K5JAW Operating Notes - 2014 Week 5 (Jan 26 - Feb 1, 2014)

On The Air: 
It's been another relatively quiet week at Station K5JAW this week, with 17 contacts logged for the week.  The vast majority of those contacts were for participation in various public service nets in Mississippi, such as the Mississippi Section Phone Net, the Delta Amateur Radio Association Net, and the Yazoo County Amateur Radio Club Net.  As a matter of fact, all of my contacts this week were in Mississippi, except for one, K4EET in Maryland.

Around the Station:
I'm proud to report that I've qualified for the ARRL Public Service Honor Roll for the month of January, 2014, and have submitted the documentation to the Mississippi ARRL Section Manager, W5XX.  The Public Service Honor Roll recognizes those Amateur Stations who are active in various aspects of public services.  Qualifying activities include participation in public service nets, actively using the National Traffic System, serving in an ARRL Field Organization volunteer appointed position, participation in short-term public service events, participation in unplanned emergency activities involving Amateur Radio operators, and hosting an automated digital traffic system, email list server, or web page related to Amateur Radio.

Many stations likely meet the monthly points total needed for PSHR qualification.  If you're involved in the activities listed above, click the ARRL Public Service Honor Roll link and report your activities to your section manager.

I'm looking forward to the coming week, as I've got a meeting scheduled with a few other Mississippi amateurs to discuss MESH networking.  I'd referenced this topic in an earlier Operating Notes, but you can find a wealth of information at www.broadband-hamnet.org.  There's a lot of potential for Amateur MESH Networking.  The possibility for linking Emergency Operations Centers, hospitals, fire stations, shelters, command posts, etc., complete with video, Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones, and file serving is a great concept that needs  further exploration in this area of Mississippi.  But first, a lot of experimentation in building systems, linking them, maintaining links, and lengthening the link distances is needed.

January Month Review
166 contacts logged
30 days of on-air activity, 1 day attending hamfest
6 new DXCC entities worked
30 States Worked
DXCC's Worked: Azores, Bahamas, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Columbia, Cuba, England, Finland, Hungary, Isle of Man, Italy, Jamaica, Lithuania, Mexico, Namibia, Poland, Puerto Rico, Venezuela 

QSL Cards Received this week
NS0D - Missouri (a #WATwitter contact from Twitter!)
N1HCE - Massachusetts
NR1D - Connecticut
K2YNY - New York
WA2BOB - New York
WJ3O - Pennsylvania
KG4ZFV - North Carolina
KK4ODQ - Virginia
K5VGS - Texas
N5ZGT - New Mexico
N6VI - California
AE7KI - Washington
KD7ATL - Nevada
K8BZ - Michigan
KC9NVN - Illinois

QSL Cards Going Out in the coming week
AK0AK
N5DSR
WQ4S
K4EET