CLUB MEETINGS:
Regular Meetings are held on the second Wednesday of each month at 12 noon, in Room 238-543. They are open to all.
Board of Directors meet the fourth Wednesday of each month at 12 noon in 198-111. All club members are invited.
SCDX BULLETINS
The Southern California DX Club now has their weekly bulletin on the air at 8:00 p.m. (FST) Wednesdays on 14265 KHz.
ARRL RENEWALS
There isn't much time left. In a few weeks, the dues will be increased... Currently Life Membership is $150., Regular S7.50/year, JPLARC $7.00/yr; however, after Jan 1, Life Membership will be $180., Regular $9.00/year, JPLARC $8.00/year. If you wish to take advantage of the S7.00/year rate, better notify M.P. Burnett (X-6441) right away.
EQUIPMENT SURVEY
The Club presently has a committee that includes Dick Ulrich, K6KCY and Bill. Weber, W6HNQ who are studying the feasibility of establishing a club- owned instrument pool for loan of equipment to members on a short term basis. The idea drew overwhelming support when it was brought up at a recent meeting. Being considered for our inventory are instruments that would be used for testing, debugging and initial setups, rather than devices that would be in constant use in one's shack. Examples are a wideband dc triggered scope, a frequency counter (i.e.: netting rigs), a grid dip meter, SWR or Z bridge, signal generator, etc... We need your desires, in order of preference, so we can begin with the most useful items first.
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TO: BILL WEBER 161-228
From: _________________ Date: _______
1. ____________________ 2. ____________________
3. ____________________ 4. ____________________
5. ____________________ 6. ____________________If you have any additional comments or suggestions, please write them on back of coupon.
RFI
While the club does not have a formal RF Interference Committee this year (Jay Bestow, K6CV has chaired this in the past), it does maintain a file! of pertinent literature for reference by those -urfortunate members plagued with such problems. Need info? Contact Walt Diem, WA6PEA, Secretary, at X- 3186.
CONGRATS TO GLENN BERRY
Glenn, K6GHJ recently received his JPL 10 year service pin (he has been an active member in the club for about that long too). . Glenn is the Club's representative to the L.A. Council of Amateur Radio Clubs and to the Southern California Repeater Association.
PROPAGATION FOR DECEMBER
HR REPORT for Nov 30th forecasts that the deteriorated polar path propagation quality will return to normal about the 14th. A period of overall good. condx is expected thru the 18th. From the 18th through the 23rd MUF's are expected to decline. The seasonal changes, coupled with our near sunspot minimum will require 14, 21 & 28 MHz users to stick to daylight paths witl-. some twilight DXing on 14 and even 7 MHz.
CLUB MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
It is membership renewal time again. Our treasurer, Merrill Burnett, K6BER is now accepting dues for 1975. They are $2.00 for licensed members and $1.00 for non-licensed members Members not submitting dues by February will be required to be dropped from the W6VIO Calling mailing list. Please fill out the coupon at the bottom of the page and forward to Merrill with your dues.
SEASONS GREETINGS TO ALL. MAY YOUR HOLIDAYS BE MERRY AND FILLED WITH DX AND S-9 SIGNAL REPORTS.
TO: M. P. Burnett 201-225 (X-6441). ME14BERSHIP RENEWAL 1975
NAME _________________ CALL __________ARRL Member: YES NO
MAIL STN or QTH __________________PHONE ___________1974 Membership Card Number _________
Enclose $2.00 Licensed or $1.00 Non-licensed, for one year membership.
HOSPITALIZED
H. R. Mecke, W6ZGC has been hospitalized for a gall bladder operation. We wish Helmut good luck and a speedy recovery.
DX CONTEST
Stan Brokl, K6YYQ (our Contest Coordinator) is interested in surveying club members relative to collective participation in the next big ARRL DX contest in February. If three or more members of an affiliated club enter, the highest scorer is eligible for an award. That's a lot easier than competing with some of those 10 kw contest specialists. Anyone that is even the slightest interested in this activity or have comments or suggestions, please phone Stan as soon as possible at X2715.
EQUIPMENT DISCOUNT
A wholesale buying service has made an offer to JPLARC via Jay Holladay to sell some standard brand amateur radio equipment to club members at a discount. You can phone A. D. Shah or Gary Heckle at 7885263 or 872-2053 for further info. They are located at 15016 Ventura Bl, Sherman Oaks, Ca.
AMATEUR RADIO LICENSING MODIFICATION
An HR REPORT EXTRA (dated Dec 10) has just been received. It has been prepared by the editors of Ham Radio Magazine. A copy of that extra in incorporated with this newsletter.
