GCARS had a great time providing supplementary communications at the Lowell Freedom Festival yesterday, 5-27-17. Thank you, Gail, for having us!
Follow the link below to view the pictures of the event.
Monthly Archives: May 2017
A.R.E.S Simulated Emergency Test 5-23-17
The Gaston County A.R.E.S. is going to conduct a “Simulated Emergency Test” (SET), Tuesday, May 23 at 1400 (2 p.m. local). It will begin on the 147.120 MHz (100 Hz tone) N4GAS repeater and then proceed to other frequencies as Net Control directs. It will include FM repeater work, FM simplex work, D-Star simplex work, DMR repeater work and DMR simplex work.
Headlining this test will be the debut of the ARES station that is a new installation at the City of Gastonia Police Department. We will be testing the station’s reception and capabilities.
This will be a directed formal net. If you would like to participate, please check in with Net Control at 1400 (2 p.m. local) and follow the directions.
73,
Bill Stevenson
AJ4JZ
Gaston County ARES/RACES EC
GCARS/GCARES partners with Lincoln County 4-H for Antenna Build!!!
We had a great time this afternoon building Tape Measure Yagi antennas with the Lincoln County 4-H Haywire Electric Club!
AJ4JZ, Bill Stevenson, did a fantastic job teaching the kids about ham radio and the importance of having gain when transmitting and receiving!!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this build project for this group of young people!!
Reminder: ARES/RACES Meeting Thursday 5/11/17
Another friendly reminder that the ARES/RACES meeting is Thursday night, 5-11-2017, at 7 p.m. held at the Gaston County Emergency Operation Center, 605 N. Highland St. Gastonia, NC. (go around to the back and ask to be let in). It is open to all licensed amateur radio operators who desire to serve the public in times of emergency and need.
We hope to discuss our new DMR repeater and practice EmComm digital modes.
Hope to see you there!
73,
Bill Stevenson,
AJ4JZ,
ARES/RACES Emergency Coordinator
DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) is Coming to Spencer Mountain!
Here is some BIG news:
DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) is coming to Spencer Mountain. Due to a generous gift from Gerald Rankin, AG0R, the Gaston County Amateur Radio Society is very shortly (and Lord willing), going to have a DMR amateur radio repeater on top of Spencer Mountain, North Carolina, on the 70 cm band. The DMR repeater will allow hams with a DMR radio to communicate with other radio amateurs locally, regionally, nationally, and even globally using a quality of voice communications similar to 3G cellular phones.
We have a Hytera RD622 digital repeater,
which we plan to connect to the Brandmeister network, a global amateur radio DMR system with hundreds of talk groups all over the world.
Right now, we are in the process of setting up the repeater, getting things straight with our prospective internet service provider, and testing the system. We hope to have this working before the end of May 2017.
DMR is an exceedingly affordable and robust digital mode. HT’s can be had for under $100 dollars (Like the TYT MD-380). Users are required to get a radio identifier number from DMR-MARC, which is the master group for issuing DMR identifiers so that users can work all the current internet linked DMR networks.
Go to this link here to register for a DMR id number (it’s free):
https://dmr-marc.net/cgi-bin/trbo-database/register.cgi
You do not need to have a radio to get a number. If you are thinking about doing DMR, then you should go ahead and get a number from DMR-MARC.
If you want to experience the excitement of DMR now, you can listen to any talk group you would like on the Brandmeister “Hose Line” which is a web enabled dashboard for listening to DMR traffic on the internet. It only requires a current web browser and the ability to process sound. Give it a try:
https://hose.brandmeister.network/
More information to come about how to set up your radio “code plug” and which talk groups will be enabled from the N4GAS DMR repeater.
73,
Bill Stevenson
AJ4JZ