SCHH ARC “This & That” — September 2, 2025

The Weekly Newsletter of the Sun City Hilton Head Amateur Radio Club

Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW / Editor

Membership Meeting This Thursday!

Program from Frank Pollino, K2OS About His 432 MHz WAS

“The Quest for 432 MHz WAS” will be presented by Frank Pollino, K2OS to kickoff our September 4th Membership Meeting in the Bayside Room at the Lakehouse. The presentation will begin at 7 PM. It will be followed by our general membership meeting.

When Frank achieved Worked All States on 432 MHz at his Rochester, NY QTH, he became only the 6th ham to qualify for that award! He’ll tell us how he did it and show us some photos of his equipment and antennas that helped to make it possible. He has provided presentations and Elmers at past meetings and they are always informative and educational.

The membership meeting will include updates on all aspects of the club as well as plans for the upcoming open house at our storage area and how we will approach October’s Chartered Club Fair. We’ll get an update on Emergency Preparedness and our ARC’s efforts to get the Jasper County Emergency Management System’s ham radio repeater back into legal operation. We’ll hear about the club’s recent POTA activation at Lake Warren State Park and begin the process of nominating and electing club officers for 2026.

All in all, this shapes up to be a great meeting! Come out and be a part of it!!!

10-Meter SSB Net Tonight!

If you can, please make a note to get on HF tonight and check into our club’s 10-Meter SSB net on 28.450 MHz at 8 PM.

Frank Pollino, K2OS will be our Net Control Station.

SCHH ARC Want Ad of the Week: Mentoring/Elmers Coordinator

Our club is more successful when more and more members contribute. Ask anyone who has given time and talent to our club and you’ll most likely hear that the member’s ARC experience became richer by doing so.

Anything that a member does for our club is a PLUS.

Please consider volunteering to help. Contact Bob McCormick, KD8IH, kd8ih@earthlink, to volunteer or to get answers to your questions about this opportunity.

Coordinator for Mentoring/Elmers

Here’s a great way to help our newer hams (hey, and often, more experienced hams as well) by identifying operating, technical, and exploratory topics for which our members may have limited or no experience.   You would help to identify these topics, seek out presenters, or even lead sessions if you wish.  Previous examples have included programming handhelds, using antenna analyzers and operating FT8.  The sky’s not even the limit as areas such as satellite communications are “on the table”.

Have You Heard About FreeDV? AI4HH Says Yes!

Last week’s “This & That” included a write-up on FreeDV. At least one of our members, Ron Frick (AI4HH) not only was already aware of FreeDV but also has had a FreeDV QSO or two…or more. Ron sent two QSLs that confirmed his QSOs from two or three years ago, including the one below.

Well done, Ron! And thanks for sharing proof of your success! Nice signal report too!! Were you running the “full gallon” back then?

Storage Area Open House: September 13th!

Come one, come all, to the SCHH ARC Storage Room Open House to be held from 10 AM to noon on Saturday September 13^th.  For those who may not know, the club maintains a storage room for the equipment that we use at events such as Field Day or POTA activations.  This is an opportunity for all our members to see what we have and where we store it.

Many members may not know where the storage room is. The address is 26 Okatie Maintenance Yard RD, Bluffton SC 29909.

If you go out the gate near Lake Somerset, turn right onto Route 170 and then look for a sign that includes “Okatie Maintenance”. Turn right after you see that sign and then go straight. You’ll see a sign on your left for the SCHH RV and boat storage area…keep going straight. You’ll see a large water storage tank and a water tower ahead of you and then to your right you will see a small white building. Our storage room is in that building.

Over time, we have collected donated equipment from members and other local hams. Some equipment is useful to the club on Field Days or POTA outings, for example. Other equipment may not be in perfect working order or is not useful to the club.  In the past, we have turned over excess equipment that is operable to the Okatie Repeater Association so that it could be sold at the Savannah Hamfest.  We have posted an inventory list at the club web site.  Soon, we’ll update that list to identify what is excess and establish a suggested price again with the intention that proceeds would go to the Okatie Repeater Association.

Thanks to Bob Officer, WA6WAY and Bob McCormick, KD8IH for organizing this event.

Another POTA Achievement for K2ITZ

Jack Frisch, K2ITZ has done it again. He is well on his way to achieving contacts with 5,000 unique parks. Along the way, Jack has garnered Parks on the Air (POTA) Worked All States and recently was recognized for POTA QSOs with stations in 55 DX entities.

Looks like there may be a typo on the certificate’s date.

Way to go, Jack! On to 100 entities!!

Do you have a certificate that you’d like to share with our readers? Please email a JPEG or PDF of it to Harve, KB3FW (hnat463@gmail.com).

Use Every Tool In Your Toolbox, Right??

SCHH ARC Nets

On Being a SCHH ARC Net Control: My Story

by Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW

Sometimes things just come your way. A door opens and you decide to walk in. Many times, good things happen only because you walked through that door and did not make an about-face. Most of us have had such instances in our lives.

At times, there are disappointments after we “jump in”…the “water” could be too cold or too turbulent.

Over time though, the saying “When a door closes, another window opens” comes to mind here and many times applies. I may be paraphrasing but I hope you follow me.

