The Page Valley Amateur Radio Club will be hosting a hamfest on Saturday, February 17 at the Elkton VFW Post, 13958 Spotswood Trail in Elkton, Virginia.  That's on US 33, just across the mountains on your way to Harrisonburg, around an hour and a half northwest of Richmond.

Parking is free, admission is $5, and tables are available for $15 in advance or $20 at the door.  Setup starts at 6:30 AM, doors open at 7:00, and the show runs until 2 PM.  Tailgating is allowed with a suggested $5 donation.

A QSL card checker will be on site.  Hourly raffle prizes start at 9 AM with a grand prize drawing at noon.  This is a handicap-accessible event.  Overflow parking and shuttle services are provided.  Refreshments available.  Talk-in will be on on the N4YSA 146.625 repeater, negative offset, PL 131.8.

For more information or to purchase a table, see the contact details in this flyer.

Your RATS repeater team would like to remind all operators to treat our repeaters as a shared resource.  When engaged in any conversation on a repeater:

1.  Leave enough space between each transmission to allow another station to join the conversation or make an emergency call.  Pause at least three to four seconds before responding (includes repeater hang time).  Responding too quickly ("quick-keying") monopolizes access to the repeater and is contrary to the spirit of a shared system.  If you wish to join a conversation, simply announce your call sign in-between transmissions.  Do not use the word "break" to interrupt a QSO on amateur repeaters unless there is an emergency.

2.  Establish a rotation and stick to it.  A common approach is to go in order by first name.  Minimize deviations from the rotation and restore the normal flow as quickly as possible.  As new stations join the conversation, let them know where they land in the rotation.  Know who you're after, and who's after you.  Pass the QSO off to the next user by name.  "Over to you, John."

3.  Long-winded conversations -- many minutes or even hours long -- are welcome on the RATS repeaters.  Insert additional pauses in your transmission every five to ten minutes and invite others to use the repeater.  They may want to join your conversation, or they may have their own quick calls to make.

Repeated doubling (transmitting on top of each other) or lots of "let me see if I've got the mic" is a good indicator that someone in the QSO might have bad operating habits.  If enough space is being left between transmissions, a rotation is established, and all users in the QSO stick to it, there should be no doubt who talks next, and doubling should be practically eliminated.

RATS Control Operators will sometimes intervene in instances where there is severe/repeated doubling, excessive quick-keying, or other discourteous operation.

RATS wants all users to enjoy their time on our systems.  The club has several resources to help hams operate professionally and courteously on repeaters.

• RATS Repeater System Rules - These will serve you well on any amateur repeater in the US.
• N3SRC Repeater Etiquette Guide
• DMRVA Talkgroup Etiquette

The RATS Technical Committee is available to answer any questions about our systems.

The RATS Board will hold its monthly meeting this Wednesday night, January 3 at 6:30 PM via Zoom.  Club members are encouraged to attend and provide input on the club's upcoming Winter Field Day activity at Pocahontas State Park.  Volunteers are still needed to assist with the setup, operation, and tear-down of this event.

Your active participation in the planning and execution is critical to keep these occasional club activities going.  The Board is here to run the club, not orchestrate and run every club activity.  If you want to see RATS continue to offer in-person ham radio activities beyond just our usual summer Field Day, please get in contact with the Board to offer your assistance.  And if you've got ideas for fun things we can do in future months, let us know.  Thank you.

DMRVA now has a formal partnership with the HEARS/N4HRS system, creating a network of 28 linked repeaters with more planned in 2024.  This has resulted in numerous changes to the talkgroup lineup on DMRVA and N4HRS repeaters.  DMRVA has published a new talk group list here:

https://www.dmrva.org/talkgroups/

The new lineup eliminates a bunch of older talkgroups that are no longer in use and refocuses on the Virginia regional talkgroups.

For additional information, visit:

https://www.dmrva.org/
http://www.n4hrs.org/

The RATS Codeplug page is back! Go to rats.net/codeplugs to download the latest updates.

Update:  This issue was resolved at 3:02 PM.

Another Comcast Internet outage is impacting the RATS repeater site, taking down network connectivity for the DMR, Fusion, and AREDN tunnels.  Click here for more information and updates.

Update:  This issue resolved itself without Tech Committee intervention at around 12:30 PM 11/30/2023.  Total downtime was approximately 17.5 hours.

