Here's What's Happening in JTRG!

03/13/12-Congratulations New Hams
It gives me great pleasure to announce our newest Ham Radio operators who recently passed their exams at the Palm Beach Gardens Fire Station.  They Are:

KK4HGR-  Gregory Bolen		KK4HOR-  Mason Turner
KK4HOS-  Michael Patrick		KK4HOT-  Nicholas Patrick
KK4HOU-  Michael Pallidino		KK4HOV-  Richard Invite Jr.
KK4HOW-  Dwight Hangers		KK4HOX-  Arthur Picots Jar
KK4HOY-  Arthur Picotte		KK4HPA-  Arman Bayik
KK4HPB-  Michael Wilson		KK4HPC-  Thomas Wilson
KK4HPD-  Bruce Hays		KK4HPE-  Ken Brockert
KK4HPF-  Evan Cole		KK4HPG-  Brock Williams
KK4HPH-  Greg Timmer		KK4HPI-  Dominick Avallone
KK4HPJ-  Harold Avallone		KK4ENJ-  Chris Anderson (General)

Also a big thanks to:
      W4JKJ-Kevin Jackson, ARRL Instructor/VE
      W4WR-Warren Rothberg VE
      W2DV-Peter Smith-Johannsen VE
      KM4EF-Tim McDow VE
      KV4MS-Mike Stowe VE
      KA4EZY-Mike Goad VE
for assisting with the exam sessions.

73,
Bert AG4BV, ARRL Instructor/VE

02/04/12-2012 Jupiter Jubilee
JTRG hosted a booth at the 2012 Jupiter Jubilee! A very special thanks to Bert Moreschi, Bob Purrinson, Tim Siegert, Mike Stowe, Kevin Jackson, David Fowler and Jeff Beals for staffing the booth. We had a pair of HF rigs setup along with a Tarheel and S943 vertical to make some contacts and demonstrate Amateur Radio. We had plenty of information to pass out and also extended class invitations to those who expressed the interest. All in all, a very good turn-out! Good times and good food at the Jubilee as well!

01/01/12-Happy 30th Anniversary JTRG!!!
2011 was a good year for bringing New Hams into the hobby and upgrading licensed Hams.
Here are the 2011 results:
      47 - passed the Technician Class Exam
      17 - upgrades to General Class
      6 - upgrades to Extra Class

Here are the totals since we started conducting exam sessions in 2001:
      416 - New Hams
      114 - Upgrades to General and Extra Class
      24 -- Passed the Morse Code Exam

Congratulations to all the new Hams, those who upgraded, our dedicated VE Team, the Palm Beach Gardens Fire Department, the American Red Cross for their hospitality and the news media for helping to advertise our exam sessions.

In 2012 we have committed ourselves to bringing more New Hams into the hobby and upgrading those who are currently licensed. We all hope that no disasters occur but, if they do Ham Radio Operators will be ready to assist.

11/19/11-REPEATER ANTENNAS
Hello All,
Today the dual band antenna was changed out to a separate VHF and a separate UHF antenna. The site is at the Marriott in Palm Beach Gardens which will be used for the 146.625 back up repeater and the main 444.225 repeater. Both repeaters are Pl'd at 110.0.

With the help of Jerry N4GKI and Jim KD4JSF, we accomplished the mission. These repeaters will help to serve the community for many years to come.
73-Bert AG4BV

11/04/11-JTRG Annual Meeting
Hello All,

At our JTRG Annual Meeting a new slate of 2012 Club Officers were voted in along with a JTRG BOD member and the dues for Club 2012 will remain the same at $25.00.

The new slate of Officers for 2012 will be:

Congratulations to all and the best of luck in 2012!
The JTRG BOD member voted in is Tim McDow-KM4EF and will serve a 5 year term.
Congratulations to Tim!

Notice:For those who have not paid their club dues, we will be purging the JTRG Yahoo site soon. Please renew your dues to prevent yourself from being removed off this group listing.

