107.2 CTCSS

Evansville 145.110-

Evansville 145.150-

Vincennes 146.925-

Vincennes 443.925+

Mt. Vernon IL 147.180+

Electronic Applications Radio Service

W9EAR

c/o 2744 Pinehurst Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403

(812) 333-4116 http://w9ear.org/

E-mail: ears@w9earDOTorg

An ARRL Special Service Affiliated Club

Member Indiana Repeater Council, Illinois Repeater Council,
and Indiana Radio Club Council

“Because a frequency is a terrible thing to waste”

October, 2002 Newsletter

THE LATEST EARS news is sent out on email. Sign up by sending a request to ears@w9earDOTorg. E-mail and web postings make information more timely and less expensive. Visit http://w9ear.org for the latest information about repeater status, VE testing, hamfests, and other news items.

THANKS to those who donated to EARS recently, including:.Tom Dick WA9QDZ, Chris Lemon N9XIE, Larry Rudolph KB9KVX, and Jim Turner WB9PZB. Your support keeps EARS going!

REPEATER NEWS... for the latest information, check the EARS web site or the email newsletter. We’ve been hard at work this summer to improve the wide area network. Thanks to all those who have chipped in to help. First of all, a BIG thanks to Pete Crasher WB9DRB, who has spent countless hours at the Evansville site. Also thanks for Dan Roush KB9KCF for donating a new transmitter for 145.15, and joining Pete and I into the dark hours at the repeater site. Eric Bonham N9KDB has been working on the weather alert systems at both Evansville and Vincennes. Jim Turner WB9PZB and Doug Hayes KA9JJS have worked on evaluating our tower situation in Evansville. Jim also has been working on finding a new home for 145.11. And, thanks to Del WB9UKG for helping with the CTCSS decoder project at Vincennes. We are still looking for someone to climb the tower in Evansville to complete the repairs. If you can help, please contact Neil at wb9vpg@w9earDOTorg

• 145.11... Jim Turner WB9PZB has picked up the repeater, and has had it running from Evansville’s north side. It has been off the air due to some renovations of the room in which it resides, but should be back soon.

· 145.15… Plenty has happened since our last newsletter. The main transmitter died the day before Pete and I planned a trip to get the voter going on May 11. Thanks to Dan KB9KCF, we were able to get the repeater back on the air with a different transmitter. The 120 watt amplifier replacement that was ordered in October finally arrived the first week of May, and was put back in service. We were not able to get the Vincennes link going, and had some serious audio problems. Those have been fixed, as well as problems with the telephone line for the autopatch and the autopatch itself. We added a receiver at the transmit site near Darmstadt, which does not require the 107.2 CTCSS tone as of yet. So, everything works great with two exceptions: 1) the top of the tower was bent over to about a 45 degree angle, so the transmit antenna is a bit directional (pictures are on the web site), and 2) the voter still hasn’t been installed. We hope to tackle these projects prior to the hamfest.

· 146.925/443.925… Eric N9KDB and I have taken a couple of trips to the Vincennes site to look at the severe weather alert system and some controller issues. The severe weather system is working, but is tying up the link receiver. Anytime a severe weather warning is issued from the Edwardsville NOAA radio station, it should come on the repeater, and automatically go off 2 minutes later. We also connected the Digital Voice Recorder (DVR), and loaded in some new voice ID messages. I tried to hook up a CTCSS decoder on the repeater to eliminate some of the interference we’ve been getting from people using repeaters close by our frequency. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Hopefully soon we can get this problem resolved, and the intermod will not bring the repeater up any more. So aside from the occasional intermod, the only problem at Vincennes is the 440 receiver. We have yet to find the problem with it. This receiver has been turned back on, but performance is very poor. This also means that the Farmersburg receiver is not linked back to Vincennes. Again, we hope to resolve these problems this fall before winter hits.

THE ANNUAL EVANSVILLE HAMFEST is not far away! This year we celebrate our 10^th anniversary! Attendance was up last year, and we expect that trend to continue. We once again are calling on everyone to help out. Friday, November 29^th, will be vendor setup at the 4-H Center from 5 to 9 pm. Setup will resume Saturday morning November 30^th from 6 to 8 am, and then the hamfest will start at 8 am Central Time. We really need help on Saturday with talk-in, ticket sales, and especially security. The Old Post ARS from Vincennes once again will operate the food stand. Any time you can help would be most appreciated.

UPCOMING HAMFESTS/GATHERINGS: updated daily on EARS web site

· October 6, 2002 - Bedford, IN - Lawrence Co. Fairgrounds. Talk in on 146.73- (107.2)
http://www.hoosierhillshamfest.org

· November 16-17, 2002 – Fort Wayne, IN – Allen Co. Memorial Coliseum. http://www.fortwaynehamfest.com

· November 30, 2002 - Evansville, IN  -  Vanderburgh Co. 4-H Center Auditorium - 9 am - 2 pm Central Talk in on 145.15- (107.2)  http://w9ear.org/hamfest.htm

· December 8, 2002 – Greenfield, IN http://www.w9atg.org

VE TESTING: updated daily on EARS Web site

EARS does not sponsor VE testing, but does list area testing dates and times. If you know of a test not listed, please write, call, or e-mail it to Neil ASAP!!! For all tests, bring 2 forms of ID, one must include picture; calculator; pens/pencils, CSCEs and current license photocopies (if any); test fee ($10.00 for all Amateur tests). 

