F  E  E  D  -  P  O  I  N  T

The glorious fall colors have come and are mostly gone now. Leaves of Red Oak and Staghorn Sumac, stems of Red Osier, and abundant fruit on the Mountain-Ash are the bright colors in the golden brown landscape. Strong wind and heavy rain have removed the leaves from most deciduous trees. The Larch needles are already turning yellow, and that is ahead of the usual change by about two weeks.

Our trip to Vermont on October 5-7 was pleasant. Staghorn Sumac was plentiful all along the way, its leaves varying from pink to a deep red. In Gilman, Vermont, on the evening of October 5th I put my Perth Outbacker multiband antenna on our car and turned on the Icom 706 MKIIG. Picked a prearranged frequency on 20 meters and called for KJ5KV in Louisiana. I was pleased to hear him come back after my first call. We exchanged a few comments before the signals faded.

This afternoon on Echolink, GM1VUL from Scotland, asked if I had QSONet. I told him I had never heard of it. He told me a bit about it. He also let me hear some CW transmissons on it. I copied down the website and have easily registered, sent a photo of my license, and await instructions for using it. It is called Virtual Ionosphere for Amateur Radio. No antenna, no QSB, no TVI, and works like a real transceiver. You might want to check it out at QSONET.com I received instructions to download a virtual tranceiver. It has all the knobs! Made a contact on 20 meters right away. There is a free trial period of 90 days. After that it is $32.00 a year. The CQ100 Transceiver program is free to those stations registering before November 1, 2006. Ninety days is a good long trial period. If you don't like it, you cancel out and it will have cost nothing.

New Business:
1. Jamboree on the Air: N1EVO and N1FG discussed this at length. No other person responded to my plea for help. Between the two of us, N1EVO and I decided we could come up with enough equipment to do the job. It will require a visit to the Boy Scout Camp to measure for feed line for an antenna.

Next Meeting: November 14, 2006, Nadeau Hall, UMFK, 6:00 PM Adjourned: 18:25 Submitted by N1FG

Every week at 19:00 Hrs we have the SVARA Emergency Net on 146.640-. Sometimes we have several check-ins, sometimes one or two, and sometimes none. When there are none, I wonder, as net control, if anyone is listening. How many monitor our club's repeater?

The Alaska Pacific Emergency Preparedness Net is held on 14.292 MHz. One August morning the net had been going for a short time with KL0WX, in Trapper Creek, Alaska, as net control. After several check-ins, "Emergency, emergency, emergency! Any stations on this frequency? This is WL7???" WL7GK of Fairbanks, Alaska, was calling for help from the Alaska Highway, where he was at the scene of a roll-over accident with several injuries suffered by occupants of the vehicle. The signal from WL7GK faded everytime he tried to give the exact location. Other amateur radio operators were able to pick up the missing information and relay it to net control.

It soon became apparent the accident was not in Alaska but in British Columbia. The RMCP was reached by phone and given the particulars of location and the number of injured. There were six injured, including an infant.

A number of stations several thousand miles apart took part in relaying the necessary information. The dispatcher was impressed by the actions of the amateur radio operators. She said they certainly reduced the response time of the ambulance and helicopter sent to the scene of the accident. (Read the details in the November QST under Public Service.)

N1JHD, N1EVO, and N1FG made the trip to Rocky Mountain on Oct.17. It was a pleasant day. Not much wind. The most startling thing was that about half of the rough road in to the base of Rocky Mountain is now a wide logging road. The low wet area has all been raised and culverts put in place.

We climbed the mountain. N1JHD and N1EVO went up the tower and put in the new solar regulator. They added water to the batteries. N1FG took photos of the interesting caves in the pile of rocks the tower is on.

The broken window was lowered down and put on N1FG's pack for transport down. There will have to be another trip up soon, as the regulator can not be set until the batteries are charged. The lack of sun means we may have to carry up a 1000 watt generator. It weighs 32 pounds. We will need help with this.