The Central Virginia Repeater Assoc. (CVRA) has installed three new repeaters on Wintergreen Mtn. They are located at: 37°55’2.0″N 78°56’48.0″W  which is slightly lower than the Devil’s Knob site and on the eastern slope.

Repeater 1: 147.540, 110.9 tone, analog simplex repeat mode only. Key the repeater, say your message (up to 3 minutes), unkey and hear a courtesy beep followed by your message. It also has a “say again” mode: key the repeater and press DTMF 0 and you will hear the last message recorded.
Repeater 2: 444.4375, no tone, +5 offset, DMR digital repeater. Slot 1 is “Local” which is linked full time to Wintergreen, Richmond/Petersburg and Washington DC. and allows talkgroups of: Local — 27500, DMR-NA TAC 310 — 310, DMR-NA TAC 1 — 8951, DCI Bridge 2 — 3100, DMR-MARC  Southeast — 3174, and Echotest Server — 9998. Slot 2 is “PRN” which is linked full time to the PRN network: http://www.ncprn.net/ which has a listing of all the repeaters in the network and their contact info. You can also obtain updated code plugs for many brands of DMR radios on the PRN site.

Repeater 3: 444.9375, no tone, +5 offset, D-Star digital repeater. This repeater will be activated on Monday, 6/14 in the afternoon and is not linked full time.

Any operator may link to any other node:
http://www.dstarusers.org/repeaters.php?repeatersort=5 but please remember to unlink when you are finished.

To:

To the Blacksburg, VA WFO NWS Skywarn Spotters:

We would like to invite you to join us at our biannual open house to be held this year on Saturday, November 15, 2014 from 10 am to 3 pm EST at the Blacksburg National Weather Service Forecast Office.  Please feel free to bring your colleagues, family, and friends.  A brochure providing further details is attached to this email.

Have you ever wanted to get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the National Weather Service?

Well, here is your chance! On Saturday, November 15th, 2014 from 10 am – 3 pm we will be hosting our biennial open house. Visitors will get a chance to:

• Receive a tour of our facility
• Learn how forecasts and warnings are created
• Get the latest information about our Doppler radar upgrade to SAILS
• View dramatic weather photos and video
• Ask meteorologists questions about weather and climate
• Bring along a NOAA Weather Radio and have it programmed by experts

This event is fun for all ages, so come out and visit your National Weather Service Forecast

Office. We are located on the Corporate Research Center at Virginia Tech, 1750 Forecast Dr. Blacksburg, VA.

For more information contact Phil Hysell at 540-552-1613 Ext. 223 or phil.hysell@noaa.gov

Thanks so much and we hope to see you there!

Robert Beasley
National Weather Service
1750 Forecast Drive
Blacksburg, VA 24060

We hope to see you there!

Printable Flyer

http://www.arrl.org/news/late-october-exercise-to-test-mars-ares-interoperability

10/07/2014

US Army and Air Force Military Auxiliary Radio Service (MARS) stations will participate in a 48-hour nationwide contingency communication exercise on October 27 and 28 as part of an effort to develop greater cooperation between the Department of Defense (DoD)-sponsored MARS program and the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES). MARS is encouraging its members to discuss communication interoperability in advance of the exercise with their ARES section and district or local emergency coordinators.

“This communications exercise is sponsored by the DoD to provide MARS operators the opportunity to develop and train interoperability procedures with their state/local ARES emergency coordinators and their Amateur Radio colleagues,” explained Army MARS Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY. He told ARRL that the DoD/MARS exercise has “full participation” from Army and Air Force MARS, and that he anticipates that some individual Navy MARS members may participate as well.

The plan calls for MARS members, using their Amateur Radio call signs and operating on amateur frequencies, to establish two-way communication with ARES leadership or members in as many US counties as possible by using VHF/UHF simplex channels or local repeaters or near vertical incidence skywave (NVIS) propagation on HF. “The contact can be with any amateur in the county, if an ARES member or leader is not available,” English added.

“Ultimately we would like the MARS operator to join an existing ARES net, if one is operational during the exercise,” English said. If no net is available, MARS members should come up on local repeaters or check into HF traffic nets to see what amateurs are available and to determine their counties. “We want to use existing net times and frequencies to the extent possible,” English continued. “Any mode of operation is fine.”

Only one ARES/Amateur Radio contact per county is needed, but more are okay. The contact must be person to person and cannot rely on any communication via Internet-linked repeaters, Internet connectivity systems, or store-and-forward e-mail systems, such as Winlink, English said.

The information exchange requested from ARES for each county is the county name and the county Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) code, if available.

There are two preferred windows of opportunity to conduct the interoperability exercise. These are from 1201 to 1800 UTC on October 27, and from 0001 to 0600 UTC on October 28.

Contact Paul English, WD8DBY, for more information.