RAC Bulletin 110604

RAC Ontario Section Bulletin for June 4, 2011
NATIONAL NEWS
ONTARIO SECTION NEWS
1. OPN Interim Manager
James Davidson, VE3TPZ, has offered his services as a temporary Net
Manager for the Ontario Phone Net, effective June 1. James will
continue in this role until a permanent successor is appointed.
Please join me in welcoming James to this post.
-- Glenn Killam VE3GNA, Ontario Section Traffic Manager
ITEMS OF INTEREST
2. AMSAT Field Day
Field Day 2011 runs from 1800 UTC June 25 to 2100 UTC June 26. The
AMSAT Field Day competiton encourages the use of analog and digital
amateur satellites to make contacts. The exchange is the same as for
regular Field Day contacts. Note that only ONE contact is allowed on
each single channel FM satellite. This restriction includes the
International Space Station. A PDF of the complete rules, including
scoring information, is at tinyurl.com/amsatfd2011
-- AMSAT News Service
3. The Adventures of Zack and Max
Icom America has produced a series of comic books based on amateur
radio for youngsters. Titled "The Adventures of Zack and Max," they
follow the adventures of the two teen hams with stories designed to
provide the reader with some basic information about ham radio, its
history, its applications, and its relevance in the world today. So
far there are seven issues, along with matching coloring books for
the younger set. They can be downloaded in PDF format at
tinyurl.com/hamcomics
-- Amateur Radio Newsline
4. FEMA Administrator Calls Amateur Radio "The Last Line of Defense"
In an FCC forum on earthquake communications preparedness, U.S.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate
praised Amateur Radio, saying:
"During the initial communications out of Haiti, volunteers using
assigned frequencies that they are allocated, their own equipment,
their own money, nobody pays them, were the first ones oftentimes
getting word out in the critical first hours and first days as the
rest of the systems came back up ... I think that there is a tendency
because we have done so much to build infrastructure and resiliency
in all our other systems, we have tended to dismiss that role 'When
Everything Else Fails.' Amateur Radio oftentimes is our last line of
defense."
Fugate observed that despite all efforts, public service
communications will fail, and a strong Amateur Radio community is
essential. In his words, "most of the time they're going be bored
... But when you need Amateur Radio, you really need them."
-- ARRL Web