MICHIGAN AREA REPEATER COUNCIL NEWSLETTER
WEB SITE:
http://www.qsl.net/miarc e-mail:
miarc@yahoogroups.com
May 2003
A short note
from the Prez……….. As
most of you know already, we have a new Coordinator. Wallace Murray had other
commitments and stepped down from his appointed position, at our March
meeting, newly appointed Vice-President Bruce Winchell, against his better
judgment accepted the duties of the Coordinator. I am sorry to announce that
we accepted the resignation from David Schwein as one of our Directors,
partially due to health problems. Currently, we do not have a Secretary and
we are short one Director. It is with great importance that we fill these two
positions. Everyone is ready to criticize, but reluctant to help. A
year ago when we attempted to hold a meeting at the Hudsonville Swap, we were
asked to look the Band Plan for the 900 MHz. After contacting the ARRL and
found out that their was no upcoming changes, the Board decided to leave the
Band Plan the way it is currently set up. Our Coordinator has received a few
request for frequencies out of the 900 MHz plan. The Board has decided to
look at this new plan again to see what can be done. The
June meeting will be held at the American Red Cross, 112 W. 14th
Street, Traverse City. Directions can be found on our website http://www.qsl.net/miarc/meetings.html. We will be
having our Annual meeting in Lansing. At this meeting, we will hold elections
for Vice-President, Treasurer, and one Director. A nominations committee will
be formed and the ballot will go out in the August newsletter. Also,
we will be looking for a location for our December meeting in the
Kalamazoo/Battle Creek area. If you are interested in hosting a meeting,
please contact me so arrangements can be made. One
last thought; get involved and participate. 73, Dennis
W8DFG |
Minutes March Meeting Bangor Twp, MI Meeting
called to order at 1:00PM by President Dennis Gaboury W8DFG. Board members
present, Vice-President Bruce Winchell N8UT, Treasurer Kelly Karpp KB8RWG,
Director Ron Gordon W8YUC, and Database Manager Dave WD8DJB. Treasurer’s
report given, Motion made to accept report by Bill Kelly KC8DBG, seconded by
Jim Wickstrom W1IK. Vote taken, motion carried. Old
Business: Call
was made for Secretary to fill vacant seat. No volunteers stepped forward.
Also brought up on the replacing of the Coordinator. It was announced that
Bruce to help out to get caught up, and hopefully trains someone to take
over. Vote
was taken on By-Laws changes printed in the November Newsletter. Printed
copies of the By-Law changes were provided. Vote was taken, proposed changes
as presented defeated 16-3. Discussion
of 900 MHz Band Plan followed. No out come from discussion. New
Business: Motion
was made by Kelly KB8RWG, for an annual donation for our website host QSL for
$50.00. Seconded by Ron W8YUC. Vote taken, motion carried unanimously. June
meeting to be held in Traverse City/Northwest Quadrant. Motion
made by Dave Cunningham KC8IAQ to adjourn the meeting. Seconded by Ron W8YUC,
motioned carried. Meeting adjourned 2:30PM. Minutes
taken by Bruce Winchell N8UT Typed
by Dennis Gaboury W8DFG |
Frequency
Coordination Request & Action
Req
Date Call City Quad Freq Req Result Reason 5/19/1992 KB8LCY Lansing
SW 147.280 Coordinated 7/31/2000 KB8BIT Manistee NW 144 Cannot
contact 8/8/2000 W8GDS Mattawan
SW 147.300 Denied Won't
Clear IN,WI 8/12/2000 KB8SWR Frankenmuth SE 144 Denied Nothing
available 8/28/2000 W8TQE Adrian SE 444.675 Denied Too close 2
co-chan 9/8/2000 KB8YNC Grand Rapids SW 440 Withdrawn No
longer wanted 10/4/2000 N8YRN Bancroft
SE 440.050 Coordinated 10/5/2000 KC8OVZ Niles SW 144 Denied No
Clear-IN 11/17/2000 KC8IHO Detroit SE 144 Denied (4 requests) Nothing available 1/15/2001 N8CJM West Branch NE 147.060 Coordinated 2/3/2001
N8ZPJ
Grosse Ile SE 440 Denied Local
Class Request 2/10/2001 N8WGD Pinckney
SE 440 snpr Denied No
Clear-OH 2/20/2001 KB8ZGL East Lansing SW 147.320 Denied Nothing available 3/28/2001 N8ACL Fremont
SW 444 Trashed Not
ham Ficticious Request 3/28/2001 N8ACL Fremont
SW 443.125 Coordinated 5/25/2001 N8UXR Mt. Pleasant NW 51.680 Coordinated 6/21/2001 N8JWH Alpena
NE 145.430 Coordinated 9/15/2001 K8COP Muskegon
NW 52.0 Denied Same
band/same coverage rule 9/15/2001 KB8RF Northville
SE 443.150 Coordinated 10/8/2001 KC8OVZ Niles SW 442.200 Denied No
Clear-IN 10/23/2001 WB8DEL Stutsmanville NW 224.560 Coordinated 10/24/2001 W8COL Cheboygan
NW 146.840 Coordinated 11/23/2001 N8TNT Traverse City NW 440 Withdrawn No longer wanted 12/16/2001 KC8HFA Otter Lake SE 147.280 Denied Nothing
available 12/17/2001 K8JSL Houghton Lk NE 145.110 Denied Nothing available 1/1/2002
W8COL