10/06/11-New Hams!
It gives me great pleasure to welcome our newest Ham Radio Operators into the wonderful world of Amateur Radio. These twenty-four new Hams recently attended a weekend class in West Palm Beach at the American Red Cross headquarters. They are:

	KK4ENE-Joseph Fox		KK4ENF-Earlene Reid
	KK4ENG-Mine Degandemir		KK4ENH-Sandra Tomlins
	KK4ENI-Richard Nowak		KK4ENJ-Chris Anderson
	KK4ENK-Adam Anderson		KK4ENL-William Anderson
	KK4ENM-Karen Anderson		KK4ENN-Yolanda Kennedy
	KK4ENO-Ruth Haggerty		KK4ENP-Tracy Hamlin
	KK4ENQ-David Ryan Jr		KK4ENR-Amanda Nelson
	KK4ENS-Yandy Mirabal		KK4ENT-Shauna Graham
	KK4ENU-John VanSickle		KK4ENV-John Kolb Jr
	KK4ENW-Nikolaos Markis		KK4ENX-Davide Carbone
	KK4ENY-Jean Hellquist		KK4ENZ-Calvin Newton
	KK4EOA-Jackie Turner		KK4EOB-Karen Kingsmill

73,
   Albert Moreschi AG4BV
   President JTRG
   PBC ARES North EC
   ARRL Instructor/ VE
   ag4bv@jtrg.org

10/02/11-Technician Class
Hello All,
This weekends class/exam session at the American Red Cross was a huge success. With the help of Kevin Jackson-W4JKJ ARRL Instructor/VE, Mike Stowe-KV4MS ARRL VE, Jeff Beals-WA4AW ARRL VE, David Fowler-K4DLF ARRL VE, Darrell Null-KK5IT ARRL VE, Mike Alauskas-AJ4PN ARRL VE, Joseph Novak-K4OVK ARRL VE and the folks at the American Red Cross for allowing us to us their facilities, there are now 24 new Amateur Radio Operators looking forward to get on the air.
Congratulations to all of you who attended the class and passed the exam. A big thanks to our Instructor's and VE Team on this successful session.
For more information on future classes, exam sessions and upcoming events visit http://training.jtrg.org. For questions, comments or information, myself and the others will be here to assist you.
Best Regards,
Albert Moreschi-AG4BV
ARRL Instructor/VE

09/18/11- Palm Beach Perspective Interview
For those of you who missed the airing of the interview that Jim Stevenson and myself had with WJNO, you can find it linked on the JTRG website.
Your feedback is appreciated.
73
Bert AG4BV

09/17/11- JTRG QSL CARDS
HI Everyone,
I want to bring everyone up to speed, we have received a few more cards from our Lighthouse event also Kevin has activated us on eqsl and I just finished over 30 contacts thru eqsl. I have not printed any cards from Eqsl that would not be cost effective for the club to bear at this time. Also Kevin has given me the 2011 Peanut Island event QSL cards we receive around 30 cards from that event and I now have them in the book for everyone to see.

I have thus far received $3.00 in cash donation from the Lighthouse event thru the QSL cards $1.00 has already been turned in, I will bring the rest at our next meeting for the treasurer to deposit.

Our QSL books will be at all our meetings & events for everyone to enjoy !

Andrea-AJ4PW

09/17/11- Adopt-A-Highway Pickup
Hello All,
What a fantastic morning for one of our last trash pick ups of 2011 and an impressive turnout with 12 volunteers. Free Tee Shirts, donuts, coffee and ice water were given out during the event. A huge THANKS to those who came out and helped to keep our adopted stretch of highway the most beautiful in the county.
They are:

08/21/11- ILLW Jupiter Lighthouse Activation

The radio club had their first Jupiter Lighthouse Event this weekend. We want to thank Kevin W4JKJ & Mike KV4MS for spear heading this event. Mike was very kind to let us use his RV for a station and it made it so "much" more comfortable for this overnight event.

I want to also thank the operators who came out to help too many to name and the visitors who just came by to say hi. It meant a lot for us to see you and support us.

I believe we were just short of 300 contacts for this event and with the band conditions being what they were I think we did a great job.

I know we are going to receive most of these contact's QSL cards very soon. We will send our new beautiful QSL club card picture taken by our very own Tim McDow and we will use these QSL cards for all of our events as our official club QSL card.

05/29/11- License Exam
KK4CFT Matthew Beers Technician Class
KK4CFU Carl Volk Technician Class
KJ4AGV Tim Siegert Extra Class is now AK4IR

Congratulations to our new hams and to Tim for passing his Extra Class exam with his new call sign AK4IR

A big thanks to all the VE's who assisted in the exam session. They are:
     Tim McDow KM4EF
     Darrell Null, KK5IT
     Ellis Baird, AI4MO
     Glen Maltese, AJ4OK
     Andrea Kola, AJ4PW
     Lee Pennington, K4LJP

05/29/11 EchoLink Service Restored

Hello All,
FYI, Echolink is back up and running on the Jupiter Farms CERT repeater on UHF 444.400 Mhz Pl 110.9.
Thanks to the generous donation from Bob KF2GQ of a PC Echolink is back on the air. After a lightning strike took out the old PC at Kevin's W4JKJ house a couple of months ago you can also hear the infamous voice of the weather lady as she gives you the latest up to date weather in our area and can now hear those long distance voices as they log into our repeater by means of Echolink.
A big thanks to Bob and Kevin for getting it back up on the air in our neighborhood.

