Category: Club News

CCARA Applies for LPFM License

The Clinton County Amateur Radio Association has filed for an FCC low power FM (LPFM) license in Wilmington Ohio.  Low power FM licenses are specifically non-commercial and must serve an educational or public service need, focused on local community. The Clinton County Amateur Radio Association (CCARA) has been in existence since 1962 and is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The group has provided trained radio operators, technical education, free FCC license exams and service to the local community since that early beginning. We look forward to adding this new chapter to our 60 years of service to the community.  We hope for a speedy grant of our FCC permit and will be operating on 95.9 on the FM dial. 

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.

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.

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.

Wilmington Weather Spotter Upcoming Training

Go to: https://www.weather.gov/iln/spottertrainingschedule NWS WILMINGTON OHIO2021 VIRTUAL SPOTTER TRAINING SCHEDULEClasses are free, open to the public, and require registration via the links provided in each course description. Each class lasts about 2 hours and is led by a National Weather Service meteorologistswho will discuss techniques and safety for severe weather spotting. Once you attend a class,you will receive instructions for filling out online registration forms to officially becomea trained spotter and can report severe weather to your NWS office. At this time, there are no in-person spotter training courses scheduled for the 2021 spring season. Spotter Webinar 1: Friday, February 19, 2021 (1 PM – 3 PM): Spotter Webinar 2: Wednesday, February 24, 2021 (7 PM – 9 PM):  Spotter Webinar 3: Thursday, March 4, 2021 (7 PM – 9 PM):  Spotter Webinar 4: Monday, March 8, 2021 (6 PM – 8 PM):  Spotter Webinar 5: Tuesday, March 23, 2021 (6 PM – 8 PM):  Spotter Webinar 6: Saturday, March 27, 2021 (12 PM – 2 PM): 

Monthly Meeting Feb. 4th At 7:30PM

The next monthly meeting is Feb 4 at 7:30PM At the Boyd Cancer Center (Right across the street from CMH Hospital) After the meeting we are going to have a brief overview of the NanoVNA and the new NanoVNA SSA (Version 2) Masks are required.

Winter Field Day 2021

We will be participating in Winter Field Day again this year. I am just sorry we cannot all meet in person like we did last year, but things are looking up. We will again have Live stats on this website, check in often.

If you are a member of CCARA and use N3FJP or N1MM+ for logging, you can check out our instructions for live reporting at http://ccara.net/live-contest-results/.

CCARA Year in review 2020

Although 2020 was a year filled with uncertainty and cancellations, the club did pretty well. We started the year strong with a new shack and many planned activities.