due to its amazing customer base.”

International Crystal produces RF control devices — quartz crystals, oscillators, QCM crystals, filters, TCXOs/VCTCXOs, and precision crystals.

Royden R. Freeland Sr. founded International Crystal in 1950, at first operating out of his garage. One of his first contracts was to produce crystals for Collins Radio. The elder Freeland and his wife died in a 1978 air crash, and his son took over the company, which expanded into the production of other electronics in the 1980s.

In the 1990s, though, it sold off some of its equipment and distribution business to concentrate on its core enterprise — the manufacture of crystal and oscillator products.

The announcement caught some manufacturers off guard, and they are seeking to source the products they had been buying from ICM, one of the remaining US-based manufacturers of crystal products. Radio amateurs requiring crystals for projects or as replacement parts for older equipment also will have to look elsewhere.
Read more.

Submitted by KD4WX

From ARRL Delta Division Email:

GM Delta Division Members,

The ARRL Board of Directors is seeking opinions from the membership concerning a possible new entry level class of amateur license in the United States. Hence, I would like to draw your attention to a survey we are conducting and encourage everyone to take it if you have not done so already.

The Entry Level License Ad Hoc Committee was established by the ARRL Board of Directors at the July 2016 board meeting and the committee was appointed in September 2016. As part of its ongoing work, the committee is gathering member input and will make recommendations to the Board for possible rules changes to submit to the FCC.

The result could mean changes to the Technician license, but it could also be an additional, but simpler, license with privileges that would give a newcomer a taste of most facets of ham radio from HF to VHF and UHF. It would be reminiscent of the old Novice ticket.

The committee has created an online member survey. Please complete and submit the survey no later than April 7, 2017. Survey results will be published.

The link to the survey is: http://www.arrl.org/license-1 or it can be accessed through the ARRL website.

We value your input!

73 ES DX

DE K5UZ

——————————————————————–
ARRL Delta Division
Director: David A Norris, K5UZ
k5uz@arrl.org
——————————————————————–

From Delta Division Letter:

Greetings Delta Division Members,

It gives me great pleasure to announce that HR-555 (we just missed getting 599, but I’ll take the raspy tone and S-5 strength for a good QSO) the 2017 Amateur Radio Parity Act was passed with much praise of radio amateurs and with no dissent yesterday evening. Per the ARRL web news:

Just 10 days after being introduced, the 2017 Amateur Radio Parity Act legislation, H.R. 555, passed the U.S. House of Representatives this week on unanimous consent under a suspension of House rules. The bill’s language is identical to that of the 2015 measure, H.R. 1301, which won House approval late last summer after attracting 126 co-sponsors, but failed to clear the U.S. Senate last fall as the 114th Congress wound down. The new bill, again sponsored by Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), was introduced on January 13 with initial co-sponsorship by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Rep. Greg Walden, W7EQI (R-OR), who chairs the influential House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

H.R. 555 calls on the FCC to establish rules prohibiting the application of deed restrictions that preclude Amateur Radio communications on their face or as applied. Deed restrictions would have to impose the minimum practicable restriction on Amateur Radio communications to accomplish the lawful purposes of homeowners association seeking to enforce the restriction

“The grassroots effort of Amateur Radio operators across this nation in support of the Amateur Radio Parity Act has been remarkable, nothing like we have ever seen before,” ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR, said. “To all hams, keep going! Now is the time to charge forward with that same momentum to the Senate. We can do it!” The bill arrives in the U.S. Senate with ample time in which to garner its approval through an education campaign.

Last year we almost passed this act but for one hold out in the US Senate who has now changed his position. Our grass roots effort on lobbying and writing the Senate now begins. We will be contacting you the members with our plans on getting this passed and to President Trumps desk. I should state that this could not have been done without the herculean effort that you, the members, put forth over the past two years. It has been a long and sometimes rough road but now we may be ending a happy end to this journey. Let’s make this last full measure a successful victory for radio amateurs in the USA.

Thank you!

73 ES QRX

DE K5UZ
DE WB4RHQ

Submitted by KD4WX