05/29/11 Peanut Island-FL479S Activation

The 2011 Special Event W4K on Peanut Island is now concluded and it was a huge success for contacts. Many Ham Radio Operators made contact with Kevin W4JKJ during the event and will be receiving a QSL card in the mail as soon as we can process them.
For all of our club members who were not able to attend the event, we will be back in 2012. The folks at the Palm Beach Maritime Museum are pleased with our JTRG Ham Radio Operators operating from their facilities during the Memorial Day weekend and welcome us back next year. We will hope for more radio operators in 2012 and look forward to this annual event.
73, Bert AG4BV

06/2/11 Skywarn Training

Our JTRG sponsored Skywarn class held Wednesday night at the Jupiter Community Center was well attended. The room holds 56 people, we had 54 people. Great job by Robert Molleda instructor from the National Weather Service in presenting the material. A big thanks to all of those who attended the class!
73, Bert AG4BV

03/11/11 Backup Repeater Location

After almost a year of looking for another site for the 146.625 backup repeater and the 444.225. UHF repeater we now have a one at the Marriott in Palm Beach Gardens. This is great news for everyone. This is an excellent site and we will have very good coverage in the northern sector of Palm Beach County.

The site has emergency backup power in case we loose power during a disaster and the antenna's will be up at about 100 feet. We are planning on having all of the repeaters operational before hurricane season begins.

This new addition will add to our communication infrastructure which we have been working on over the past few years. Thanks to Clear Channel Communications, the Marriott and everyone involved. Because of these efforts and assistance we will be able to provide one of the best communication systems for Ham Radio in our area.

As of this time the Jupiter Tequesta Repeater Group is able to provide Ham Radio Communications from Vero Beach to Ft. Lauderdale and Lake Okeechobee.

This is something for all of us to be very proud of.

03/11/11
New Technician Class Hams

KK4ATG James Adair
KK4ATH Barbara Bergstrom
KK4ATI Robert Vastola
KK4ATJ Rocco Lubischer
KK4ATK William Nichols
KK4ATL Larry Farber
KK4ATM John Mattison
KK4ATN Mary Baize
KK4ATO Gilbert Grau

License Upgrade
N2ROU Upgraded to Amateur Extra

A special thanks to our Instructor Kevin Jackson W4JKJ and to all of our VE's: Kevin Jackson-W4JKJ, Richard Christensen-N4VDC, Tim Siegert-KJ4AGV, Peter Smith Johannsen-W2DV, Mike Stowe-N2ROU.

03/06/11
LICENSE UPGRADES
At our recent exam session we had two upgrades and a new Ham Radio Operator Congratulations to:
Paul Tomlins - N7JNQ,       Passed the General Exam
Ronald Whigham - KB3OPU,       Passed the Extra Exam
Jonathan Ogden - KK4ALZ,       Passed the Technician and General Exam

01/22/11
REPEATER INFRASTRUCTURE
The state of our repeaters are in good order. Still searching for new sites for the 146.625 back up and the 444.225 UHF repeater. The Town of Jupiter has turned down our request to use their towers. We still have an opening for a repeater at PGA and Military site since we recently moved the 146.715 to its new home at the tower on Jog and 45th St which has a generator back up and is in a controlled environment.
There is one other option that I am still working on and will update you when I have a definite answer. This option is located in PBG and it has an emergency generator and a controlled environment.
The antennas will be over 100'. With the use of the 146.625 and the 146.715 we now have excellent coverage for ALL of Palm Beach County.
At the north end of Palm Beach County I have installed my own repeater on the frequency of 145.170 and it's antenna is up at 100'. This repeater is located in Jupiter Farms All of the repeater All repeaters have a CTCSS of 110.9.

01/22/11
We now have two new members to our VE Team. They are Lee Pennington K4LJP and Time Siegert KJ4AGV. This brings our VE Team to 18 members which is the largest group of VE's around.
Thanks for all you do to help promote Ham Radio.

01/22/11
Just a brief update on the JTRG 146.715 repeater. With the help of Jerry N4GKI and Jim KD4SJF we moved the Motorola MSF5000 repeater on Saturday from PGA and Military Trail to it's new home at 45th and Jog at the Clear Channel site where it should be connected to a new DB224-E antenna this coming week. This site is much better because of a back up generator, controlled environment, better coverage to the south with the antenna higher than it's previous site.