An Internet service outage has taken down network connectivity for systems at the RATS repeater site.  This is preventing network access from the DMR and Fusion repeaters.  The RATS 146.88, 442.55, and 443.5875 repeaters continue to handle local traffic as usual.  Inbound and outbound AREDN tunnels are offline, though our site is still on the air and over-the-air access to services has not been impacted.   For additional information, see our RF Systems Status page.  We hope to have this resolved later today (11/30).

The monthly RATS Membership Meeting will be held this Friday night at 7:30 PM via Zoom.  All are welcome to attend.  Rob Marshall KI4MCW will be giving a presentation on HOA-friendly HF antennas.

As discussed at last month's meeting, we will be reviewing and approving the membership meeting minutes from September and October 2022 which haven't yet made it into the club records.  Those draft minutes and the corresponding Zoom videos were posted around a month ago for member review.

Last month's draft minutes are also now available for download.  Sorry about the delay.

Update:  This event has concluded and the RATS repeaters have been returned to normal operation.

Please be aware of the following upcoming activities:

• Wednesday, November 8 (7p) - The weekly RATS net will QSY to our 442.55 repeater for a one-week performance test.  WIRES-X network services will be disabled on the repeater from 6:45 PM to 8:00 PM Wednesday.
  
  
• Thursday, November 9 (4p-7p) and Friday, November 10 (4p-8p) - Communications volunteers for the Richmond Marathon will be picking up their supplies in advance of Saturday's event.  There will be occasional talk-in traffic on the 146.88 and 145.43 repeaters.  These repeaters should remain available for regular use, but please keep transmissions short and leave some extra space to allow talk-in traffic to reach Net Control.

Several local repeaters will be carrying moderate to heavy traffic supporting the Sports Backers Richmond Marathon on Saturday, November 11.  Repeater users not participating in this event should take note of the following information and plan to use other local systems during this event.

• The RATS 442.55 repeater is a primary channel for the marathon.  This repeater is closed to non-event traffic on Saturday.  The WIRES-X system will be disabled to prevent conflicting digital traffic, and all C4FM input will come out as analog FM (like the 146.88 repeater).
  
  
• The DMR "Richmond Metro" talkgroup (27500) is a primary channel for the marathon.  Users of the RATS DMR repeater and the directly-linked Petersburg DMR repeater are asked to limit use of timeslot 1 talkgroups to ensure the timeslot remains available for marathon traffic.  Virginia Statewide (3151 on timeslot 2) is a recommended alternative for short QSO's.  Richmond Metro traffic is carried on the Richmond, Beaverdam, Petersburg, Powhatan, and New Kent DMR repeaters.  Users of all five repeaters will notice increased activity on timeslot 1 due to traffic on Richmond Metro.

• The MRA 145.43 repeater is also a primary channel for the marathon.  Stations not involved in the event should plan to keep clear of this repeater.
  
  
• The RATS 146.88 repeater is a backup repeater.  It may handle occasional overflow traffic if the other three systems are too busy, and it would serve as a backup if one of the primary repeaters were to go off the air.  The 146.88 repeater will remain open for regular traffic unless needed for backup service.  All users are asked to keep transmissions short, leave extended pauses (5 seconds) between transmissions, and immediately yield to marathon radio traffic.
  

The next monthly RATS Membership meeting is Friday, November 17 at 7:30 PM via Zoom.  Rob Marshall KI4MCW will be giving a presentation on HOA-friendly HF antennas.  Please join us.

The RATS Board traditionally skips its December meeting, but not this year.  There's enough going on to necessitate a December Board meeting, so that'll happen on the first Wednesday (Dec. 6) at 6:30 PM, as usual, via Zoom.  Club members are invited to join.

The RATS Technical Committee performs periodic inventories of the club's tangible assets at intervals established in agreement with the club's Board of Directors:  a full inventory of all items every five years, and an annual review of selected item categories all other years.  Inventories are timed to immediately follow the transition to a new Board in October of each year, and are intended to provide improved accountability for the whereabouts, condition, and proper disposal of the club's property.

This year's inventory verification was submitted into the club records on November 1.  All expected assets were present and updated photos were captured, except for tower-mounted equipment.  Members may view current and historical inventory documentation here.

The last full inventory was started October 2022.  The next inventory verification will take place in October 2024, with the next full inventory in October 2027.