Inside..
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St. Patrick’s Day Activities
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NIMS / ICS
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DMR Net
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Daylight Saving Time Starts
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Backup Your Files
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Survey Question
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Getting this Newsletter
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My Final
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St. Patrick’s Day
Activity Hopes to “Turn the Bands Green”
(from
the ARRL Bulletin)
Radio
amateurs around the world will celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day on the air through
the St Patrick Award.
“We
hope to turn the bands green,” the event’s sponsors said. The St Patrick Award
activity will get under way at 1200 UTC on March 16 and continue until 1200 UTC
on March 18. Radio amateurs or SWLs are invited to take part.
Awards
will be in four categories: SPD Station Award (for registered stations); Fixed
Station Award; Mobile Station Award, and Short Wave Listener Award.
Register
to be an official participating station. Visit the event’s Facebook page. —
Thanks to Bobby Wadey, MI0RYL
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NIMS / ICS
Training
Hey
Gang, I’ve got new numbers to show off to all of you.. Here’s the latest count we have on everyone..
Members in the database 654. Members
completing all 4 required NIMS courses 439.
Total Number of the Courses taken by everyone in the database 4,304 Here’s the link so that you can find out if your name is on the
list.. http://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/special/nims_roster.html
Why
are these courses so important? The simple answer is this - without these
courses, you are not trained! Without the training, you can’t be used!
Now,
get those oh – so important ICS certificates in to me and to your Emergency Coordinator, and don’t forget to include your call sign!!
Here’s
where you can get all of this information
http://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/training.html. This page
contains a lot of information about what is needed. Each course takes about an
hour or so to take, that’s really not much to ask now is it? You spent way more
than that to get your Amateur Radio operators license!
I
also highly recommend that you get used to looking at the Ohio Section
Website.. http://arrl-ohio.org as it changes all
the time. You’ll also want to visit the Ohio Section Emergency Coordinators
page frequently too http://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/default.html
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Weekly DMR Nets
Hey
gang, don’t forget to check-in on the weekly Wednesday night DMR net tonight,
there are averaging around 50 check-ins each week, and it’s really growing in
popularity for sure. Come join in on the fun, Wednesday nights at 8:30p local
on the 3139 Ohio statewide Talkgroup.
The
North American Tech Net is also on Wednesday night at 9pm EST on Talkgroup 3,
as well as The After HamNation Net,
following the HamNation program on Talkgroup 311 as well.. Lot’s of good nets
to check in to on Wednesday’s for sure..
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Mar 12, 2017 -
Daylight Saving Time Starts
When
local standard time is about to reach Sunday, March 12, 2017, 2:00:00 am clocks
are turned forward 1 hour to Sunday, March 12, 2017, 3:00:00 am local daylight
time instead.
Sunrise
and sunset will be about 1 hour later on Mar 12, 2017 than the day before.
There will be more light in the evening.
Also
called Spring Forward, Summer Time, and Daylight Savings Time.
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Backup Your Files
Hey
Gang,
Here’s
something that you might want to take a good hard look at doing, backing up of
all the files on your computer. Portable hard-drives are really cheap and easy
to hookup. With most of them, all you do is just plug it in to your computer’s
USB port and away you go, instant extra storage. The best thing is you can
transport this little gadget from one computer to another. If you are like me,
you have several computers in the house, and by using a single portable
hard-drive I can keep all those important backups all in one place. Now that
makes sense!
You
can get these small, lightweight portable hard-drives practically everywhere,
and they are well worth the few dollars you’ll spend on them. In most cases a 2
Terabyte hard-drive will cost less than $80, and that will give you enough
memory to easily backup most everything on your computer(s) several times this
year.
Have
you got pictures that you want to keep? I have pictures that date back into the
60’s and 70’s that are priceless to me, and since they are of family members
that are now no longer with us, those memories could be gone forever if they
weren’t backed up! By the way, I would highly recommend that you download all
those pictures from your cell phone to your computer and then back it up onto
the portable hard-drive. This way you won’t lose any of your pictures from your
cell phone in case it gets damaged or lost. How about that all those important
emails or documents that you have been saving (your IS 100, 200, 700 & 800
certificates come to mind). it can all be gone in a flash if it’s not backed up
somewhere.
Now
most of you know that I’m a real advocate of backing up my files. I have
backups that date back to the middle 1990’s, and over those years I’ve had
computer crashes, many of them in fact. Getting those oh so valuable files back
now becomes a real panic if you are counting on the internal disk drive for
them alone.
Well,
let me tell you that even though I subscribe to a very reputable “cloud based”
computer backup company, I have found that sometimes things just don’t get
backed up when you think they do, and that’s when you find out that you don’t
have them anymore. That’s happened to me a number of times. So, I no longer
count on just that alone. I do my own backup of those very valuable files.
That’s
why I’m recommending that you purchase one of those inexpensive portable
hard-drives for just this situation. It’s really easy to backup most
everything. I don’t recommend trying to back-up your programs however. That’s
because most programs are tied to your computer’s registry, and if you’re
starting fresh with a new computer, or you’ve had to reformat your current
computer’s hard-drive, it won’t understand where those very important registry
logs are kept. Save those disks that the programs came on. Don’t just throw
them away. If you’ve purchased programs on-line, keep the original download,
usually it’s a zipped file that you can burn to a disk or keep on a flash
drive. If you don’t, you could easily loose them forever.
Backing
things up today is so easy and affordable, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t
invest a few bucks into a portable hard-drive.
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Survey Question
Hey
Gang,
There’s
a NEW survey question on the website. I think you’ll find this question really
interesting. You’ll find it on the left side of the main page.. http://arrlohio.org Don’t forget, once you’ve voted to go back
and take a look at how your answer stacks up with everyone elses..!!
************
Are you getting
those emails
from me? If not, all you have to do is to “Opt-In” to receive them.
Heck,
just send me an email: n8sy@n8sy.com and let me know
that you want to be added. It’s really just that easy. Please, if you know of
anyone that would be interested in this information, feel free to pass it on to
them. You don’t have to be an ARRL member or even a ham to receive these
emails.
You
can always “Opt-Out” at any time if you feel this is not what you
were expecting.
Also..
are you viewing the Ohio Section Website on a regular basis? You should, it
changes all the time. Here’s a link to it.
http://arrlohio.org
************
My Final..
A
little history for you today.. In 1936 the first stock car race is held in
Daytona Beach, Florida. No, I won’t make any more jokes about the winner
drinking milk.. You NASCAR folks are really quick to pick up on that!
In
1983 IBM releases PC DOS version 2.0, and my computer has never been right
since.
In
1995 it got down to a -26°F (-32.2°C) in Bismarck, North Dakota. And you
thought it was cold here last week! Wow..
Now..
there’s some trivial history for you to use at work today.. Go have FUN..!!
73,
Scott,
N8SY..
eof..
