RAC Bulletin 130803

RAC Ontario Section Bulletin for August 3, 2013

This is V__3____, Official Bulletin Station for Radio Amateurs of
Canada, with this week's bulletin

NATIONAL NEWS


ONTARIO SECTIONS NEWS

1. Simulated Emergency Test Date

The Ontario SET is scheduled for 26 October.  ARES groups will
receive further scenario information in early September to assist
with local planning and message generation.

-- Ian Snow, VA3QT, Ontario South SM

2. Ontario South ARES Seminar

With the support of the Hamilton Amateur Radio Club executive, there
will be an Ontario-South ARES leadership seminar at 10:15 AM on 5
October, held in conjunction with the Hamilton Hamfest.  This will be
followed at 11:00 with a "town hall" meeting, open to all Amateurs. 
Section Manager Ian Snow VA3QT will provide updates on ARES and
Section developments, and will be open to questions from the floor.

-- Ian Snow, VA3QT, Ontario South SM

3. Ontario Phone Net Schedule

A reminder: the Ontario Phone Net has moved to 7.055 MHz for the
summer.  The traffic-handling net meets every day, 365 days a year,
at 7 PM Eastern Time.  On October 1st, OPN will return to 3.745 MHz.

-- via Shawn Gartley, VE3PSV


ITEMS OF INTEREST

4. Monitoring Times Going QRT 

Monitoring Times magazine will be shutting down after its December
2013 issue.  After 33 years, publisher Bob Grove and his wife Judy
have decided to retire.  Grove also said that "a combination of a
down-turned economy, as well as the ready availability of free
listening and technical information on the Internet, has reduced
sales and subscriptions throughout the marketplace."

-- CQ News Service

5. Forty Dollar SDR 

Stephen Cass, KB1WNR, has published an article in IEEE Spectrum
magazine describing a Software-Defined Radio costing only $40 in
parts.  Cass's radio uses a Freeview P250 dongle, an indoor TV
antenna and a Model B Raspberry Pi microcontroller.  You can read the
article and see a video of the device at tinyurl.com/inexpensive-sdr 

-- Amateur Radio Newsline

6. Zone to Zone Propagation Chart

ZoneProp shows a 40 zone by 40 zone matrix that is updated hourly at
approximately 20 minutes past the hour. The intersection between a
row and column gives the band on which a contestant in the first  CQ
zone is most likely able to contact a contestant in the second CQ
zone.  Find it at www.radiosport.ca/zoneprop

-- ARRL Contest Update