W9REG Link Page

[Updated July 2011]

[Audio News]
[Equipment]
[Hamfests]
[Links]
[Misc...]
[Organizations]
[On-Line Magazines]
[Nearby Clubs]
[Repeater Links]
[Resources]
[Service?]

This page will likely be broken up into smaller pages at some point. Feedback on that would be very welcome.

Organizations

FCC (Federal Communications Commission) - the BIG BROTHER that oversees all licensing and governmental regulation of amateur radio in the U.S. Its a BIG site. Most amateurs will be interested in Wireless Telecommunications Bureau - Amateur Radio Service (the main body of FCC info for hams) or in FCC Forms . Also, the ARRL has a good set of FCC Related Links on their site.
ARRL (American Radio Relay League) - the largest membership/service organization of amateur radio operators in the U.S. This is another BIG site, totally devoted to amateur radio. Be sure to check out their Site Index . For example, as an ARRL member, you can get free e-mail forwarding based upon your callsign; like kb9sss@arrl.net You will find links to the ARRL pages scattered all throughout this site. TARA is in the Indiana Section of the ARRL, which in turn is in the Central Division.
IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) - a federation of amateur radio societies from around the world. Sort of an international form of the ARRL, in fact, the ARRL is the secretariat for the IARU.
Ten-Ten International - an amateur radio organization devoted to just the 10 meter band (28Mhz - 29.7Mhz)
Amateur Radio Satellites - an organization devoted to the launch and operation of amateur radio satellites.

On-Line Magazines

QRZ.COM - an on-line amateur radio magazine or a comprehensive information resource? Whatever you call it, it's great. A particularly nice feature is their callsign data, which we've put to extensive use here on this page.
eHam.net - news, DX spots, classifieds, reviews, callsign server, and just about everything else you could want.
Amateur Radio Trader - they claim that they are "becoming the world's most comprehensive buy/sell resource for radio and related products and services". Could be.
AntenneX - an on-line "subscription" based magazine devoted primarily to antennas.

News Feeds

These are all on-line audio news feeds devoted to amateur radio. Many activity and traffic nets play these over the air. At these sites, you can either read or listen at your convenience.

ARRL Audio News - produced and distributed by the ARRL.
Amateur Radio Newsline - amateur radio news from around the world
RAIN (Radio Amateur Information Network) - an amateur radio news feed produced by Hap Holly, KC9RP .

Service?

Part of amateur radio's purpose and legacy is service, and W9REG is no exception.

Tippecanoe County Red Cross - W9REG / TARA assists the local Red Cross chapter with emergency communications.
TEMA (Tippecanoe County Emergency Management Agency) - W9REG / TARA also assists the local emergency management agency.
Central Indiana Skywarn - These are the folks we coordinate with down in Indy during our weather nets.

Other Nearby Clubs

You already know about us ( TARA / W9REG ) After all, you are reading one of our WWW pages. Here is the other club in our town.

Purdue Amateur Radio Club - W9YB is an amateur radio club for the students and staff of Purdue University located in West Lafayette, IN

In addition to TARA and PARC there are plenty of other clubs scattered nearby.

WCARS - White County Amateur Radio Society - The amateur radio club for White County, IN
BCARA (Boone County Amateur Radio Association) - - Lebanon, IN
CCARC (Cass County Amateur Radio Club) - - Logansport, IN
CCARC (Clinton County Amateur Radio Club) - Rossville/Frankfort, IN

Or, you can go even further afield.

HCARC (Hancock County Amateur Radio Club) - - Greenfield, IN
IUARC (Indiana University Amateur Radio Club) - K9IU is an amateur radio club for the students and staff of Indiana University located in Bloomington, IN
KARC (Kokomo Amateur Radio Club) - - Kokomo, IN
NDARC (Notre Dame Amateur Radio Club) - ND1U is an amateur radio club for the students and staff of Notre Dame University located in Notre Dame, IN
VCARA (Vermillion County (IL) Amateur Radio Association) - - Danville, IL
ARRL Affiliated Club Search - will help you search for clubs anywhere in the U.S.
The QRZ Ham Radio Club Page Listing - a large listing of ham clubs nation-wide, organized by state and provided by the folks at QRZ.COM

Repeater Information

Tippecanoe County ARES (TCARES) maintains a list of area repeaters.
W9ARP maintains 2m and 440 D-Star repeaters in West Lafayette.
KC9PQA - Chalmers/White County Repeater - This is a repeater located in Chalmers, IN. Usually usable from Lafayette.
EARS (Electronic Applications Radio Service) - W9EAR operates several repeaters in southern Indiana
511 Repeater Association - another repeater group based in Indianapolis, IN
On-Line Repeater Database - extensive and searchable database maintained by ArtSci Publishing who (coincidently) publishes a good repeater directory.

