Editor’s Comments

As the Christmas season comes upon us, hurricane season leaves. As the holidays bring happiness for many, there are some still recovering from the latter. Though this hurricane season was well below the predicted by the “experts”, we saw how just one can cause damage that will take years to recover from the fury unleashed by Mother Nature. Called a “thousand year event” by some, it shows that something as devastating as one storm can decimate an area. Even though we have been bypassed by “the big one” for many years, as in North Carolina it could happen here at any time.

While referring to the weather, I heard one amateur in one of the traffic nets say he had 19 inches of snow on the ground the week before Thanksgiving. Is that a forecast of things to come? The one who knows isn’t telling, but it might be wise to go over your “go kits”, look at supplies that are on hand and stock up, and begin to pay attention to the weather forecasts. Unless you live on a major thoroughfare or have a politician living down the road from you, snow removal might take a few days. Keep those tanks full and batteries charged!

If you haven’t heard, there is a new “game” in amateur radio that revolves around traffic handling. Called the “Treasure Hunt”, it is an idea that comes out in the NTS Newsletter put out monthly from the ARRL. You don’t get the newsletter? It’s free and all you need to do is go on the ARRL website and sign up. Every other month, at this time, a new question comes out in the newsletter. The question in November was, “during a NTS net which station does NCS call first when sending stations off to pass traffic?” You then send the answer to a station listed, in the radiogram format, and if you are correct, then you will get another question and another person to send the answer to. All by radiogram. Any mode can be used to send the radiograms, I use CW, and you’ll usually get the answer on the Delaware Traffic Net, or by telephone. It’s fun and you learn message handling.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a joyous and prosperous new year!