Author Archives: Orange County Radio Amateurs, INC

Upcoming Public Service Events April 2nd & 22nd – Volunteers needed – 442.150 repeater to used

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Supporting public service events is an excellent way to make Amateur Radio visible to the community, support worthy charitable causes and to hone your field operating skills.  The two events OCRA provides course communications for each year are:

  1. The Not So Normal Run on Sunday April 02 in Carrboro with about 400 runners expected.  This will be our second year participating in the NSN Run.  The course has changed this year, being simplified to a single 6.55 mile loop that is run 1, 2 or 3 times depending on the event.  We haven’t identified where we will be located along the course yet, but will probably need 5-6 volunteers.  The event web site is:  http://notsonormalrun.itsyourrace.com/event.aspx?id=6757
  2. Tar Heel 10 Miler Run on Saturday, April 22 is a large event with over 6,500 runners usually.  The course and our positions are the same as last year, so we need 7-8 volunteers.  The event web site is:  http://tarheel10miler.com/

I’ll provide more info soon, along with requests to sign up for course positions.  These are fun events and are good first-time public service events for newer hams, as well as useful training for ARES volunteers.

Reserve the dates on your calendars if you are interested.  Feel free to contact me if you have questions.

Steve, W3AHL Orange County ARES/AUXCOMM EC

for W3AHL, Dan KR4UB

OCRA 442.150 Repeater to be used for the April 1st, 2017 Spring Fling Bike Event

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Permission has been requested and granted for use of the OCRA 442.150 repeater to provide communications support for the Spring Fling Bike Event on Saturday April 1st, 2017.

Net control for the OCRA ARES 9:30am net on that day should use the abbreviated net protocol to facilitate any bike traffic needs to be passed during the net.

This is a 25, 50 and 100 mile bike event that requires SAGS, as well as hams assigned to Rest Stops. This is the first fund raising event of the season sponsored by TeamCBC and for the benefit of the National MS Society.

  • Location: Inside-Out Sports, 2002 Grisdale Ln., Cary, NC 27513
  • Ham Coordinator: John Stone (K3RHJ)
  • Website: TeamCBC

When contacted by Dan Sears, KD4AGQ regarding the event, he also passed the info along that changes are being made to the RARS website and that a new volunteer signup site is being used for this event at  http://zoneapex.net:8082

OCRA and DFMA members are encouraged to sign up for the event that will take place out of Cary into southern portions of Orange County.  Further information at the event can be found at the TeamCBC website.

OCRA Club Meeting – March 13, 2017

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Dan, KR4UB takes yet another photo with his cell phone and, having editor authority, posts it to the OCRA website within minutes.  Pictured on the lower right corner is Joel, KM4NOU, OCRA Secretary and webmaster giving a presentation of recent capabilities he has recently added to the OCRA website. This includes the change to the website to make the section you are currently viewing,  the home page.  The intent is for the site to become the place where OCRA members can communicate on more of a real time basis, for example Dave W4SAR’s “presidents message” and frequent updates on 2017 Field Day planning. Members who would like to contribute articles of interest to the membership are encouraged to contact Joel the OCRA Club Secretary.

The second part of the demo was of the membership listing page and how members can update their information, whether it be vanity call sign changes, contact information, ham radio interest areas, check their dues expiration date and as has been on the site for some time, the PayPal links for dues payment.  Joel demonstrated how members can obtain their private access secure link to update their information.

He also gave a glimpse of the back end that powers this capability, a site plug-in called “Participants Database”. This tool is very flexible and easy to adapt to however the club membership elects to use it in the future.

Dan, KR4UB pointed out that the site uses SSL or Secure Sockets Layer that encrypts data to and from the user, whether it be from their computer, cellphone, tablet or notepad to the website.  This is the same methodology used for financial transactions over the internet.