Work Party At The Club House
Saturday – Aug 7th @ 10:00 AM
It is time to clean up the place before the picnic. We need some much needed work done at the club house. The weeds along the drive way need cut down and cleared out. Pine trees need to be cut down before the fall down. Grass and Trim work around the building needs done. And the old club house needs clean up and organize before our guest show up.
Please show up and help the club out!
Wednesday – May 16th @ 7:00 PM
Chris Grimm K3PQ is our VE Testing examiner contact person. People interesting in becoming an amateur radio operator or planning to upgrade their license should get in touch with Chris at the email/phone below. The testing sessions will be held on the Wednesday after the Steel City Business meeting at 7:00 PM at the Steel City club house. {DIRECTIONS HERE} Preregistration is highly recommend and will have priority, but walk-in’s will be allowed if space is available. Update or get your license now before the FCC $35 charge comes into affect.
For more information and contact details see our VE-Testing page
http://w3kwh.com/ve-testing/
At this point fully vaccinated people are now mask optional
We do have picnic tables outside for those that don’t want to go in the building.
HamSCI is looking for ham radio operators to make recordings of time-standard stations during the June 2021 annular solar eclipse across the Arctic Circle as part of a citizen science experiment. Researchers will use the crowd-sourced data to investigate the superimposed effects of auroral particle precipitation and the eclipse on HF Doppler shift.
Participants would collect data using an HF radio connected to a computer running open-source software. A precision frequency standard, such as a GPS-disciplined oscillator, is desired but not required to participate. Radio amateurs and shortwave listeners around the globe are invited to take part, even stations far from the path of totality.
Last year’s eclipse festivals included more than 100 participants from 45 countries. The experiment will run June 7 – 12. All participants will receive QSL certificates and updates as the data is processed. This is a pilot experiment for HamSCI’s Personal Space Weather Station project, which seeks to develop a global network monitoring the geospace environment. For more information and set-up instructions, visit the June 2021 Arctic Eclipse Festival page on the HamSCI
Pittsburgh Great Race
Information Pending: Sept ?, 2021
Volunteer Contact allegheny@nu3q.us
Website: https://www.rungreatrace.com/
The Department of Defense will host this year’s Armed Forces Day (AFD) Cross-Band Test, scheduled for May7-8, 2021. This annual event is open to all licensed amateur radio operators, and will not impact any public or private communications. For more than 50 years, military and amateur stations have taken part in this event, which is only an exercise scenario, designed to include hobbyist and government radio operators alike.
The AFD Cross-Band Test is a unique opportunity to test two-way communications between military communicators and radio stations in the Amateur Radio Service (ARS), as authorized in 47 CFR 97.111. These tests provide opportunities and challenges for radio operators to demonstrate individual technical skills in a tightly-controlled exercise scenario that does not impact any public or private communications.
Military stations will transmit on selected military frequencies and will announce the specific ARS frequencies monitored. All times are ZULU (Z), and all frequencies are Upper Side Band (USB) unless otherwise noted. The frequencies used for the test will not impact any public or private communications, and will not stray outside the confines of the exercise.
The following stations will be making two way radiotelephone contacts with stations in the ARS between the time periods listed on the frequencies listed in Kilohertz below.
For more information & scheduled:
http://www.dodmars.org/home/armed-forces-day-2021
I have taken one of my hotspots up the the clubhouse to act as DMR access point. Since the club is mostly a Yaesu System Fusion club I have set it up to take your YSF signal and transmit it via the internet into an DMR talk group. This will let you check into DMR nets via the hotspot. Now since the hotspot has only milliwatts output you must be at the clubhouse to use the hotspot. Just take your Yaesu handheld or use our FTM-400 radio and tune it to 145.650 Mhz YSF simplex. Then talk and your signal will go out to the PA DMR net talk group 3142. There is a net on that talk group 3142 on Tuesday night {Unfortunately the same time as SCARC net} if you want to listen or check in.
What this will be useful for is if anyone needs to get on the PA DMR network to talk or for the next ARES alert/SET Drill that is using DMR transmissions.
If you want access to the hotspot to change to other talk groups please see N3LRG to find out how to use the hotspot. Below is a picture of a MMDVM Hotspot you can find them on Ebay for $26 on up depending if you want to solder or not. You will need to pick up an Raspberry PI Zero-W to run these boards. These will take any digital signal YSF, DMR, D-Star and put it out on the internet to link up with other reflectors around the world. 
Also note the club SDR receiver will pick up the hotspot too. Goto 145.650 Mhz on the Middle 2m Band there is a bookmark called W3KWH-HOT
Sunday, April 18, is World Amateur Radio Day (WARD). This year marks the 96th anniversary of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), founded at the 1925 International Radiotelegraph Conference in Paris. ARRL co founder and first president, Hiram Percy Maxim, 1AW, was there, and today, ARRL is the International Secretariat of the IARU. ARRL has resources that members can use to celebrate WARD, including graphics for social media posts and radio club websites, as well as a printable flyer.
On World Amateur Radio Day, all radio amateurs are invited to take to the airwaves to share global goodwill with other amateurs. ARRL encourages members to promote the value of amateur radio to family and friends, and in their communities. Many volunteer ARRL Public Information Officers and Public Information Coordinators throughout the US use the time leading up to WARD as an opportunity to reach out to the media to share information about amateur radio.
Steel City members – Check your email for a survey questionnaire
Please fill it out by Friday
PLEASE NOTE!
Bob, NU3Q need volunteers at several sites listed below
Contact Bob at nu3q {at} verizon {dit} net
Also Mike, WA3PYU will need four people at the Steel City Club house
To operate HF, VHF, and the digital station
Contact Mike at kingpalace {at} comcast {dit} net
The SET Drill is April 3rd from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. For this drill, we will be working with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Pittsburgh NWS. We will also have a practice Skywarn net as well with real time observations (like we do for Skywarn Appreciation Day). The attached documents have more information regarding the drill.
I will need volunteers to observe and report conditions per the attached at:
Allegheny River Lock 2
Allegheny River Lock 3
Allegheny River Lock 4
Monongahela River Lock #2 Braddock
Monongahela River Lock #3 Elizabeth
Ohio River – Emsworth Lock and Dam
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
73 de NU3Q Bob
Allegheny County EC
For more information read the following information:
We Have A Lot Of Topics To Discuss , Along With The Upcoming Spring 2021 S . E . T . Simulated Emergency Test On Saturday April 3rd Beginning At 9:30 To 12:30 Hours . We Hope That You Can Join Us . Please Mention This At Your Meetings And On Your Nets .Eddie Misiewicz KB3YRU
A . R . E . S . Emergency Coordinator Fayette County Pa .
S W D S C Southwest District Skywarn Coordinator
W R N Weather Ready Nation Ambassador
fayette@wpa-arrl.org
724 – 989 – 5214
Topic: SKYWARN Emergency Management Meeting for March 20Th
Time: Mar 20, 2021 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting <- Click the link below to start the Zoom meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83731270785?pwd=NWxsSmxQRmQvcUp3Y21RSzhzMjhLdz09
Meeting ID: 837 3127 0785
Passcode: 222816
Dial by your location
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 837 3127 0785
Passcode: 222816
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kb1VTQys3K