Charlevoix NW 444.575 Coordinated 1/5/2002
KC8OVZ Niles SW 144 Denied Nothng
available 1/11/2002 W8MSU East Lansing SE 442.900 Coordinated 1/11/2002 K8JSL Hougton Lake NW 443.850 Coordinated 1/22/2002 KA8ABM Lake City NW 444.525 Coordinated 2/8/2002 N8PSE St. Joseph
SW 145.110 Denied Nothing
available 3/9/2002
N8OKU
Gobles SW 144 Denied No
Clear Adj.States 3/27/2002 N8PYN Detroit
SE 440 Denied No Clear OH 4/9/2002
KE8Z
Webberville SE 145.210 Denied Nothing
available 4/10/2002 N8GQ Fowlerville
SE 443.050 Denied Local
class 4/15/2002 N7LMJ Lake Ann
NW 444.950 Coordinated 4/18/2002 KF8KK Glen Arbor
NW 52.920 Coordinated 4/29/2002 N8UXR Weidman
NW 51.680 Re-Coordinated Mods/Move 5/26/2002 W8USA Sparta
SW 145.230 Coordinated 6/23/2002 AA8ZV Kalkaska
NW 147.300 Coordinated 7/10/2002 W8HIU Pontiac
SE 442.350 Coordinated 7/16/2002 WB8VT White Lake
SE 50.000 Coordinated 7/27/2002 K8SN Grand Rapids SW 927.175 Denied Out
of band 8/14/2002 K8LHS Lowell
SW 147.280 Denied Nothng
available 8/23/2002 K8VEB Charlotte
SW 442.625 Denied No
Clear-OH 8/29/2002 N8WKM Grand Rapids SW 927.4875 Denied Out of band 9/3/2002 K8JBA
Fowlerville SE 145.210 Denied Local class 9/11/2002 N8LYL Harrison
NW 145.230 Denied Nothing
available 10/8/2002 AA8B Detroit SE 147.280 Denied Nothng
available 10/13/2002 WW8GM Warren SE 145.210 Denied No
Clear-OH 10/14/2002 KC8HKT Wayne SE 145.390 Denied Nothng
available 11/17/2002 N8ERV Lake George NW 443.300 Coordinated 11/18/2002 KB8QOI Big Rapids NW 52.860 Coordinated 1/7/2003
W8QPO
Hemlock SE 444.425 Coordinated 1/26/2003 KB8ZUZ Kingston
NE 51.820 Coordinated 2/19/2003 W8MMQ Lansing
SW 146.740 Denied Cross
band & Local class 3/7/2003 WX8KEA Midland NE 147.280 Denied Nothing available 3/27/2003 N8NOE Waterford
NE 220 Denied No
Clear-Canada 4/27/2003 N8CUH Muskegon
NW 52.800 Coordinated |
Database Manager / Webmaster’s Corner
Activity
during the past six months has been heavy.
I produced updates of the web site Repeater Directory in November, February
and May. Entries for the 2003-2004
ARRL Repeater Directory were submitted in February. Most of the 162 database updates I have completed during the
past six months have been from posting Renewal TDS updates. Although there has been an increase in
posting new repeater and link coordination’s in the last 45 days since Bruce
N8UT has started working through the new coordination request backlog. I’ve
written a program to assist new coordination processing. The program identifies available repeater
pairs for a given set of coordinates (latitude and longitude). To qualify Frequency Pairs have to meet
or exceed the 120 mile co-channel and 25 mile adjacent channel separation
rules. The program runs distance
checks between the proposed repeater’s coordinates and every repeater in the
MARC database on the same band in a mater of a few seconds and displays
and/or prints its calculations and the search results. If you see a smile on N8UT’s face at the
next meeting, this program is the reason. I’ve
logged 253 hours on MARC activities between Nov 1st and May 8th. If
you want to know the status of your repeater refer to our web site repeater
directory: http://www.qsl.net/miarc/repeater_directory.html. If your entry is Red you have an overdue
TDS. For
those who plan to submit a new or renewal TDS the key to making our job
easier is to make sure the information you supply is accurate and
complete. |
It
saves time because it keeps follow-up email exchanges to a minimum. If you need help identifying the
coordinates of your repeater Bruce or I
can help , if you can provide us the street address of the repeater and/or
the nearest cross streets. Just drop
us an email at miarc@yahoogroups.com. For those that would like to look up this
information themselves, you can go to http://www.topozone.com/
plug in your city and then navigate
around the displayed map to identify the correct coordinates. If you have rough coordinates you can get
a map display by entering them at http://www.topozone.com/finddms.asp. You can even print the Topo Map for your
repeater records. Please
use the email TDS form at http://www.qsl.net/miarc/tdsform.html
rather than paper TDS forms if at all possible. It will give you a copy of your submission that you can print for
your records and provides us a permanent record of your request. For
those of you contemplating a change of Internet provider, please remember to
send us your new email address. If
you opted for email communications from MARC and we don’t get notification
our link to you is broken. Thanks
again to all that are keeping their TDS’s current. MARC relies on the validity of our database and your current
information helps us do our job.