December 10, 1974
THE RESTRUCTURING BOMBSHELL HAS FINALLY ARRIVED almost.
In Report 10112, the FCC hopes that Docket 20282 will double
the number of licensed amateurs over the next few years, as well as benefit the legitimate CB users by syphoning off many CB hobbyists into useful amateur participation. The final Docket will have been released by the time you read this report.It Breaks The Amateur License Structure Into Two Series - Series A for shortwave and Series B for VHF and above. The purpose of this split is to associate operating qualifications and requirements with operating privileges.
The Break Points for the two series of licenses are 29 MHz and down for the Series A licenses and 29 MHz and up for the Series B licenses. Each individual licensee will be permitted to hold one operator license in each series. For example, an individual who is a licensed Experimenter and very active on VHF could also hold the Novice license with its severely limited privileges on the low-frequency bands.
It Proposes To Modify The Present Ten-Class Amateur License
Structure by adding two additional classes. First of these is
a codeless telephony license to be called the Communicator Class. This license will provide phone operating privileges above 144 MHz. Second is to be known as the Experimenter Class and will have Advanced Class type privileges above 29 MHz.All Licenses Will Be For Five-Year Periods and all will be renewable, including Novice and the new Communicator Class. Extra Class licenses would be lifetime for the operator; however, the Extra Class station license would still have to be renewed at five-year intervals.
Extra Class Examinations would only consist of a 20 wpm code test (it appears that an Advanced Class licensee could become an Extra under this proposal by merely passing the code test).
New Advanced And General Class Licensees would have no privileges above 29 MHz Experimenter and Technician licensees would receive no privileges below 29 MHz, but would in the VHF spectrum be equivalent to Advanced and General Class licenses, respectively. An Extra Class licensee will have all privileges in both segments of the spectrum, and Extras would continue to have their exclusive CW sub-bands.
Present Licensees Would Be Protected, in most cases, in holding their present privileges. Thus, a present Advanced licensee could also become an Experimenter Class licensee without an additional test -though he would be required to make application for his second new "Experimenter" license. In a similar manner, a General Class licensee may also acquire a Technician Class license for VHF privileges.
Along With The New Privileges are changes in frequency, emission and power limits. The Series A (HF band) licensee privileges will be the same as at present except that Advanced Class licensees would have the same phone privileges as Extras now have. The Series B licensees would be given privileges as follows: Technicians would be authorized all frequencies above 50 MHz, thus gaining 50.0 to 50.1 and 144 to 145 MHz; the Experimenter licensees will have all frequencies above 29 MHz; and the Communicator Class licensees will be permitted to operate on all frequencies above 144 MHz.
New Emission Limitations Were Specified. Extra Class and Experimenter Class may use all classes of emission in their authorized frequency spectrum. Advanced Class may also use all permitted emissions below 29 MHz. General and Technician Classes are restricted to Al, A3 and F3 emissions. Novice Class licensees, of course, are still Al -- CW only, while the new Communicator Class would be F3 -- FM only.
Power Limitations will no longer be in dc input, except for Novice licensees (and possibly Communicators also) -- the rest of us will be required to limit transmitter output in terms of peak envelope power (PEP).
The Problem Of Mail Examinations occupies the remainder of the restructuring Docket. Most significant changes are these: Conditional Class licensees who are Conditional because of distance from a regular examination point would be considered to be temporarily licensed until such time as they can appear at a regular examining point for an FCCgiven examination. In other words, their licenses would not be renewable
To Eliminate Many Of The Abuses that have occurred during the amateur administered examination program, Extras would now be the only ones qualified to give Advanced class "mail" exams, though Advanced Class licensees could give General and Novice tests. In a similar manner, Experimenter Class licensees could administer Technician and Communicator tests.
Finally And Very Significantly, the Commission proposes that two licensed amateurs be present during the administration of any mail examination, the second amateur to be the holder of any class of amateur license.
That Completes The Preliminary Summary. The final printed Docket is expected to be approximately 30 pages long and will undoubtedly raise more points for discussion. It should also help to clear up many of the questions which are raised by this necessarily brief and quickly prepared resume.
OBVIOUSLY WE ARE TURNING A MAJOR CORNER in the history of not only amateur licensing, but in amateur radio itself as we look at a series of proposals that can easily double the population of U.S. amateurs.
HR Report Will Be Closely Following This Whole Story or you In- the weeks ahead starting with further details in the next regular HR Report, due on your desk just a few days from now.
Copyright 1974, by Communications Technology, Inc. May be quoted or excerpted without prior permission provided HR REPORT is credited.
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