Bedford, IN - Hamfest, Sunday October 6. Registration at 11am, testing at 12 Noon. http://www.hoosierhillshamfest.org/

Bloomington, IN - First Saturday of each month, at the First Baptist Church on East Third Street in Bloomington, just west of Eastland Plaza. The only exception is when testing would fall on a holiday. Testing always begins at 12:00 noon. Please arrive 20-30 minutes early, so that we can begin processing paperwork. For more information, call Millard Qualls, K9DIY at (812)332-0074.

Evansville, IN -  Saturday, Sept. 28, and Oct. 26 at 9 a.m. Central. Evansville/Vanderburgh EMA office, located in the Red Cross Bldg., Diamond and Heidelbach, by Tri-State ARS.  Pre-registration is not required.   ARRL-VEC. Contact Terry AA9MM tbrooks@sigecomDOTnet or evenings 812-401-9632.

Evansville, IN - Evansville Hamfest, Saturday November 30 at 12 Noon.

Greenfield, IN - Greenfield Central High School on the fourth Saturday of the month. Contact Bob Simcox AA9XJ at r-simcox@insightbb.com.

Terre Haute, IN - 1st Sunday of EVEN numbered months at 1pm at the Terre Haute Red Cross on Hwy 41 North. Call Bob Harker KC9UU at (812) 235-9374 or rharker@email.msn.com

Vincennes, IN -  3rd Saturday in January, May, and November. 9:00 am Eastern. Vincennes University.  For more information, contact Phil Smith AA9ZZ at 812-888-5830 (work). ARRL-VEC.

Marshall, IL - 2nd Saturday of ODD numbered months at 9 am at the First Christian Church. Contact John N9YRX at 217-826-8821.

THE EARS WIDE AREA NET AND NEWSLINE continues on Monday evenings. Summer took its usual toll on check-ins, and my absence in June as net control I’m sure didn’t help matters. Lately check ins have picked back up, and things are working much better now that most of the repeater repairs have been completed. Please join us if you can Monday nights at 8:30 p.m. Central time. (Also, a reminder to those of us in the Eastern time zone that the net will be at 9:30 p.m. after the time change in October!)

ADDRESS UPDATES We have recently discovered that a rather large portion of our mailing list was out of date! Please send your mailing address and e-mail address updates to us by radio, email, phone, or mail so we can continue these mailings. We have tried to update as many as we can against the FCC license database.

AUTOPATCH UPDATES Autopatch is still available in Evansville and Vincennes at no charge to hams. Just send a request for these. Autopatch codes are NOT changed from year to year. If you have ever had an autopatch code from EARS, it should still work! If you forgot your code or are not sure if you have one, just drop us a line. Donations to keep the phone line in Evansville and the repeater equipment maintained are appreciated!

I-LINK EXPERIMENT Early this summer, Jim WB9PZB inquired about linking the EARS network to the internet using I-Link. Tests of this linking project were successful before the repeater problems occurred. In this article, we hope to make people familiar with how I-Link works, and how to use it when it’s available. In recent months, I-Link has focused on the commercial market, so most hams who used I-Link have switched to EchoLink, which is basically the same thing but free for hams.

At this time, there are two major internet linking projects, IRLP and EchoLink. For more information about IRLP, visit http://www.irlp.net/ For EchoLink, visit http://www.echolink.org/ Since we have been using EchoLink, we will focus on this technology. Both accomplish basically the same thing.

EchoLink uses an internet connection to connect repeaters and radios on simplex frequencies around the world. In order to get on EchoLink, first you need to find a linked station. A list of the available EchoLink repeaters and simplex links is available at http://home.insightbb.com/~n9yty/ Or, you can pick one at random if you like. Once you find one of these linked stations, enter a DTMF command on your radio’s keypad to enable the link. A computer will hear your command, and attempt to establish an audio link between you and the distant station. This can take up to two minutes. The computer uses a special card to hear the audio, digitize it, and send it across the internet. In most cases, the repeater will have to completely drop before the next person can talk. When the connection has been made, a voice recording will inform you that “you are connected”. Then, you can use the repeater as you normally would. The repeater will be linked with the distant repeater via the internet. There is only about a second of audio delay between the two systems. When you are finished using the link, you simply enter the proper access code.

(Codes have been removed from the web edition. If you need the codes, please request them.)

Cartoon courtesy K4ADL (www.qsl.net/k4adl)

The E.A.R.S. newsletter is a monthly production of Electronic Applications Radio Service, Inc., a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, editor. Send donations, articles, comments or information to the address above or call (812) 333-4116. Articles for the newsletter and/or E-mail can be sent to ears@w9earDOTorg. Information contained may be reproduced, provided that credit is given to the EARS newsletter.

Join E.A.R.S. Today!

For more information or to support the E.A.R.S. Wide Area Repeater Network and other E.A.R.S. repeaters, write: 2744 Pinehurst Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403 or email: ears@w9earDOTorg.

Please find enclosed: Please send me first time codes for:

$ ______ donation to EARS network ____ 145.15 Evansville autopatch

____ 146.925/443.925 Vincennes autopatch

Name: __________________________________ Call: __________________

Address: ________________________________________________________

City: ___________________________ State: ______ Zip: ________________

Phone: ____ - ______ - _______

E-mail: ________________________________________________________