Excerpts from the latest Scuttlebutt issue.

Greetings from C6ALD

We were all shocked and saddened by the death of our Rear Commodore. On Feb. 5, Ken Kroth, W2VJB, died of a heart attack at age 70. Our condolences go out to his family, and he will also be greatly missed by his extended family of amateur radio friends.

John Knauth, KF4OIP, who was runner-up for the position of Rear Commodore in last year's elections, has kindly agreed to fill the vacancy left by Ken's untimely death. Thank you, John, and welcome aboard.

We had a good Round Table discussion on Feb. 19, with over 30 members participating. As usual, the main topics of discussion were weather and position reports, which is as it should be, as these are the two most important services provided by the Waterway Net. Jeanie, N4WFM, has compiled a more detailed report of the Round Table elsewhere in this issue.

I would like to thank all those who filled in the survey we have been conducting on our website. We had a total of 55 responses, and once again, weather and position reports were high priority items. I have already discussed the results of the survey on the Net, so I'll just say that the main points that came out of it are:

Most people seem happy with the current Net format.

We are never, ever, going to find a weather format that will please everyone.

Thanks also to those who have volunteered, through the survey, to act as net relay or assistant fleet captain. We are already making use of people on that list, and will use more of you during the year.

And finally, thank you (I think) to all the people who pointed out to me that February only has 28 days, and not 30, as I had printed on that month's roster! Good thing somebody's paying attention!

All the best & 73's...

Commodore, Bob Ball - C6ALD

The WRCC leadership early this year found itself collectively wondering how could such a thing have happened. Elections had been held late last year, the new officers were set and ready to go. Then tragedy struck. In early February our Vice-Commodore Ken Kroth, W2VJB was suddenly taken ill, admitted to St. Peter's hospital near his home in Delmar, NY where he died a short time later.

Ken was elected to the number two position in the WRCC just last November and without question he'll be greatly missed. Ken's published remembrance and obituary, ran in the Albany, NY Times Union on February 8th.

Stepping up to fill the Vice Commodore position in this difficult time is John Knauth, KF4OIP, longtime member of the Waterway Radio and Cruising Club and former Editor of "Scuttlebutt". John was the second candidate for the Rear Commodore position in last Fall's election and was appointed to fill the untimely vacancy by WRCC Commodore Bob Ball C6ALD. (Bob's thoughts concerning Ken are in his Commodore's column—above.)

When a major metropolitan fire department called up to book a special weekend Technician class ham course for their pilots, we turned them away from ham radio as their primary low-cost way of getting free aeronautical ATV.

The professional skipper called in for a ham class, but later discovered how a marine single-sideband radio could easily satisfy his "requirement" to offer the boat owner long-range, non-satellite, e-mail capabilities.

A major local sheriff's department recently called wanting to pay for a special class to license 25 officers to handle "Baker to Vegas" radio communications. They wanted their own personnel to have the ham license to specifically keep communications within their own department on frequencies different than regular PD simplex channels.

A RC flying club wanted in on a weekend Technician class, JUST to get off of 72 MHz and onto the ham radio 6-meter "black flag" band. They, too, were discouraged to obtain the ticket. Same thing with a desert area hang glider club--they wanted up on APRS, and needed some frequencies that would be uncrowded to talk from glider to chase vehicle.

In each of these cases, our initial conversation quickly reveals the applicant has absolutely no other interest in becoming a ham other than meeting a licensing REQUIREMENT. We can almost tell by the tone of the conversation they have no other aspirations over the airwaves other than to satisfy their own private comms.

We try to work with these ham applicants to help them better understand alternative radio services for what they want to do. For mariners, the marine radio service offers companion ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore high-frequency bands. For police and fire, we tell them how to obtain more information from WESCAM for live video feeds. For the Baker to Vegas requests, we encourage the municipalities to look within their own cities and bring in licensed hams to help out with the follow-me-vehicle communications. For hang gliders, we might turn them onto the multi-use radio service (MURS) which offers no-license, 5-VHF-channel operation at considerably higher power levels than no-license, half-watt, FRS equipment. Here at Radio School, we regularly offer FREE kids classes. We also invite volunteers within scouting, schools, and the American Red Cross to take the classes at no teaching charge. We offer specialty classes for sailors, as well as RVers. The classes are preceded with required home study, and this gives all of our students a head start on both the theory as well as the Morse Code.

Most important, our classes are not over when they pass the test. We agree with Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, Chief Executive Officer of the American Radio Relay League, in his February, 2005, editorial about the importance of getting new licensees on the air, joining the League, and working with their local ham radio club. ". . .Give them opportunities to learn more than the bare essentials to pass the test. . .," states Sumner, pointing out that all hams should go out of their way to let brand new hams into our fabulous hobby and service.

This May, we hope that the Federal Communications Commission will announce license restructuring. A more straight-forward, entry-level exam is absolutely necessary. The current 511 Technician class test is doing nothing more than challenging an applicant's capability to rote memorize Q & A's to get through the exam. A more basic entry-level exam that covers radio operation on the new bands they will achieve is what is necessary.

If the Morse Code test goes by the wayside, I anticipate MORE hams will begin learning the code than ever before once they listen in on high frequency. Code will never die, and getting rid of the code test will sweeten the concept of learning a new language of dots and dashes to preserve some ham radio heritage.

Let's hope by this time next year we have a new restructured amateur service and will have applicants coming out of the woodwork wanting to join in on all that ham radio has to offer. And if they're joining ham radio as a hobby and service, we welcome them in our classes.

But if they JUST need the ham ticket JUST to do free e-mail out at sea, or if they are JUST getting the ham license so they can fly RC or have their own private comm channel, be assured we will introduce them to OTHER radio services where they won't be "required" to talk to any other unknown operator other than their little group of pals on the same frequency. This is not in the spirit of ham radio, but better suited for other radio services.

So send us those hobbyists that really want to play ham radio, and rest assured we will take good care of them here at Gordon West Radio School.

I'd like to just recap the Round Table discussion held on 2/19/05 for those of you who missed it. There was good participation - even with poor propagation.

The first topic of discussion was the weather reporting - should the readers give just a 3 day forecast or the full 5 day?

Commodore Bob reported that the survey was roughly split 28 for 3 day and 21 for 5 day. but most of the people vocalizing on the Roundtable indicated they wanted to hear the full 5 days. One quote from C6AGJ was, "the professional meteorologists would not have created it if it was not useful". One suggestion was to try and compress the offshore weather. All that spoke up disagreed and said that compressing it, or changing it in any way, was not a good idea.

Other topics discussed briefly:

W4BIL- Would like members to fly the Club's burgee more. He doesn't meet anyone while he's traveling because no one is flying the burgees or giving boat names during position reports.

KG0KE- Wondered why we are not getting more position reports. It was suggested that maybe Winlink and Sailmail are having an effect, but the other Fleet Captains say there is no lack of positions being received . .

ND7K added that propagation has the most effect on the net for traffic and P.R. It was also suggested that maybe we could fill the time before position reports, if there is no traffic, by starting the PR earlier, and then breaking for underway positions at exactly 8:15.

Multiple members checked in with agreement that the position reports should stay at 8:15 and should allow and encourage boat names be given with positions. WA6CCA says, "Boat names and call signs are a nobrainer. All the big nets do it".

W7RIP- Member since 1978, has never understood why boat names were not included. Would like to see the powerful shore stations be Net Control primarily.

Those were the highlights

88,  Jeanie - N4WFM,  WRCC Sec-Treas

Past Issues: Fall 2004    Winter 2005