01/11/11
New for 2011
Our first club picnic will be held at the pavillion adjacent to Carlin Park Civic Center
on April 10th. This is the pavillion adjacent to where we hold Field Day. Come early and have some fun at Jupiter Beach.
In conjunction with the NOAA, JTRG will sponsor a Skywarn Spotter class June 1st. This will
be held at the Jupiter Community Center.

01/11/11
After several months of testing and fine tuning I am proud to say that the Jupiter Farms
CERT group now has another repeater to use in case of an emergency or a disaster in Jupiter Farms.
This is a VHF repeater and is located close to the old Fire Station#14 on the frequency of
145.179 Pl 110.9. The antenna is up 100' and the repeater is a GE Master II with 200 watts output power.

It has been heard as far south as Pompano, as far north as Port St. Lucie and covers the east side of
Lake Okeechobee. I just finished with tuning it this weekend and it sounds good. Not only do we now
have a UHF repeater but a VHF repeater right here in Jupiter Farms to use any time we like.

Go ahead and test the new repeater out and let me know what you think about it.
Thanks,
Bert AG4BV
Jupiter Farms CERT

01/07/11
Hello JTRG Members,
It is with great honor to have awarded KF2GQ Bob Purrinson our distinguished
2011 "Ham of the Year Award" at tonight's JTRG club meeting. Thank you Bob for sharing the hobby
with others and especially for all of your efforts in demonstrating how Ham Radio works, promoting
Amateur Radio in and around our community. Bob is an outstanding representative of the Jupiter
Tequesta Repeater Group and we are all privileged to have him as a member.
CONGRATULATIONS BOB!

11/04/10
Just going over the 2010 Field Day results in QRZ and wanted to share the fact that out of all the Florida groups in the 3A division our Jupiter Tequesta Repeater Group ranked #4. Now, in the 3A division for our area which is SFL our Jupiter Tequesta Repeater Group ranked #1.

Congratulations to all of you for this outstanding accomplishment! Looking forward to another successful Field Day in 2011

73
Bert AG4BV

11/04/10 Congratulations to our newly elected JTRG Club Officers for 2011 who were voted in at our Annual Election Meeting on November 3rd, 2010. They are:
President: Albert Moreschi AG4BV
Vice President: Kevin Jackson W4JKJ
Treasurer: Mike Stowe N2ROU
Secretary: Kathy Lucas KA4JTO
JTRG Board Of Directors: Craig Eller KG4QKN

Note: Bob Cook W4FK retired as Vice President. We all owe Bob a big hand for all of his efforts in helping to promote the Jupiter Tequesta Repeater Group and the Amateur Radio Hobby. Good work Bob!!

Thanks for all your efforts, time and dedication towards the hobby!
73
Bert AG4BV
ag4bv@jtrg.org
President JTRG

10/09/10 - Congratulations to the the New Hams! At our recent Amateur Radio Class these students passed the exam and have been issued their Ham Radio Licenses. They are:
KJ4YRT Guy McCausland
KJ4YRU Thomas Helmcamp
KJ4YRV Bruce Eldredge
KJ4YRW Julie Sachs
KJ4YRX Mark Sachs (HT Winner)
KJ4YRY Kurt Myers
KJ4YRZ Ronald Wilson
KJ4VJQ Victor Mortimer who passed his General Class exam

05/10/10 - Just an update on this Special Event. The talk in frequency will be 146.880MHz Pl 110.9 and simplex frequency of 146.400MHz. Raffle tickets are available for $10.00 each with the Grand Prize a 5,000 watt Coleman Generator with a 10 HP Subaru engine which retails for over $700.00. There are many other items being raffled off such as Diving Classes for 6 people, Paddleboarding Classes for 6 people, a peice of artwork donated from Gander Mountain of a Marlin retail price of $300.00, and gift cards from Jupiter Ale House and Grand Slam Fishing Supply. Raffle tickets can be purchased at the event or by sending in a self addressed stamped envelope to the Jupiter Tequesta Repeater Group at PO Box 7751 Jupiter, Fla. 33468. Thanks for all of your help in promoting this exciting local event and promoting Amateur radio.

05/02/10 - We held a Technician class of 35, eager students at the American Red Cross, in West Palm Beach 5/1-5/2. In addition to the core curriculum and test review, we also raffled a Yaesu FT-250R (2M 5W HT with FNB83+ Charger) that was graciously donated by Lee Ciereszko - N4TCW/DA1TCW. Thank you Lee!!!  After testing, we graduated 34 new hams!  A tremendous THANK YOU to the VE team including: David Fowler-K4DLF, Kevin Jackson-W4JKJ, Mike Stowe-N2ROU, Mike Alauskas-AJ4PN, Matthew Evans-WA2UKM, Steve Lowman-N4SGL, Warren Rothberg-W4WR, and Gennaro Zaza-W4BFL.   Additionally, we could not have done this without the support of the Palm Beach County Chapter of the American Red Cross and use of their facility!  Great work everyone!