NFCC (National Frequency Coordination Council) - attempts to coordinate repeater frequency and sub-tone assignments on a nation wide basis.
Indiana Repeater Council - in charge of frequency and sub-tone coordination here in Indiana. Works in cooperation with the NFCC above.

Hamfests

Sure, there are more hamfests than you can shake an antenna at. These are the close or important ones that actually have WWW sites.

Lafayette, IN Hamfest - always held the third Sunday in August, sponsored by us (TARA) at the Tippecanoe county fairgrounds in Lafayette, IN

Indianapolis IN Hamfest - the Indianapolis Hamfest Association sponsers this event held at the Marion county fairgrounds near Indianapolis, IN .

Dayton, OH Hamvention - THE HAMFEST OF ALL HAMFESTS. The Dayton Amateur Radio Association puts on quite an event at the Dayton Hara Arena.

ARRL Hamfext/Event Calendar - Not enough hamfests listed here for you? The ARRL has hundreds listed.

Links, Links, and More Links

There's no point in us trying to maintain a monster link list when so many other people have already done such great jobs. These folks provide enough WWW links to keep you busy for a long time.

First, here are some directory based portals. They each have search engines in addition to their directories.

Yahoo Ham Radio Directory - the standard by which all other link directories are judged. Yahoo is arguably the first and greatest of the portal sites.

Then there are search engines

alta-vista - A classic. Another standard by which the others are judged. This was one of the first attempts at a comprehensive, WWW-wide search engine, and its arguably still the best. Judge for yourself.
Google - strictly a search engine. Their unique way of ranking relevance allows some astonishing results.

The biggest problem with most link pages is that they simply list links without much (or any) explanation as to what they are. (a trait this page attempts to buck) The following link lists at least attempt to catagorize, and sometimes even explain what the links are. They are also HUGE.

AC6V's Amateur Radio and DX Reference Guide - AC6V boasts to having everything from "Abbreviations to Zones". If it's not here, then you'll have to dig pretty deep.

A webring is a collection of related WWW sites that are interlinked into a big loop or ring (hence the name). The idea is that once you've found one of the sites, you can find similar sites by following the ring of links.

Amateur Radio Webring Gateway

Equipment

This is NOT a listing of what's in the club shack, but it will give you some clues. These links relate to equipment we own or use on a regular basis.

DC Power and Power Werx - good suppliers of PowerPole connectors from Anderson Power Products. Most of the club is standardizing the 12vdc wiring for all of our equipment upon this connector. This way, in an emergency, all of our equipment will be inter-compatible.
Astron Power Supply Schematics - The folks at Repeater-Builder.Com have Astron power supply schematics along with a bunch of other stuff.
Sealed-Lead-Acid Battery Technical Handbook - The folks at Power-Sonic have an excellent technical paper on all aspects of SLA batteries. (from construction to charging)

FT-847 E-mail Group - over 200 hams banded together via Yahoo Groups devoted to the Yeasu FT-847 HF/VHF Transceiver.

IC-746 E-mail Group - almost 400 hams joined together via Yahoo Groups devoted to the Icom IC-746 HF/VHF Transceiver.

IC-746 FAQ

Resources

Is there such a thing as a perfect band chart? Probably not, but here are several attempts.

U.S. Amateur Radio Bands - home of the ARRL's color coded chart of bands, frequencies, and privileges.
US Band Plan [PDF] - Updated, two-sided, Y2K compliant, color coded, PDF chart of the U.S. ham bands brought to us courtesy of Icom.

What the following charts lack in flash, they make up for with detail.

ARRL Band Plan - a detailed, band by band listing of all U.S. amateur radio bands.
IARU HF Band Plan - HF band plan as laid out by IARU region as well as by band/frequency. Knowing what part of the band other regions use might just make contacting them easier.
U.S. Frequency Allocation Chart - not just the ham bands, but a chart of ALL bands in the U.S. courtesy of the National Telecomunications and Information Administration

Computerized antenna modelling

Antenna Modeling - L. B. Cebik-W4RNL(SK) has more information about antenna modelling than most of us will ever learn.

Grid square resources

US Grid Square Chart - Full color, two sided, grid square map of the U.S., complete with Alaska and Hawaii, brought to us courtesy of Icom.
Everything there is to know about Grid Squares

Misc

While not specifically related to amateur radio, these are generically useful sites for either hams or site visitors.

Tippecanoe County's WWW Site - what our county tells the world
City of Lafayette's WWW Site - what one of our city tells the world
City of West Lafayette's WWW Site - what our other city tells the world

Tippecanoe County - from Yahoo's point of view.
City of Lafayette - from Yahoo's point of view.
City of West Lafayette - from Yahoo's point of view.

Lafayette On-Line - everything(?) you'd ever find on Lafayette on the WWW

Lafayette Weather - The Weather Channel's rendition of the U.S. Weather Service forecast for our area.

Special Thanks to Dana-KB9SSS for creating the original version of this page.