[W8MWA] New ham to the area... and possibly an idea?

[Bob West]

All, (or in Texan, "All Y'all"!!)

As I recall, one of the topics brought up at the last meeting was 
the availablity of a DMR-ready repater for a deep-discount price.

One person was telling me at WV State Convention that they had just
bought one of those for their group. I don't recall who, though. 

This might be a good thing to pursue.

we have some folks who tinker with Raspberry Pi and/or Arduino who 
have worked on D-Star nodes. It might be interesting to do the similar
development for DMR.. and, dare I dream, of a DMR-to-D-Star bridge?

Just something to think about.

Josh,

Welcome to the area!!

There are two active clubs in Monongalia County, one in Marion
County, and one in Harrison County. There is also a Central WV ARA.
We also have some folks trying to revive the dormant WVU ARC.
There are a few "non-club groups" around the area as well. 

We just had our WV State Amateur Radio Convention at Jackson's Mill
with representation from the ARRL Roanoke Division, the state level,
our new WV ARRL SM, and a keynote speaker from ARRL HQ.

There was a VE session, an ARES meeting, a NTS Nets meeting, and a
DX Forum. We even had a guy show us how to make a 5 meter dipole from
a pair of aluminum crutches.

In September here we have a monster Marathon where both clubs will work
together to provide communications support.

Also, be advised we have two weekly lunch events in
Morgantown: Taco Tuesday and Taco Thursday. These are informal non-club
lunch gatherings and everyone is welcome. Just some folks having lunch
and yakking about whatever.


Cheers,
...Bob West WA8YCD
Think outside of the box? Dude! I've been outside so long I have forgotten what was actually IN the box in the first place!


Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2015 01:48:59 -0400
From: wvunderground at gmail.com
To: w8mwa at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [W8MWA] New ham to the area... and possibly an idea?

I'll be moving to the Bruceton Mills area in the next few weeks and maybe look forward to joining this club at the next meeting.  I haven't been to active on the radio or the local club where I live now for some time.  You would have to blow the dust of the finals on the local repeater where I live now as no one uses it anymore.  The club dwindled down to no one due to problems within the club so another reason why everyone lost interest.

Is the w8mwa club a good sized club?  Don't really see many stats on current memebers on the website. Also looking at the website I did notice a small problem.  If you drop the www. off the front of the url and only type in w8mwa.com it takes you to a server page and not the club website.  Should be an easy fix with whomever hosts the site.  Also I seen on a previous topic of how hard it was to contact anyone without making email addresses public.  There is a plugin out there for wordpress which the site runs that may be of help.  Can contact anyone in the group but not give out an email address.  
https://wordpress.org/plugins/pta-member-directory/ 
If yall need help with the website I'm pretty versed in Wordpress.

Now.... I have been toying with the idea of trying to get a DMR repeater on the air after I get moved and settled in.  DMR is a digital mode like D-Star.  There aren't many in West Virginia and it would be the first in the northern part of the area.  I'm looking at connecting it to the dmr-marc network which connects to worldwide talkgroups and local talksgroups via an internet connection at the repeater site.  Would also be nice to get other local clubs in on this and have a regional talk group for West Virginia or just the surrounding counties of the club for an always on link sorta like the hamtalk system but all digital.  This would hopefully bring more repeater activity to the area and maybe get people talking more.
You can read more here and see all of the current repeaters.....
http://www.dmr-marc.net/
Also Norcal has a stream you can listen to to get an idea of what dmr sounds like.  
http://norcaldmr.org/
Now the big question.... is there enough interest in new tech in the club for an idea like this to get off the ground?

Josh
KC8TAI


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