04/17/10- Have been a bit neglectful in posting the news, but the club hasn't slowed down! We're down to 42 days until the DXpedition!  We've had another visit to Peanut Island and scoped out our figured out the antenna locations, and held a bonus meeting to determine operators, travel logistics, food, entertainment, sponsors, prizes, etc.  The "back of the napkin view" looks like this for antenna placement.

01/09/10- JTRG's primary repeater, 146.625, was replaced today with a Motorola Quantar which also changed our PL tone from 114.8 to the area standard of 110.9. GREAT WORK Jerry-N4GKI and everyone else who helped install

01/06/10- We had our first meeting of 2010 with 22 members in attendance and introduced two new members to the growing family of JTRG!  Welcome aboard Paul and Michael!   In addition to covering Old and New Business we discussed the upcoming DXpedition and next steps as we prepare to active the US Island FL479S - Peanut Island!

12/13/09- JTRG members participated in both the Jupiter Farms and Jupiter/Tequesta Parades to help with logistics. Bob-KF2GQ worked NCS duties while others worked the parade route.   Special thanks to Scott-AF4KK and his son, Joshua, for bringing his car, Radioactive, to the parade!

09/20/09- JTRG participated in the International Coastal Cleanup this weekend. Special thanks to Mike-N2ROU, Kevin-W4JKJ, Lee-K4LJP, Bob-KF2GQ, Jerry-N4GKI, Pete-K4CFQ, John-AG4WL and Bert-AG4BV for taking personal time to help clean our Adopt-A-Highway section of A1A. Also a big thanks to Dunkin Donuts for donating coffee to our volunteers!  A reminder, the first day of Autumn starts on Tuesday with our next scheduled club event on Sunday October 4th. This will be our Oktoberfest Picnic. This years theme is Pirates! AAARRRR. There will also be a fox hunt which according to the Foxmeister, "will not be for the faint of heart". The fun starts at 11:00am

09/11/09- Service has been restored to the 146.715 repeater location. Located at PGA & Military, the repeater has been replaced with a Motorola MSF5000, operating at 100W of continuous duty power with a PL of 110.9.

09/08/09- The Motorola Quantar 2M repeater has been assembled, tuned, packaged and being shipped our way! ***Don't forget our club meeting this Wednesday! See the home page for more details.

08/14/09- Frank Custureri- KI4NUU added pics of his shack. Also, don't forget we have testing for all license classes at the Old Towne Hall in Jupiter, FL on August 18 at 6:30PM.

07/23/09- Please note the calendar has been updated to reflect a change in dates for the Food For Families food drive. It will now take place on 11/7 and 11/14. We're also continuing to build sponsors for the JTRG DXpedition. Through the diligent work of the supporting committee members, we've added Wishbones BBQ and Dunkin Donuts as food vendors. We've also added Zepplica and the Feeder Band for musical entertainment.

06/14/09- What a team effort! The effort started with the help of Graham Huls-KE4WBO who researched and submitted the necessary paperwork to estabish Peanut Island as a ham Radio contact Island. Once completed, we were required to go onsite and establish a minimum of 25 QSOs with at least two DXCC countries. Bert Moreschi-AG4BV, Michael Alauskas III-AJ4PN, and Kevin Jackson-W4JKJ completed that on Saturday, 6/13/09. You can follow this link and see for yourself - Peanut Island is now a qualified US Island - FL479S.

06/13/09- A big thanks to those who helped keep Jupiter clean. Albert Moreschi-AG4BV, Mike Stowe-N2ROU, Kevin Jackson-W4JKJ, Chuck Mulligan-N4SDW, Tim McDow-KM4EF, Steven McDow Son, Kimberly McDow Daughter, Jerry Gumbus-N4GKI, Michael Alauskas III-AJ4PN,  John O'Brien-AG4WL, and Ray Strickland-KI4TCJ. Great turn-out which really helped speed things along.

Peanut Island Activation - Albert Moreschi-AG4BV, Michael Alauskas III-AJ4PN and Kevin Jackson-W4JKJ went to Peanut Island and spent the day making contacts per the rules for activating a US Island. Band conditions were not cooperating, but we made some changes and eventually got the contacts we needed. The logs have been submitted and we should have our official activation of Peanut Island as FL479S shortly. Great job everyone!