|
This is a reminder to all repeater Trustees, TDS’ are due
every two years. If you do not know the current status of the TDS on your
repeater please see http://www.qsl.net/miarc/repeater_directory.html
to see the status of your repeater. Also, if you would like a nice way to
find your HAAT data as well as create a coverage map for your repeater please
see http://www.cplus.org/rmw/english1.html
for information about Radio Mobile. The learning curve is high,
but well worth the effort. |
Repeater owners responsibility FCC Says, "Tend to Your Coordination!" Radio Amateurs may lose their coordination for failure to
update. Recently, in the Seattle,
Washington area, the coordination of a still-operating repeater was revoked
for failure to update and a new repeater was coordinated on the same
frequency. The FCC Field Office was consulted and after the FO checked with
FCC Headquarters, they stated that the failure of the original coordination
holder to "tend his coordination" means that the now uncoordinated
repeater owner is responsible for resolving any resulting interference
problems. (read "take it off the air" ...ed) If you change
your location or operating parameters,
you must recoordinate (if possible) to maintain a valid coordination.
The FCC has taken action regarding an uncoordinated repeater in New York. In
this case the repeater was once coordinated but changed location thereby
invalidating its coordination. Regarding this situation, Riley Hollingsworth
of the FCC wrote: "Section 97.205 of the commission's rules states that
where there is interference between a coordinated repeater and an
uncoordinated repeater, 'the licensee of the uncoordinated repeater has
primary responsibility to resolve the interference.'" |
Coordinator’s Quarterly Report as of May 8, 2003 The following report does not reflect ongoing activity.
This only shows what has been completed in the past 1 ½ months. There are
still a significant number of requests in process. This is a very time
consuming and exacting procedure when you have 2 ½ years worth of backlog. I
am about two weeks from finishing the backlog completely. If you do not see your
request in this report, do not panic and think that your request is not in
process. Do not send in another TDS request for something you have
already applied for. That slows the process even more. I have done my
best to see that all requests since January, 2000 are in the hopper. That’s
not saying that I might not have missed a few in a manual search of 5000
emails. I’m human. If you sent a request by USPS mail, I may not have it. I
believe that many of those never got to me. We are now so bound to the electronic
processing methods at hand, that I can think of no quicker way to have your
requests and reports be at risk than to send them by USPS. It just does not
fit into our flow chart any more. We will still take them, but be aware of
the pitfall. Just because you see what you think are a lot of new
coordinations in this report, don’t believe that we have found a magic
solution to putting in a bunch of new repeaters. That is not the case. We
just have faster and more accurate means to process data. What you are seeing
is 2 ½ years of processing done in a month and a half. The Southeast and Southwest Quadrants are now closed to
any new applications for 2 meters. The Southeast is going to be closed for
440 and 220 very shortly. The SW quadrant is nearly locked up on 440 now. R. Bruce Winchell-N8UT MARC Coordinator |
A Short Note
From the Editor. If
you would like your comments included in the newsletter please email them to dan@waycom.com. Obviously I can only include
what will fit into the newsletter. Please also note that the MARC also
maintains an email address for communication concerning MARC business as well
as a P.O Box for you to send USPS mail. The email address is miarc@yahoogroups.com and the USPS
address can be found on the label of this mailing. |
Date: June 1, 2003
Location: American Red Cross Building
112 West 14th
Traverse City, MI
Directions to June Meeting
From US 31, turn East on 14th
Street. Red Cross should be between
Locust and Union Streets.
Talk in on 147.100
Upcoming
Meetings:
September 2003 Lansing- Location top be announced
December 2003 Kalamazoo/Battle Creek – Location to be announced
President |
Dennis Gaboury |
W8DFG |
P.O.
Box 463148 Mt.
Clemens, MI 48046 |
Vice
President |
Open |
|
|
Secretary |
Open |
|
|
Treasurer |
Kelly F. Karpp |
KB8RWG |
PO
Box 127 Oscoda,
MI 48750 |
Director |
Open
|
|
|
Director |
Ron Gordon |
W8YUC |
7172
Sharp Rd. Swartz
Creek, MI 48473 |
Frequency
Coordinator |
Bruce Winchell |
N8UT |
|
Database
Manager |
Dave Johnson |
WD8DJB |
2266
E. Vermontville Hwy Charlotte,
MI 48813 |