DECEMBER MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14th 6:00 PM
SHIPYARD RESTAURANT
AT THE PORT OF STOCKTON
2305 W WASHINGTON ST, STOCKTON

QST QST QST… The December meeting of the Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio Club will be held at the Shipyard Portside Restaurant, 2305 W Washington St, Stockton, on Thursday December 14th starting at 1800 hours.  

This is our annual Christmas Dinner and Year-End Celebration! 

We will have the entrance to the venue well lit to help those who haven’t been there before! Also, a shuttle service is available – Contact Mark W6SXA, Joyce K6QBQ or Annie N6ACL.

Sign-up EARLY!  The good folks at the Shipyard have kept the cost this year to the same as it has been for the past two years at just $25.00 per person / $50.00 per couple.  Click on the EVENT SIGN UP TAB and you can complete your reservation form. Annie will have something special for you and your date.  You can pay for your reservation in advance using PayPal for just a $1.00 convenience fee.  

Dinner includes Chicken and Tri-Tip, roasted potatoes and vegetables, salad bar, dessert and coffee or tea beverage.

NO-HOST COCKTAIL HOUR / MEET N GREET: Starts at 6:00 PM

DINNER starts at 7:00 PM

FUN starts at 8:00 PM

DANCING at 8:30 PM 

So… grab your spouse, significant other or just that friend that wants to “see what the ham radio club is all about” and join us for good food and good fun as we celebrate this year of amateur radio fun and club achievements.

As the representative of the National Museum of the Surface Navy at Battleship IOWA in San Pedro, California, the Battleship IOWA Amateur Radio Association (BIARA) will honor the sailors and ships previously home ported in San Pedro who were attacked on December 7, 1941, with special crossband activations of NEPM on December 6, 7, 8 and 9, 2023. We thank the ARRL and their legal support team for asking the FCC to approve our request for a waiver to allow FCC amateur licensees to work NEPM. 

If you are in a country outside the jurisdiction of the United States’ Federal Communications Commission please check the terms and conditions that govern your license.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7 December 1941, seven of the battleships formerly homeported in San Pedro Bay weren’t present. Eight Pacific fleet battleships

(Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania)

were at Pearl Harbor and absorbed the brunt of the Japanese attack. Of these eight, three sank, one capsized, and four suffered varying degrees of damage.

With authority from the Navy and Marine Corps Spectrum Office Southwest, we will transmit using the IOWA’s NEPM call sign on assigned military frequencies and listen for calls from the amateur radio community in their adjacent bands. NEPM will transmit on 14.375 MHz, 18.170 MHz, and or 21.856 MHz on J3E/USB and or A1A/CW. The operator will advise listeners as to where they are listening. We will most likely listen for you 10 KHz below the top of each adjacent band when working J3E/USB and 10 KHz above the bottom of each adjacent band when working A1A/CW. Amateur participants are reminded not to transmit on the NEPM military frequencies.

Operations on all four days are expected to be from 0700 to 1600 PST / 1500 to 2400 UTC.

QSL procedures can be found at https://biara.org. For specific questions in advance of the operation, contact w6hb@biara.org.

NOTE THE CHANGE IN FREQUENCY FROM 18.1625 TO 18.170. ALL HAS BEEN COORDINATED WITH THE NMCSO AND THE FCC AND THE WAIVER IS STILL VALID FOR FCC LICENSED AMATEURS TO WORK NEPM ON 12/6-9/23.

NOVEMBER MEETING REPORT
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH  7:00 PM
STOCKTON SAILING CLUB
4980 BUCKLEY COVE
STOCKTON, CA

The November meeting of the Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio Club was held at the Stockton Sailing Club Auditorium, 4980 Buckley Cove Rd in Stockton. All mem ers were invited to partake in "PASTA NIGHT". Annie N6ACL won a "Pasta Dinner" proze at Pacificon in October and decided to share it with the members. She served two different kinds of pasta, meatballs, red sauce, alfredo sauce and garlic bread. Salad was included compliments of Joyce K6QBQ.

The election of officers for 2024 was held. John NZ6Q nominated Al KN6IOK for the position of Secretary and he accepted. Annie N6ACL then stated she would step aside as Secretary so a ballot vote was not needed. The membership accepted and approved the white ballot.

2024 Officers are:

President .......................................... Charlie WB6NVB Vice President .................................. Steve KN6ZJJ Treasurer .......................................... Joyce K6QBQ Secretary .......................................... Al KN6IOK

John NZ6Q gave a presentation of "What's in Your Logbook" discussing and demonstrating good logging practices for HF operating and for EmComm events.

The 10-Meter contest is open to any licensed operator as Technician Class licenses have 10-Meter voice and CW privileges. With the solar cycle on the rise you could work all 50 states or even 100 countries in a weekend.

Objective: For Amateurs worldwide to exchange QSO information with as many stations as possible on the 10 meter band.

