Bible
Verse
Matthew 1:18-25 / 18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[c] because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. New International Version (NIV)
President's Report
Hello all, I missed everyone at the meeting in November; we had such a small turnout that the meeting was cancelled. Now as you all know the November meeting is usually the one where we open the floor for nominations for our club officers. Since this did not happen we will be holding them this Saturday at the December meeting, which is moving back to the first Saturday of each month due to the TEAMSTERS wanting to go back to the second Saturday.
Our Christmas dinner will be on Thursday, December 12, I hope all can attend for the dinner and elections that night. We are planning on the Thursday night social to be held at the Checkerboard, a menu has been supplied for the event for consideration or we can have a buffet, this will be decided at the monthly meeting after the nominations have closed. (click here to see menu)
I want to thank everyone for letting me be president this year and hope to see you at the meeting.
73's Charles KB5SZJ
Next Business Meeting
The next business meeting will be held in the back room at the Checker Board Restaurant on Saturday, December 07, 2013 beginning at 10 A.M. Come join us for breakfast, coffee and fellowship.
LEO RUN TO REMEMBER
Hello all, at this time I would like to thank everyone that attended the LEO RUN TO REMEMBER races. For those of you that didn't make it, “you don't know what you missed". The MARC group was asked to help out with communications at this event. MARC in turn asked the ARES group and local amateur radio operators if they would like to participate in the event as well, as a chance to work together on our comm skills and get both agencies out in the public eye in an effort to promote Amateur Radio and its capabilities. Also I would like to thank Rick AE5FE for getting the word out to ARES members. Thank you Scott, KL7SLM and Shelly, KI6DES for keeping the communications log. A log and a list of those who attended have been provided. (click here to see log)
73's Charles KB5SZJ
100th anniversary of the ARRL
Next year (2014) is the 100th anniversary of the ARRL. They are planning a series of activities throughout the year. One is that the call sign W1AW will travel to each state and US territory throughout the year. There will be awards offered for working W1AW in all the states, so lots of people will be hunting for the W1AW/x stations. ARRL contacted me to organize the Mississippi activation, which is why am contacting you. I would like to get stations involved from all over the state.
Here is how it will work: we get to use the call sign W1AW/5 for two weeks during 2014. The weeks we have are:
Wednesday April 16 0000Z - Tuesday April 22 2359Z
(Tuesday April 15 7:00 PM - Tuesday April 22 6:59PM)
Wednesday November 12 0000Z - Tuesday November 18 2359Z
(Tuesday November 11 6:00 PM - Tuesday November 18 5:59 PM)
The stations signing W1AW/5 can be anywhere in MS. We can also have stations operating W1AW/5 simultaneously as long as they are on different modes (CW, SSB, and digital) and different bands. The bands includes warc and VHF/UHF. This means we can have a lot of stations participating! At my station I can do 160/80/40/20/15/10m on CW/SSB/Digital, but I don't have any warc or vhf/uhf antennas.
Note that our second weekend coincides with the ARRL SSB Sweepstakes contest. ARRL has said that we can use W1AW/5 in contests, but contest sponsors might request that the entry be a checklog as signing W1AW might be seen as an unfair advantage.
ARRL HQ will handle all the QSLing and all contacts will be uploaded to LOTW. They will need an ADIF log file from us from each county where W1AW/5 is activated.
Please spread the word. Also let me know if you know of anyone else I should contact, or if you would rather someone else in your club get my emails (or be removed from my announcements). I am planning on putting a calendar online (Google calendar or similar) for the different modes so that I can schedule operating times. I will just do the April one now and wait to schedule the November week until later this spring/summer.
ARRL will need to know the call signs and locations of participating stations before the event. They do not need to know all the call signs of participating operators ahead of time.
73, Torsten (Tor) Clay N4OGW
Starkville, MS
rt_clay@bellsouth.net
Special event stations educate, entertain
By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU
I like special event stations. I enjoy operating them and making contact with them. Whenever I operate WA2HOM, our club station at the Ann Arbor (MI) Hands-On Museum, one of the first things I do is to search for special event stations.
One of the reasons I enjoy operating special event stations is that it's educational. For example, on November 17, I worked W4D in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. They were commemorating the 520th anniversary of the discovery by Europeans of the island of Puerto Rico. As a result, I learned that on November 19, 1493 Christopher Columbus landed on the island, naming it San Juan Bautista in honor of Saint John the Baptist, a name that was later changed to Puerto Rico (rich port).
Working special event stations is also entertaining. Most times when you work a special event station, you can tell that they're having a good time. One time, I worked W4B, operating from the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Now, those guys were really having a great time!
How do you find special event stations? One way to find special event stations is to just tune around. Most special event stations will be operating at least a 20m phone station, so take a look at that band first. Also, consult the special event stations listings in QST or on the ARRL web site (http://www.arrl.org/special-event-stations). KE2YK also has a special events page (http://ke2yk.wordpress.com/special-event-station- events/).
In addition to working special event stations, you should consider organizing and operating one of your own. For the past two years, several members of our Rotary Club who are also amateur radio operators have operated W8P on the third weekend in February, which commemorates the founding of the Rotary Club and helps spread the word about the End Polio Now campaign (http://www.endpolio.org/). It was not only fun to do this, but I think that we helped raise awareness about polio around the world.
Whatever your reason for holding a special event, you'll want to be somewhat knowledgeable about your topic. For example, if you decide to set up a special event station at the local Rutabaga Festival, you might want to know how long they've been having the festival, how many pounds of rutabagas are produced by local farms and around the U. S., and maybe even find a couple of rutabaga recipes that you could send out to stations that work you.
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When he's not working special event stations, Dan, KB6NU enjoys building kits and working CW. For more information about his operating activities and his "No-Nonsense" series of amateur radio license study guides, go to KB6NU.Com or e-mail cwgeek@kb6nu.com.
Have a great month
December 2013 
