President's Message August 2010

Have you ever tried to read the manual that comes with your radio? If you did read it, did you understand it? Who wrote this thing?!?! Apparently someone who really hasn't used it a lot. Why can't I just plug it in and have it work?

What about all those menus you have to know now just to get the repeater to recognize you want to talk? Last week I tried to check into a repeater; somewhere along the way in the menu settings I had inadvertently changed the repeater offset to 5 MHz with a PL tone of 88.5. No wonder net control couldn't hear me. What did I do with that old 2 meter rig that only had 3 offset options-> minus, plus, and simplex? It also only had one PL tone (100 Hz).

Now comes my computer. The hard drive goes bad. Then I encounter the XP dreaded blue screen missing file please reinstall the missing file. Remember DOS? Somewhere in my radio programming software I still have an original copy of MS-DOS 6.1. DOS was a lot easier to use. Now I have to employ Dell personnel to keep my work computers happy, even though they are supposedly plug and play!

So, here we are as ham radio operators. Wanting the plug & play equipment. How many of us actually build antennas or power supplies from scratch? Have we forgotten how? Are we living in the plug & play world and if it doesn't work, sell it on EBay and call AES to price a new something?

I guess partly we are short on time. It takes time to build something. It takes time to learn how and why something works or doesn't work. Maybe we are just out of time. But maybe our skills are still there; remember that it can be rewarding in this fast paced world to slow down and enjoy our hobby Amateur Radio and all that it offers.

73's Bud Plants, N3TIR

Field Day 2010 Results

160 - 1 CW, 0 Dig, 2 Phone
80 - 36 CW, 0 Dig, 115 Phone
40 - 87 CW, 41 Dig, 164 Phone
20 - 94 CW, 56 Dig, 174 Phone
15 - 66 CW, 21 Dig, 284 Phone
10 - 26 CW, 0 Dig, 30 Phone
6 - 10 CW, 0 Dig, 30 Phone
2 - 1 CW, 0 Dig, 3 Phone
70 - 1 CW, 0 Dig, 1 Phone
GOTA - 0 CW, 0 Dig, 10 Phone
Totals - 322 CW, 118 Dig, 813 Phone

Number of Participants: 73
Number of Stations: 4
ARRL Section: WPA
Total QSO points: 1693
Claimed Score: 3386
Total Bonus Points Claimed: 1350

Photos Wanted

Come on members. It's time to include a photo of your home station, together with a brief description of your station and equipment, in the WACOM Newsletter. So far, we have only 4 members whose stations have been shown and we need all of you to be there. We would also like to get them on our web site. Just take a photo of your station (hopefully with you included, but not necessary) with your digital camera, then prepare a few words about your station, and send them both to n3zel@arrl.net.

It's easy and it's fun so no more excuses, send your photo and station info today.