You have to decide if you can be a part of the solution or that you’ll just “stand by” when you are asked to help…thinking that someone else will do it, or that you can’t do it for any number of plausible reasons, or whatever. The timing might not be right…maybe next month, next year. We’ve all been there at one time or another, I do believe. I know that I have.

Being asked…that is how I became a Net Control Station for our SCHH ARC nets.

Russ Treadwell, N1ZK (SK, RIP) asked me to be the Wednesday night Net Control Station when he began his battle with cancer.

It was obvious to me that Russ needed help and that our club needed help.

I said “Yes” and that I would help knowing full well that Russ was in my opinion a super net control operator and intellect. The breadth of that man’s knowledge was awesome.

The first time that I “ran the net”, it was definitely new territory especially knowing the size of the shoes that I had to fill.

I continue to grow into being a net control operator. I won’t ever be Russ Treadwell…no one can. I do the best that I can and continue being a net control station because our club needs operators to cover our nets, which meet twice a week on 2m FM and once a month on 10m SSB.

We have three members of our club who are currently on the net control schedule: me (Harve, KB3FW), Frank Pollino (K2OS), and Rick Garan (WA8NLX). We are also truly fortunate to have Bob Officer (WA6WAY) to fill in from time to time when needed without missing a beat.

Our club’s nets are great. They would be even greater with one or more additional net control stations: More voices, more perspectives, wider ranged knowledge base, etc. It is all good!

Our bench is not deep and it could really benefit from being expanded by one or two interested operators.

Will you be one of them?

Can you help? At least give it a try?

Please email me (hnat463@gmail.com) or call me (267.252.0166). Between me, Frank, Rick, and Bob, we will get you started and help you along the way.

Thank you for your consideration.

73 from Harve / KB3FW

Net News

Please check-in to our nets and let others know how you are doing and what you are doing in ham radio and in other areas of your life.

The club is attempting to get the 147.06 repeater back into legal operation. We have reached out to Jasper County Emergency Management to see if we can help with this situation. We are still awaiting a response.

It is unclear how long it will take to resolve this situation. Our ARC will remain proactive as we try to restore this important piece of ham radio infrastructure in the Low Country.

If you look up KK4ONF on QRZ.com, you can confirm the current issue. For now, the .060 KK4ONF machine should be considered “off limits” for anything other than monitoring.

Weekly SCHH ARC Nets

Sunday’s Net (8 PM) operates on 147.550 MHz simplex on the last two Sundays of the calendar month. The Sunday net will be on the KE4HAM repeater (147.135 + with a tone of 91.5 on both the input and the output) on all other Sundays of the calendar month. Check-in can be done even if you don’t have a radio up and running via EchoLink by using the link KE4HAM-L when the net is on SIMPLEX and KE4HAM-R when the net is on the SCHH Okatie Repeater.

Wednesday‘s Net (8 PM) will operate until further notice on the KE4HAM Okatie Repeater (147.135 + with a tone of 91.5 on both input and output). The net can be accessed via EchoLink using the link KE4HAM-R.

Next 10m SSB Net: TONIGHT!!!!
Tuesday, September 2nd @ 8 PM on 28.450 MHz SSB.

Net Control Stations and EchoLink Coordinator

Thanks to our regular 2m Net Controls: Frank Pollino, K2OS; Rick Garan, WA8NLX; and Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW. Can we add you to this list? Please contact Harve, KB3FW if you want to give it a try!

Thanks to Frank, K2OS for also being the net control station of our monthly 10m SSB net. If anyone wants to be another Net Control for the 10m net, please let Harve, KB3FW know. You can give it a try to see how you like it!

Thanks to Bob Officer, WA6WAY, for being an alternate Net Control Station and overseer of our KE4HAM repeater.

Thanks to Ron Frick, AI4HH, for working diligently to keep EchoLink up and running for our nets.

Net Control Schedule:

— Tuesday, September 2nd @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (28.450 MHz SSB).

— Wednesday, September 3rd @ 8 PM: Rick Garan, WA8NLX (KE4HAM Okatie Repeater).

— Sunday, September 7th @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (KE4HAM Okatie Repeater).

— Wednesday, September 10th @ 8 PM: Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW (KE4HAM Okatie Repeater).

— Sunday, September 14th @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (KE4HAM Okatie Repeater).

— Wednesday, September 17th @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (KE4HAM Okatie Repeater).

SCHH ARC Net Reports:

Thanks to ALL who checked in to our SCHH ARC nets last week.

Last week’s check-ins and traffic:

— Wednesday, August 27th 2m Repeater Net: KE4HAM/K2OS. QNI=9, QTC=0. The screenshot below shows the net report received from Frank, K2OS.

— Sunday, August 31st 2m Simplex Net: KE4HAM/WA6WAY, AI4HH, KJ4BSM, K2ITZ, KB3FW, AA4KK, WB1DXN. QNI=7, QTC=0.

Note: QNI = Number of Check-ins to the net, including Net Control; QTC = Traffic handled (Radiograms).

Other Operating

Daily —  Monitor the KE4HAM Repeater: 147.135 MHz + with a tone of 91.5. You may get some good DX spots from time to time and other members may be there if you want to connect/chat. If you are listening to the repeater, feel free to announce your call and that you are “monitoring”!