[K3CAL] Fwd: [WA3NAN] Fwd: From T-MARC -- September 2015 Coordination Report & Meeting Notice

[Wa4prr]

FYI.  Here is a report I received from the Goddard ARC.  73,

Ron Byzet / WA4PRR - Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Bob McCown <bob.mccown at gmail.com>
> Date: October 4, 2015 10:28:51 PM EDT
> To: "Thoman, Bruce E. (GSFC-4530)" <bruce.e.thoman at nasa.gov>
> Cc: "wa3nan at lists.nasa.gov" <wa3nan at lists.nasa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [WA3NAN] Fwd: From T-MARC -- September 2015 Coordination Report & Meeting Notice
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> This message traffic is of, by and for members and friends
> of the NASA Goddard Amateur Radio Club (GARC) and WA3NAN.
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> FYI All:
> 
> I attended the TMARC Meeting at the Howard County Fairgrounds this
> morning on behalf of GARC.  As info, the meeting was held during the
> annual CARA Hamfest, which was held despite the recent several days of
> heavy rain.  There was no actual rain this morning although the day
> was still gray and cloudy.  There were several rows of tailgate
> sellers.  There was discussion (as usual) about how scarce good
> hamfests are becoming.  The officers of CARA at the event today made a
> very strong commitment that they DO intend to continue the hamfest at
> the Howard County Fairgrounds next year and for the foreseeable
> future.
> 
> On a related note, there was discussion in the TMARC meeting that the
> Northern Virginia group suffered fairly large losses at their hamfest
> this past March, where TMARC held its Spring meeting, and that hamfest
> is likely NOT to be held in 2016, so TMARC is looking for alternative
> locations for a spring meeting in 2016.
> 
> In TMARC business:  AARL has announced they are changing both the
> printing company and the format of the Repeater Directory (for which
> TMARC supplies local info).  The new format will be arranged on its
> first sort totally geographically rather than separated out by band,
> which is expected to be more useful for travellers.
> 
> TMARC is entertaing the idea of assigning UHF repeaters in the 440 -
> 441 MHz portion of the 70 Cm band, which is presently reserved for
> control and link channels.  Taking into account current assignments,
> there would still be 7 new repeater channel pairs made available by
> this move.   Coordination would be necessary with the adjacent
> regional coordinating groups in Pennsyvania and to the south of the
> TMARC territory.  The TMARC Board is seeking comments on this
> possibility, in view of potential interference to users such as the
> ATV groups,
> 
> Advocates of the concept of 'Mesh' linking of digital transmissions
> have inquired whether TMARC would coordinate frequency use for such
> 'mesh' operations, which are usually being conducted in various bands
> above 2 GHz.  Sometimes the operations are in ham allocations and
> sometimes they are operated as Part 15 unlicensed operations, and
> several of the bands are shared allocations between amateur and
> commercial users.  Using ham authorizations can allow much higher
> power levels than the unlicensed approach.  The consensus of the TMARC
> Board, and also of the 20 or so assembled members at the Oct. 4
> meeting, is than TMARC should NOT attempt to coordinate these
> operations because of the mixed-type use, the very high mobility of
> the equipment and nodes, ant the potential use of these systems to
> link into the internet (for browsing, etc, more than just control or
> audio transmission) which was stated to be not permitted by Part 97.
> 
> The present slate of TMARC officers was re-elected by acclamation
> since no nominations were forthcoming for other candidates.
> 
> The subject was raised of interference in the 2 M band caused by DoD
> tethered aerostat surveillance radars operating in the high band from
> sites near Aberdeen, MD. It was stated that ham representatives have
> contacted the DoD operators of those units and were told that DoD has
> no authorization to operate on ham frequencies, does not do so, and
> the transmitting equipment frequencies are 'clean', controlled so as
> NOT to transmit in the ham band.  Of course this does not prevent
> mixing with other signals causing energy to end up in the 2 M band.
> TMARC will work on documenting the phenomena which are occuring,
> including audio recordings of the characteristic sound of this
> interference and make the info available on the TMARC website, so that
> there is an authoritative source of info when ham users complain of
> the interference.
> 
> Regards,  Bob McCown  VP GARC
> bob.mccown at gmail.com    (301)  908-0283
> 10/4/15
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 10/3/15, Thoman, Bruce E. (GSFC-4530) <bruce.e.thoman at nasa.gov> wrote:
>> --------------------------------------------------------------
>> This message traffic is of, by and for members and friends
>> of the NASA Goddard Amateur Radio Club (GARC) and WA3NAN.
>> --------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> 
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