LATEST UPDATE – March 25th 2024 @ 1800Z
MORA Board Meeting March 23rd was a “Marathon” Session –
The MORA Board of Directors Meeting on Saturday March 23rd was a business filled three and a half hour session as Chairman Scott Henley presented an aggressive agenda of issues he hopes will help “revitalize” and grow the club moving forward.
Among the highlights were the following:
1. Promote our hobby and our club via Social Media and thru promotions in the community.
2. Restructure our meetings to make them more attractive to the membership at large. Examples include having Board Meetings start one half hour before Breakfast or Pot Luck Meetings. Members will still be encouraged to attend Board Meetings if they so desire. Resume Pot Luck Meetings and use them for training or presentation purposes. Examine what venues are available for Pot Luck Meetings.
3. Resume Local Skywarn and HIPPA Training Meetings. These were suspended during the pandemic and must be resumed.
4. Review participation in EPAC. KJ9W continues to be primary representative with KDØBUO acting as backup.
5. Create/resume fun activities such as Field Day, the annual Chili Cookoff and the September Picnic. Perhaps adding a “fox hunt” to the picnic would encourage attendance.
6. Reassemble the VE Team.
7. Review the club constitution and update accordingly.
8. Resume the “Awards” Ceremony at the annual Christmas Party. Suspended during the pandemic, this ceremony was a popular feature and needs to be revived. Based on input from club members, the awards covered everything from meritorious to humorous achievements by our members.
9. Repeater Updates: Callsign change at Duxbury, Ogilvie repeater upgrades. Encourage more monitoring and general QSO activity on the repeaters.
10. Reach out to former members to rejoin.
The next Board Meeting has not been firmly rescheduled, however it is likely to happen sometime in May.
FCC Adds Security Layer to License Database –
The Federal Communications Commission has announced the additional layer of security to its licensing database.
This additional layer will – in addition to requiring standard Username and Password entries – require anyone accessing the files to be able to receive a 6 digit verification code either by phone or email. This addition is similar to systems used by banks or other institutions where sensitive data is stored.
In a Bulletin issued by the ARRL containing a public notice from the FCC, the agency said this change will “make the system more secure. This additional layer of security will further safeguard against unauthorized access, thereby enhancing the overall integrity of information contained within the CORES system and improving the security of user data,” it read.
The Public Notice can be found in PDF format at,
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-219A1.pdf .
KDØCI Repeater Project Update – Major Equipment Upgrade Completed –
Phase Two of the KDØCI Repeater Maintenance Project at the Ogilvie Site has been successfully completed. This phase included replacement of major equipment such as the repeater, controller, UHF Radio, and VHF amplifier.
Erv Kleinschmidt, AEØKE, and Jerry Whitaker, WBØOFB, installed the new equipment and finished programming and testing it – all within a two hour timeframe during the morning of Friday March 1st.
The third and final phase of the project will be the restoration of the Ogilvie-Duxbury Skywarn Link, which has been off the air due to damaged coax cable connected to the UHF antenna at the link site. This probably will not be fixed until later this spring, and the link will also be relocated at that time.
With the completion of work at the Ogilvie site, users no longer have to identify the repeater itself as that function has been restored. The repeater is also operating at full output power, having been operating at reduced power for the past several months.
A reminder that if and when the Ogilvie Repeater is off the air, please monitor our Emergency Simplex Frequency – 146.565 MHz.
MORA Assumes Trusteeship of Duxbury Repeater –
After several years of cooperation with Kanabec Area Skywarn, the Pine County Emergency VHF Repeater at Duxbury is now officially part of the KDØCI Repeater System.
With the passing of Pat Story, WØMCQ, last May, the Duxbury Repeater was without a Trustee. Once this open trusteeship was found, the Mora Open Repeater Association acted quickly and filed the necessary application to become Duxbury Trustee. The application was approved by the Minnesota Repeater Council. A call sign change from KEØACL to the MORA Club Call Sign KDØCI is forthcoming. Pine County Emergency Management will continue to be responsible for control and maintenance of the repeater.
The Duxbury Repeater, operating at 146.910 Megaherz, has already been a partner of MORA for a number of years. Kanabec Area Skywarn in particular has been able to use the repeater for extended coverage into Pine County, and from there into Northwestern Wisconsin.
Even though the link between Ogilvie and Duxbury is off the air for now, plans are to reactivate the link at a new location early next year. Once the link reactivates, the KDØCI Repeater System will provide a critical path of communications across a large area from Mille Lacs County in Eastern Minnesota to Washburn County in Northwestern Wisconsin.
KJ9W, already Custodian of the Ogilvie Repeater, will now assume the same role for Duxbury.
MORA Website Project –
Work has resumed on updating the MORA Website. With the addition of a NEWSLETTER page to replace the old NEWS & INFORMATION page, the publication and email distribution of the MORAnnouncer Newsletter has been eliminated.
More work remains to be done before the site rebuild is finished. Due to time constraints, progress has been slow, however we try to keep the HOME and NEWSLETTER pages updated. The MORA Repeater and Tuesday Evening Net pages were updated on February 19th, and will be updated as the need arises.
Meanwhile, AEØKE has volunteered to help update the site.
Kanabec County EPAC Meetings Resumed February 13th –
For the first time since the COVID Pandemic forced a shutdown of Kanabec County EPAC, quarterly meetings have resumed.
The first meeting took place at Noon on February 13th in the County Jail Training Room.
MORA was represented at this meeting by KJ9W and, depending on his health, will continue to do so for the time being. KDØBUO has also served as MORA’s alternate rep.
EPAC is an acronym for Emergency Preparedness Advisory Committee, which is a group of representatives of various agencies who are willing and able to assist the community in the event of an emergency. MORA’s role would be to provide backup radio communications if all other forms of communications were to fail.
The next meeting has been scheduled for May 14th.
THE ARCHIVES –
A Tale of Two Groundhog Days! (2/2/2024 By KJ9W)
Ground Hog Day 1996 was a most unforgettable day. I got up late that morning facing the probability of not going to work. Oh sure, the sun was shining brightly, there was plenty of snow on the ground, the chickadees were singing, and it was 45 degrees BELOW zero!
Worried that our supply of LP Gas could liquify, I decided to stay home so I could monitor the furnace for any signs of trouble. Fortunately, nothing froze up.
Meanwhile farther north, in Tower Minnesota, an all time record low temperature of 60 degrees below zero was being set!
That was then.
Fast forward 28 years later, the Upper Midwest is basking in a lengthy period of near record warmth! In fact, except for a brief below zero cold snap in January, it may well go down in history as “the year without a winter”. With very little snowfall so far, except for a healthy two inch dose of rain in late January, it has been dry. The high temperature yesterday was 45 degrees ABOVE zero – a 90 degree turnaround from 1996!
Who would have thunk it!
Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to have a global warming panic attack. Instead, I’m going to celebrate the fact that my energy expenses are going to be much less this winter! God knows in this economy, I need all the savings I can get!
As an added bonus, with the weather as warm as it is right now, I can see me getting some much needed antenna work done – provided I’m feeling well enough to do so!
Besides, we should consider ourselves lucky! Up in Canada and Alaska it’s been very cold, courtesy of Siberia. Temperatures in central Alberta and Saskatchewan recently were as cold as -57F. It was the same in parts of Alaska with record amounts of snow to boot. That kind of cold just hasn’t made it this far south ….. yet.
So, if you’ve got some antenna work to do, now is an excellent time to get it done. After all, chances are you won’t get this kind of a break next year!
2023 MORA Christmas Party –
