Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (B) To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Fri Feb 25 2022 08:45:08 DIGITAL VOICE EMERGENCY NETWORK PLANNED IN MAINE NEIL/ANCHOR: The largest United States county east of the Mississippi River is about to get its first digital amateur radio emergency service to be affiliated with the county. Jim Damron, N8TMW, has that story. JIM: There's a lot of ground to cover in Aroostook [pronounced: uh-ROO- stick] County, Maine, which at more than 6600 square miles, has a lot going on when disaster strikes. A group of amateur radio operators calling themselves the Caribou Emergency Amateur Radio Service are now working to establish formal emergency communications structure in that rural county with D-STAR. The idea is to connect hams with one another as well as local and state agencies using that digital voice mode. Emergency response is already provided from the Aroostook Amateur Radio Association and ARES, but Caribou's response will primarily come alongside those of county agencies using D-STAR. Caribou announced on its Facebook page earlier this month that it is working to establish the first D-STAR repeater in northern Maine. Meanwhile, T.H. Merritt, KM4TJI, the group's president and cofounder, told a Bangor, Maine newspaper that the group has already met with local fire, police and emergency medical services. He said that the Caribou group is being created based on his experience as an emergency radio operator in Florida and has a membership of 17. That is expected to grow as more people sign up and begin studying for their ham radio licenses. For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Jim Damron, N8TMW. (BANGOR DAILY NEWS) ** AMATEURS ENJOY TWO QSO PARTIES IN ONE NEIL/ANCHOR: What's better than one QSO party? Try two that are going on in the Carolinas. Kevin Trotman, N5PRE, has the details. KEVIN: In the United States, North and South Carolina are teaming up for a two-QSO-party weekend: On Saturday, February 26th, hams in South Carolina's 46 counties will be chasing contacts. There is a new category for hams operating portable from temporary stations, activating in one or more counties. Expedition stations may move from county to county.' On Sunday, February 27th, it's North Carolina's turn and hams will be chasing contacts in that state's 100 counties. There are bonus points for working the NC4QP bonus station as well as the callsigns N4D, N4U, N4K, N4E -- all the stations having suffixes that spell "DUKE" in honor of Duke University, the pride of North Carolina. For details on both QSO parties, see the text version of this week's Newsline script at arnewsline.org. [FOR PRINT ONLY, DO NOT READ: https://ncqsoparty.org/ http://scqso.com/ ] From beautiful Aiken, South Carolina, this is Kevin Trotman, N5PRE, for Amateur Radio Newsline. ** HAM RADIO UNIVERSITY WORKSHOPS NOW ONLINE NEIL/ANCHOR: If there was a workshop you wanted to attend at the virtual Ham Radio University conference, but missed it, now's your chance to make up for lost time. Stephen Kinford, N8WB, tells us how. STEPHEN: Held on January 8th as a virtual conference, Ham Radio University may be over but it's not gone. Videos of the day-long event have been uploaded to YouTube where any number of workshops are available for viewing. Whether you couldn't attend HRU or weren't able to get to all the workshops you wanted, the HRU YouTube channel makes it easy to see what you missed. In addition to the introductory classes for DXing and the basics of HF operating, presenters also cover contesting, the various logging programs out there, Parks on the Air, the HF digital modes and QRP operations. As well as several other topics covered in the videos, an assortment of workshops from previous years complete the channel. Ham Radio University played host to the ARRL New York City / Long Island Section Convention. Find a link to the channel in the text for this week's newscast script at arnewsline.org [PRINT ONLY, DO NOT READ: www.youtube.com/c/HamRadioUniversityNLI/videos] For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Stephen Kinford, N8WB. (HRU) --- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32 * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (954:895/7) .