Dec. 2023 In-Person & Virtual Monthly Meeting: FRS, GMRS and DMR

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Two very good presentations at the December meeting.

GMRS Radio
In this video, Gary Kantner (W9GMK) describes FRS and GMRS radio services that are available to everyone with no FCC-testing required. You do, however, need to register with the FCC for a callsign to use with GMRS… the more powerful service of the two. This video was recorded during the WCARES monthly meeting held on December 16th, 2023.

DMR
Will Daughtrey (KO4DNR) provides an overview of DMR (Digital Mobile Radio). This video was recorded during the WCARES monthly meeting held on December 16th, 2023.

(Updated) Feb. 2021 Virtual Monthly Meeting: Powerpoles, DMR and Shack Tour!

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This month RJ, KC4LRR has a presentation on Anderson Powerpoles, Andrew, AK4FA gives a Technical Presentation on DMR and Scott, KD4VVC takes us on a tour of his radio shack including a look at the tower, antenna switching, lightning protection and grounding!

Update: PDFs of RJ KC4LRR’s Powerpoles and Andrew, AK4FA’s DMR presentations have been added under:

Library & Special Interests --> Presentations

Videos

Anderson Powerpoles: RJ (KC4LRR)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbhEZSsD568

Digital Mobile Radio (DMR): Andrew Gossett (AK4FA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zgms8Ko-pg

Virtual Shack Tour: Scott Gray (KD4VVC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-dRSMHgxvQ

New DMR repeaters and changes to WC4EOC-9

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From Hilton, W4GHD

I announced yesterday during the WCARES monthly meeting that Williamson County EMA will install two new DMR repeaters on Tuesday, Dec 22 2020 for use of WCARES and the entire Amateur Radio Community.

One repeater will be located at the Trinity/Nolensville Tower off Clovercroft Road (440.6875 +5); the second on the Tower just above Century Court (440.5875 +5) near downtown Franklin where the WCARES hub (444.025) is also located.

The Trinity/Nolensville Tower did not have an immediately available UHF antenna for the new DMR Repeater. So, we agreed to take WC4EOC-9 off the air temporarily to free up an antenna for the DMR repeater.

WC4EOC-8 will continue on the air at 145.050 with VARA FM 1200 and 1200 Packet to serve Winlink users.

Hopefully an additional UHF antenna will be installed at the Tower in the not too distant future and allow the UHF node to resume operations.

I know you will all join me in thanking Bill Jorgensen, K4COM and Director of the Williamson County Office of Public Safety and all the people at WCEMA and thank them for all they do for WCARES.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Hilton
W4GHD

Dec 2020 Virtual Monthly Meeting: DMR, ARES in TN, Winter FD, POTA and Shack Tour!

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Our EC, Ed WB4RHQ reported we had a record 63 attendees for this, the final Virtual Monthly Meeting of 2020 and he wished all a happy and safe holiday season. Thanks to everyone who took the time to join in for a great set of presentations.

DMR in Williamson Co. – Hilton Dean, W4GHD

Williamson Co. will be adding 2 DMR nodes on Tuesday, December 22, 2020:

  • Trinity site(*)
  • Century Court where the WCARES 444.025MHz hub is located

Thanks to Bill Jorgenson and the Office of Public Safety and also to Andrew Gossett, AK4FA who got the boards programmed. Look for upcoming e-mail with more details.
* The WC4EOC-9 UHF antenna will be used for the Trinity site DMR so WC4EOC-9 will be offline until another antenna can be added to this tower, likely in 2021.

Winter Field Day – Cliff Batson (N4CCB)

  • We are very fortunate that the Winter Field Day organizers will allow aggregation of scores like the ARRL did for Field Day in June. So everyone who includes the same group name will get their scores aggregated for a combined group score. You’ll need to decide how adventurous you want to be. Running off mains from inside your house with 100W on SSB and getting 100 QSOs would get you 200 points; running outside on batteries or a generator would get you 3200 points for those same QSOs. Something to think about! Cliff will have much more to say in the January meeting.

Presentations & Shack Tour!

The State of ARES in TN – Jim Snyder, AJ4NO, Tennessee Section Emergency Coordinator

https://youtu.be/ANNPMG9LBG0

Jim generously provided a copy of his presentation as well; you can read the PDF version here.

Parks On The Air – Tom Suggs N4MTE

https://youtu.be/brnt8Zpshto

and Tom generously provided a copy of his presentation so check this out as well:

Parks on the Air – WCARES Presentation by Tom, N4MTE

Virtual Shack Tour – Doug Miller (W4DML)

https://youtu.be/7edSXoYbwjQ

You can find videos of past meetings on the WCARES Media channel on Youtube .