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David Berry, N9QP and I had the opportunity to attend the hamfest at Peru, which was a good one this year. Their VE testing had a 45 percent passing rate. We met a lot of Hams and had good conversations with all of them. I do believe that they should think about having it on Saturday, as that way they would not be competing with church. Amateur Radio License Plates David, N9KT did lots of research and got over a hundred e-mails from hams. Many talked with branch managers or personally knew the BMV people they talked to. His two point summary is this: A. Currently, the easiest way to get your ham plates is by mail. When BMV mails out your AR reservation in the fall, make sure you follow up on it in order to get your plate made. When the BMV mails out your registration renewal a month or so in advance of your current plate expiration date, make sure you mail it back by the deadline in order to get your new AR plate before the old one expires. B. Our AR plates are only $8. The surrounding states are $30 or more. If we complain too much, they might just lump us in with the Personalized License Plate program and make us pay $40. Indianapolis Police Test for Amateur Radio License. Here is Dave Wendt’s, KA9OOH report: “21 Candidates - 14 New Techs -No retakes or upgrades. The whole session went very well once we got the paper flowing, but then we had 13 veteran VEs. We tested 15 in the first session; all officers scheduled to go on shift at 1 PM, then after the break, tested 6 more coming off shift. There were no problems at all, and the whole session was very cordial. Several candidates who didn't pass expressed interest in making one of the regular monthly sessions for retakes, and the same IMPD district has tentatively scheduled another special session for the other shifts. That session will be handled through the Indianapolis Radio Club VE team. (Our Johnson County Club, MID-State ARC, handled this one because the IRC's new VE head, Dovid Ofstein, N9APE, hadn't handled a session before.) I know that there was some concern in ham circles about the possibility of some of the officers using their new licenses for the same kind of on-air activity that brought this about, but I believe that between our people and the IMPD, that won't be a problem. All the new hams are aware of what caused the problem initially and seemed ready to operate legally. The problem originated in a different district of the IMPD, and we emphasized that local hams would be watching the new hams very carefully, and that the FCC would not treat a recurrence lightly. All those we talked with today seemed to realize this and are looking forward to their new privileges.” Training for ARES Operators There has been some discussion on the ARES yahoo group about required training. It is our hope that all ARES operators are trained to not only handle ARES duties, but also to step in when the government calls for RACES to handle the communications. In order to do so, you must have some FEMA training to be utilized. The training is a free online, self study course offered at the following links. IS 700 http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/IS700a.asp IS 100 http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/IS100A.asp IS 200 http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/IS200A.asp IS 800 http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/IS800b.asp I believe that Kent Winkler, the Gibson County EC said it great in his email: “I feel the following question and answer from FEMA on their NIMS webpage sums up the need for the training. To whom does NIMS apply? NIMS is applicable to State, tribal and local governments, private sector organizations, critical infrastructure owners and operators, nongovernmental organizations and other organizations with an active role in emergency management and incident response. Elected and appointed officials, who are responsible for jurisdictional policy decisions, must also have a clear understanding of their emergency management roles and responsibilities to better serve their constituency. Basically if you want to be involved in an incident, you are required to have this training. If you do not have it, you will be turned away. To work with upper command staff in a support role, such as communications, the level of training is IS-700, IS 100, and IS-200.” Thanks Kent for the great insight into the training needed. Lastly, here is a quick word about interference. Where ever I go hams tell me that they wished people would not tune up on top of a station or the listening frequency and on repeaters not to kerchunk over and over again. Remember when you transmit, even if it is just to see if the repeater is on and most of them are on all the time, you must ID your station. Some people enjoy going from repeater to repeater just kerchunking one machine after the other. This gets old fast and can be tracked down by the Technical Specialists and Official Observers usually pretty quick. So, don't just kerchunk, give out your call. Rules are rules, and if we want to keep our call signs we must play by them. If we don’t, the OOs will file a report letting the FCC know who they have found that is doing it. Trust me they do find out. Line Noise is another problem that we must work on with our electric company. Patience and politeness are the two most important attributes one must have when wanting someone to trace down a noise that is causing you trouble. Don't go yelling at them and telling them they are going to fix the problem or else. Simply explain the problem and tell them what you have done to prove it wasn't anything in your house. Also let them know if you trace some of the noise to a certain pole or transformer. Then asked them to please come out and search your town and around your area to see if they can find all the hot spots. I did this a year ago and they found several hotspots around Knox. After repairing some of them, I told him the noise was indeed better, but not gone. They finally found it a half block from my house, a loose wire on a nightlight pole. The moment they tighten it up, my noise was completely gone. However, like some of you after this hard winter, I have some back again. It is time for me to send an e-mail to the power company’s RFI guy again and ask for another search. Until next month, enjoy the spring weather and get outside, its antenna weather. Oh, and of course garden time must be worked in to please the XYL. 73 John, W3ML