STARS Next Monthly Meeting

NEW The next regular STARS monthly meeting will be on March 12th, 2010. at 19:30 CST/CDT. STARS meetings are held the second Friday of each month. The meetings are held at the Midlothian Village Hall Community Room. See the "Meetings" page for more details and a map to our meeting location.

STARS VE Testing

NEW < Our next VE testing session will be the Saturday March 27th, 2010. Our VE testing sessions are held on the forth Saturday of each month. Please watch this website for any exceptions to this rule. Please arrive early if you can to avoid distrupting those taking tests. The VE testing session will start promptly at 09:00 CST/CDT. Walk-ins are welcome until 10:30 CST/CDT. See the Licensing tab above for details, location, costs, documentation, and identification requirements. The July 25th VE session will be held in the Village Hall Councel Chambers Room, instead of the Community Room.

Iron Dog Competition

STARS provides communications support using Amateur Radio for the Iron Dog Competition. See this site for details about the competition. It is a serious good time for Dog lovers. This years event is October 9th and 10th.

MS bicycle fund-raising event "Tour of the Farms"

General overview of the Illinois fund-raising event and this link is specifically directed toward radio amateur VOLUNTEERS and how they can participate.

Meeting Programs

March 12th, 2010

Emergency Communications - Part I. Learn how to leverage both Internet and radio based tools to communicate with the National weather service, spotter, and Skywarn laison nets. A variety of communications software, communications technologies, procedures, and protocols will be presented.

April 9th, 2010

Emergency Communications - Part II - A look at the hardware and software needed to use digital modes for emergency communications. We will cover how these modes might be used for field day as well.

May 14th, 2010

Antenna design and construction. Building some experimental antennas for Field Day 2010 or home use.

June 11th, 2010

Working the ellusive "Skip" zone.

April 2012

The first in a series of CMEs. The month of April is an approximation at this point, but a solar storm is anticipated to come over the Mid-West United States and have some level of impact on our power grid and communications as it did in Canada in 1989. Later in the year towards the Winter Solstace or into early 2013 a more severe solar storm is anticipated.

December 21st, 2012

No it's not an ELE, just a new beginning. It is the end of a 26,000 year cycle. More on this later.

HamFreeCycle

HamFreeCycle is a Yahoo list for licensed amateurs to exchange free equipment with other hams. You have to be licensed to get on this list. NO SPAM! NO SALES! FREE only. You can also list club hamfest in your area. It is the ham giving away the equipment responsibility to post when the equipment is no longer available, picked up or shipped. Please give your call sign when applying to the list and that your info is good on QRZ Remember we are amateurs acting in a professional manner. To join the list go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hamfreecycle. Make sure to list your call sign when signing up for the group.

Members Only Area

Our new members only area is still under construction It will ultimately contain: an opt-in announcement mailing list, an opt-in general mailing list for member discussions, web based mailing list archives, a secure on-line member directory, areas for comittee reports, and copies of all programs and presentation materials.

Make Suggestions for a Presentation or Offer to be a Presentor

Do you have an idea for a presentation for the next meeting, are you willing to makes presentation on a topic that is near and dear to your heart, or do you have ideas for or content for the web site. Then drop an email to ab9mz@arrl.net. Remember this is your club too. Participate and make a differance.

Weekly Nets

All licensed Amateur Radio Operators are welcome to check-in to our general Sunday night net at 19:00 and our weekly Skywarn net on Wednesday nights at 19:00. We have decided to run the Skywarn net year round, since bad weather can occur at any time in any season.

Chicagoland Skywarn Organization

http://aa9vi.com/wx