October 2014 Newsletter

To Our Wonderful SCIRA Members,                                                            September 21, 2014

The board would like to take a few minutes to give an update on the happenings of SCIRA Inc., and to thank you for your support! We truly value the time, effort and donations you put into making things happen. We also appreciate your use of the linked repeaters. Your everyday use of the repeaters allows us to keep the frequencies open for use during emergencies.

As always we have multiple items going on at the same time. The Lord’s blessings come in bunches and this past year has been especially bountiful.

Some of you will recall that early in the year we were being plagued by interference with another repeater on the 445.160 Mhz frequency. Around mid-year that interference was resolved when, through the generous donation of a member, we were able to acquire the Contractors Point repeater that was causing the interference. That repeater is now part of our linked network.

In addition to the new repeater, we have installed WinLink Gateway stations at the BCS and at the homes of Bruce Koyle and Tom Thomas. We have also installed digipeaters at Eagle Tower, Snow Peak and the Los Angeles and San Diego storehouses. We are working on additional gateways in Anaheim, Claremont, Garden Grove, Glendale and Redlands and hope to have them operational in the near future.

We have created a "Celly" network to allow quick messaging to the ERC network through your cell phone. We are using "Celly" as a secondary check in the second week of each month.

We have created an ERC Disaster Reporting Form "Live" link on GoogleDocs to allow "live" reporting of incident conditions to Area Authorities and Salt Lake. This form allows entry of general and specific (not confidential) information regarding status as well as photos and requests for and offers of assistance and can be updated and viewed by several persons concurrently.

We are currently pursuing a repeater installation in the Barstow area at the 6300 foot level on Mount Ord and a second repeater installation in the vicinity of Mount Ariel. The addition of these two would provide much needed coverage in the high desert and Fresno areas. As with all the improvements, these installations will require time and money.

We have also been blessed with a source of relatively low-cost, relatively new, long-life, AGM batteries to replace the aging (deteriorating) batteries at San Diego, Snow Peak and Los Angeles, but as usual; funding issues are slowing the acquisition.

All of the radio gear that was previously located at Colton has been migrated to the BCS at Mira Loma and we operated from there in October 2013 and again this year for the ShakeOut.

With some considerable effort on the part of our president and several others the links are operating about as smoothly as can be expected. We appreciate your feedback when the links are operating at less than optimum.

We continue to hold weekly nets as follows:

• 1st Sunday @ 9:00 PM – Repeater / Voice

• 2nd Sunday @ 9:00 PM – Repeater / Voice & Digital Net via Winlink & Celly test txt msg.   

• 3rd Sunday @ 9:00 PM – Repeater / Voice

• 4th Sunday @ 9:00 PM – 445.160 MHz Simplex Primary 146.910 Secondary Simplex Frequency

• 5th Sunday @ 9:00 PM – Repeater / Voice

Every Thursday  @ 8 PM - on  HF Voice 3.890 MHz LSB   

Take a look at the list of repeaters, WinLink gateways and digipeaters below. We THANK ALL of YOU, the SCIRA members, who have done so much by your donations. It is through your memberships and donations that all of this has been made possible!!! We welcome your help and suggestions to improve our communications and coverage.

Once again the SCIRA Inc. board, wishes to thank all of you, the membership, who make these repeaters possible by your generous donations and support!

With the Greatest Thanks we are:

•  Craig N. Holmes – President (Regional ERC)

•  James L. Dowdle – Vice President

•  Michael E. McDonald. – Secretary (Asst. Regional ERC)

•  Cliff Hillquist – Treasurer

•  Scott Boland – Computer Web Specialist

•  Stephen Lang – Membership Chair

•  Jared R. Case – Repeater Chair

•  Tom Thomas – Member at Large  (Term Ending 12/16)

•  Bruce Koyle – Member at Large (Term Ending 12/14)

•  Dale Hanks – Member at Large (Term Ending 12/15)

Repeaters

Eagle Tower Repeater (445.700 MHz (-) pl 151.4 (Linked to SP)

Jobs Peak 146.910 (-) pl 151.4 ) (Linked to SP)

Snow Peak Repeater  (445.160 MHz (-) pl 151.4 (Linked to Jobs Peak)

San Diego Repeater (445.940 (-) pl 136.5  (Linked to Snow Peak)

Contractors Point 445.160 - Pl 151.4 (Linked to LA SH)

LA SH 445.940 - Pl 151.4 (Linked to Snow Peak)

Echolink is running on W6CTR-R. 

Winlink Gateways

K6BRK-10 Bruce Koyle on 144.970 - 24/7 with backup power

WB6TT-10 Tom Thomas on 144.970 - 24/7

W6CTR-10 at the BCS 144.970

SCIRA inc. DIGIpeaters

ETDIGI - Eagle Tower Digipeater 144.970

LADIGI - Los Angeles Storehouse Digipeater 144.970

SDDIGI - San Diego Storehouse Digipeater 144.970

SPDIGI - Snow Peak Digipeater 144.970

Other Items

2014 SCIRA meetings

November 19 – SCIRA Annual Meeting/elections.

ERC Events for 2015:

August 1 – ERC conference

October 17 – The Great ShakeOut

2015 SCIRA meetings

January 21 – SCIRA Board Meeting

March  18 – SCIRA General Membership & Board Meeting

May 20 – SCIRA Board Meeting

July 15 – SCIRA General Membership & Board Meeting

September 16 – SCIRA Board Meeting

October 21 – SCIRA Board Pre-elections review

November 18 – SCIRA Annual Meeting/elections.