Dates: Second full weekend of December. Starts 0000 UTC Saturday; runs through 2359 UTC Sunday (December 9-10, 2023)

Click Here for the Complete ARRL 10-Meter Contest Rules (PDF)

JAN 1 – DEC 31, 2023

2023 will be celebrated by ARRL as “The Year of the Volunteer.” More information will be available throughout the year as the details are confirmed. However, the first adventure has been announced as a project called “Volunteers On The Air (VOTA).” Here we get ‘points’ for each contact made with another ARRL volunteer. So, if two ARRL members contact each other, they will each receive a point for that QSO. No special codes, sequence numbers, or section information needs to be passed. Make contact with a fellow ARRL member, and you each receive a point. Each of you must upload the contact to the Logbook of The World (LoTW), and your points are calculated when the QSO is matched. This could be an FT8 contact, a CW contact, a simplex 2M FM contact, an RTTY contact, or an SSB rag-chew.

To add more interest to the year-long operating event and help demonstrate the ARRL volunteers’ value, each level of volunteer activity has been assigned a point level, shown in the table at http://vota.arrl.org For example, if you make a contact with John NZ6Q, the San Joaquin Valley Section Manager, you’ll get 175 points for that one contact. So, I’ll need to up my HF game to handle all the pile-ups coming my way in 2023. Maybe I need that 160M inverted L and another HF rig ! I’m hoping you will be able to get some certificates, or wallpaper, for your efforts.

More details on this are at http://vota.arrl.org and in the January 2023 issue of QST. So, get your gear running, make sure your LoTW connection is working, and see you on the air!!!

VOTA Program Rules

I’m sure these rules may be extended or revised, so please check http://vota.arrl.org for updates.

• This starts January 1, 2023, at 0000Z.
• This ends December 31, 2023, at 2359Z.
• You must be an ARRL member. You can join or renew at https://arrl.org/join/
• All QSOs must be uploaded to the ARRL QSO matching system, Logbook of The World (LoTW).
• No repeater contacts are allowed.
• Contacts can be made on any band (except 12 M, 17 M, and 30 M).
• Contacts can be made on any legal mode of operation.
• You receive ‘points’ based on the volunteer level of the ARRL member you contact. Points range from 1 point for an ARRL member to 300 points for Rick Roderick K5UR.
• The point levels are listed at http://vota.arrl.org (Your favorite Section Managers are worth 175 points.)
• Each QSO will get only one point value. For example, someone who is a member, a life member, and an Assistant Section Manager will be worth the value of the highest role, 35 points for the ASM role.

Logbook of The World (LoTW)

All the reporting for this VOTA effort will be handled automatically by the ARRL Logbook of The World (LoTD) QSO matching system. If you already log your QSOs from your favorite logging software and it uploads them to LoTW, you will automatically be enrolled in the project. Your QSOs will be verified normally, and the callsigns of the people you work will be searched to find the appropriate points (table shown at http://vota.arrl.org ) that you receive for each QSO.

But, if you aren’t set up to use LoTW, now is the time to set it up. The LoTW quick-start page is a great place to start, and the “What is LoTW Document” explains the whole process. You must authenticate yourself with the system by receiving a postcard mailed to your FCC-registered address. You’ll run a program called TSQL that is used by your logging program, N3FJP, N1MM, DX Lab Suite, or something else to authenticate and upload to LoTW. You can start the setup process now, and you’ll be ready in a few days. Hold your logs until you get LoTW set up, and you can upload them when you get it all sorted.

If you need help setting up your LoTW account, watch some YouTube videos, contact your Elmer, or local club. If that fails, email me at nz6q@arrl.org, and I’ll find someone to help you.

W1AW Remote Operations

As a part of the Year of the Volunteer celebration, the mystical callsign W1AW will be traveling to the corners of ARRL-land. ARRL members in each state/territory will be asked to operate their stations for two different weeks using the callsign W1AW/x where x is one of the local regions: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, KL, KH0, KH2, KH6, KH7, KH8, KP2, KP3, or KP4. For example, California’s first week starts Feb 15 2023, at 0000z and will run through January 31, 2023, at 2359z, using the callsign W1AW/6. Each state will coordinate the time/band/mode slots throughout the week and hams will be able to operate their

Each state W1AW coordinator will make a schedule to optimize the on-air time for those interested in running the callsign. Contact John NZ6Q if you would like to be W1AW/6 between October 11th and October 17th. You can email to...  nz6q@arrl.net

This is a great opportunity to get on the air and have some fun, maybe earn a W1AW Worked-All-States Certificate, talk to the President of the ARRL (I did during the Centennial QSO Party in 2014), meet a bunch of new people and learn more about the hobby while you’re doing it.

CHECK OUT OUR OWN BOB KM6ONS AND KYLE K6KDD ON GOOD DAY SACRAMENTO

AUGUST 28, 2018