CCARA Latest News

Welcome to CCARA

Welcome to the new ccara.net! Look around and feel free to provide any feed back.

Elections are upon us again. If you wish to vote for Officers online, you may do so by logging in and going to CCARA Officer Elections. You may also vote in person at our Dec 7th business meeting/Christmas Party.

2023 CCARA Officers

President – Mark Atwell WX8A
Vice-President – Steve Lamb W8SBL
Secretary – Sara Lamb KS8P
Treasurer – Andrew Adrian W9AMA
Director – Dave Gordley K8DEG
Director – Lee Kolodziej KC2VFX

CCARA Monthly Meeting

Check out the repeater updates on the Repeaters page for information on new receive tones and Fusion capabilities.

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Clinton County ARA’s First Annual Parks on the Air Activation at Cowan Lake State Park

The Clinton County Amateur Radio Association (ARA) recently had an exciting and successful adventure activating Cowan Lake State Park for Parks on the Air (POTA). This event brought together the club for a day of outdoor activity, camaraderie, and engaging with the beautiful natural surroundings while showcasing their radio skills. To cap off the day, the group held a club picnic, adding an extra layer of enjoyment to the event.

Hamvention

DARA hamvention in Xenia is coming up in less than a week. I hope you all have had the opportunity to go in the past and again this year CCARA is sharing a space with HARA. K8IO (Me) will be providing the trailer to haul equipment for anyone wanting to sell. And if you wish to drop off equipment to sell either at a drop off site or at the table at hamvention, here are the ground rules.

Flying with ham radio gear

Ok, so you have the opportunity to travel to some place really cool…you have to fly to get there and you want to take your rig with you…how in the world do you pack something like that? I found myself asking that exact question on a recent trip to Hawaii. I wanted to take my rig with me to do a Parks on the Air activation. Seems simple enough, right?

Field Day 2022

Another Field Day in the books. This year was a little different than previous for CCARA. For the first time we ran our operation completely on solar and battery, the exception being the logging computers and the network equipment. It was a massive success and our goal for next year will be to run completely on solar/battery for all field day equipment. We would like to say a special thanks to Lee KC2VFX and his family for hosting Field Day this year and for being the chef! We would also like to thank Tom Breckel, Clinton County EMA Director and Steve Lewis N8TFD, Ohio ARES District 4 DEC for stopping by and visiting! This year we ended up with a total of 311 contacts. 106 of those were CW, 55 were phone and 150 were digital. Our furthest contact was New Zealand on digital. Below are some stats and some pictures of the event.

Parks on the Air

Recently club members K8DEG and W9AMA went out to Stonelick State Park to activate for Parks on the Air and also enjoy some unseasonably warm early March weather in Ohio.

Skywarn Recognition Day 2021

We had a great day participating in the 2021 Skywarn Recognition Day at the NWS office in Wilmington. While we weren’t able to be in the office, we were able to be on premise. Overall we made around 45 contacts on SSB and digital.

Field Day 2021

Field Day for CCARA has never (Almost never) been thought of as a “Contest” as we use it more for a teaching/learning opportunity. OK, I will be the first to tell you, we do watch the numbers, you can’t help it.

We operated on all band 160meter – 2Meter. We operated all modes (CW, Digital, Phone) with the exception of satellite. We had 495 contacts.By our calculations we ended up with 2650 points.

CCARA Shack

Our arrangement with Caesar Creek Flea Market has ended. With that, the Shack is being emptied and will no longer be used for CCARA operations. We still have all the parts, masts, equipment, and other things available to members.

We are looking at other options for a shack location. We are excited about a couple of ideas…

New phishing attack uses Morse code to hide malicious URLs

Full Article: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-phishing-attack-uses-morse-code-to-hide-malicious-urls/ A new targeted phishing campaign includes the novel obfuscation technique of using Morse code to hide malicious URLs in an email attachment. Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail invented morse code as a way of transmitting messages across telegraph wire. When using Morse code, each letter and number is encoded as a series of dots (short sound) and dashes (long sound). Last week, a threat actor began utilizing Morse code to hide malicious URLs in their phishing form to bypass secure mail gateways and mail filters. BleepingComputer could not find any references to Morse code being used in phishing attacks in the past, making this a novel obfuscation technique The novel Morse code phishing attack After first learning of this attack from a post on Reddit, BleepingComputer was able to find numerous samples of the targeted attack uploaded to VirusTotal since February 2nd, 2021.

Radio Mobile by VE2DBE

Ever wondered what kind of coverage your radio setup provides? Well wonder no more with a free coverage map tool by VE2DBE. After creating a free account at https://www.ve2dbe.com/rmonline_s.asp, you can create coverage maps based on the technical details of your radio and antenna setup.