The Wednesday nite net (Wednesday evenings at 9:00PM local time) began as mostly a ragchewing session with whom-ever happened to join
in, sometimes the latest radio advertisements are brought forward and radio activities in the community are discussed. Volunteers
for up-coming public service events are often recruited here also.
Within the Northern Ohio area, many not-for-profit agencies
and organizations rely on the amatuer radio community for public service and emergency communications help which includes
providing coverage for bicycle races, halloween safety nets, soccer games, walk-a-thons, and other area events. NOARS encourages its
members and other licensed operators to help out whenever possible. Our nets provide a way of perfecting our skills. The
nets also provides a resource for those who want to learn about new modes, or are looking for help making preliminary adjustments
to equipment or software, or help on locating out of date publications, or wanting to find out about other local activities
. Discussions started here are sometimes carried over into the Thursday evening Technical discussion net.
The net
control stations are Julie WA8ADE, Harold WD8OFG (Acting Net Manager), Joel W8WFQ, Carl W8KRFand Keith KD8GXL.
They each take a week...log check-ins and control the net.
NOARS hosts 2 weekly nets on our repeaters so that we can maintain contact with the local amatuer radio community.
Below you
will find the details on both of them. All of our nets can be found on all of the NOARS repeaters, 146.700, 444.800, and
soon 145.150. We also rebroadcast Amateur Radio Newsline on Monday evening on our local repeaters (no Echolink) at or about 8:00PM
local time. Also, new for NOARS is a 10M net on 28.360MHz on Tuesdays @ 8PM.
The NOARS technical discussion net (TechNet) is held on Thursday evenings at 8:00 PM local time. The technical discussions revolve
around radio station equipment and computer hardware and are an insight to many listeners and participants who have questions
regarding troubleshooting techniques. This net has been growing since the 1980's. The primary net controller Sandy W8KYS has
shared experiences with his years of exposure to many compound radio frequency devices. With help from Tom W8KYZ, Steve WB3JVK, Al
N8CX, Rich K8RWC, Dave K8WRS and the rest of the NOARS crew, the discussions on the net include topics of electrical safety,
tower design, antenna building, troubleshooting high SWR, noise filtering, station grounding, mobile mounting complications, battery
and fuse safety, vacuum tube principles, complicated antenna regulations, tuning coils, and output tank circuits, just to mention
a few. Since the beginning of the personal computers being tied into amatuer radio station hardware, questions of this nature
have always come up. This has prompted computer friendly operators to join in and share their knowledge solving, what for many was
unknown, "black-box" technology and previously mis-understood. These nets begin as a check-in period with a second round for questions
and then open up as an open forum to relieve the net controller so he can make notes.
NOARS has expanded its nets to the Internet! Joel W8WFQ and Julie WA8ADE have set up an Echolink node from their QTH. The
node is listed on Echolink under W8WFQ-R and is linked to the 146.70 repeater 24x7 except for Wednesday evening from 1955 to 2045
local time to rebroadcast amateur Radio Newsline. Don't know what Echolink is? Go to
www.echolink.org for additional information. Also,
go to
www.wx1der.com/elk.htm for a list of Echolink nets.
