Subj : Newsline Part 2 To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Fri Mar 31 2017 12:23 pm 103-YEAR-OLD HAM IN RUSSIA, A SILENT KEY JIM/ANCHOR: In his lifetime, Victor Sokkolov, U5FS, of Izmail, Russia, had seen World War I, the Russian Revolution, and World War II, in which he served in the military. Victor, who became a Silent Key on March 25 at the age of 103, was believed to be among the oldest amateurs in Russia, if not the world. A less active ham in his later years, Victor was proud of his military service, and would often tell of the action he was involved in, including the Russian landing on the Kerch Strait, which aimed to recapture Crimea from Germany. His death was reported in the Daily DX. (SOUTHGATE, DAILY DX) ** PUTTING ITALY'S REPEATERS ON THE MAP JIM/ANCHOR: Anyone who has ever searched for a repeater, only to be frustrated, should get to know a ham like Andrea (ON-DRAYA NOOT-ZI) Nuzzi, IZ8WNH. Over the course of two to three months, he researched and created an interactive map of amateur radio repeaters throughout Italy, with downloadable data for programming transceiver memory. Andrea explains here how he accomplished it. ANDREA: Greetings from IZ8WNH to all Amateur Radio Newsline followers. The map was conceived to easily visualize repeaters' data based on Ham radio operator's position. It's not obvious to find information when moving from a place to another, so the map allows OM/YL to find easily what they are looking for. Italy's repeaters' data are unofficially distributed through IK2ANE Walter's spreadsheet, which means they are not either exhaustive or accurate. I am doing a huge effort to find new data, and validate the existing ones by verifying more than 1850 records, one by one, and asking the collaboration of local OM/YL. So far, 40% of records have been positively validated, and there's still a lot to do. The map offers additional tools like four combinable filters based on Italian regions, counties, the type of repeater, and the band. Filtered recordsets are automatically shown on the map, and on demand, in a table. Collected data are exported as pdf and csv files. There are two different csv formattings to help OM/YL in setting RTX memories with Chirp or dedicated Yaesu softwares. The website works with some HTML and PHP, a lot of JavaScript and MySQL database. It took me about 2-3 months to write down the complete code, create a database, insert additional code to provide a fully responsive website, and fix incompatibilities among IE- and FF-based browsers. Nevertheless, maintaining the website up and running, as well as updating the database are never-ending processes! JIM/ANCHOR: Thank you, Andrea. A link to his repeater map can be found at iz8wnh.it/en.html ** IARU GUIDE: NOTHING LOST IN TRANSLATION JIM/ANCHOR: Another ham - this one in Romania - has taken a different kind of creative initiative. He has translated the IARU Emergency Telecommunications Guide into Romanian. The guide is an invaluable resource for amateurs wanting to set up a state-of-the-art National Emergency Network, and provide training for operators. Hams in Romania now have additional help in doing this, thanks to the efforts of one amateur, Francisc Grunberg (Fran-Sick Groon-berg), YO4PX, who has translated its 93 pages. The guide is now available in HTML and PDF format on the website of the Romanian Federation of Radio Amateurs at radioamator.ro. The IARU guide is the latest body of ham radio literature translated by Francisc, whose profession is that of a translator and writer. (SOUTHGATE, QRZ) ** BREAK HERE: Time for you to identify your station. We are the Amateur Radio Newsline, heard on bulletin stations around the world, including the WA3PBD repeater of the Two Rivers Amateur Radio Club in McKeesport, Pennsylvania during the 8 pm. Monday Night Net. Posted by VPost v1.7.081019 .