Tennessee Section Update - March 2025
Welcome to the new ARRL Tennessee Section Website. The old TNARRL.ORG and TNARES.COM websites crashed and burned due to an equipment malfunction. Section IT Directors Jay Daniels (KG4DCI) and Samual Davidson (KK4RGU) have put in many hours rebuilding this website from the ground-up. Please note that while tnarrl.org is back online, it is still a work in progress as we are continuing to work to make improvements and corrections.
Now that TNARRL.ORG is largely functional again, our IT directors have turned their attention to the TNARES.COM website and are working hard to get that back up and running once more. The ARES website has lots of detailed information about ARES groups (and their leadership) from all across the state, so there's a lot more work to do before that website's back up again. We appreciate all the hard work and effort that Jay and Sam have invested in getting TNARRL.ORG back online.
There are three great hamfests coming up in March. The Tullahoma Hamfest, sponsored by the Middle Tennessee Amateur Radio Society, will be on Friday, March 7 and Saturday, March 8 at the First United Methodist Church on W. Lauderdale Street in Tullahoma. There will be an ARRL Forum at 10:30 on Saturday. For more information, please visit www.qsl.net/mtars/
The Sevier County Amateur Radio Society will hold their annual hamfest on Saturday, March 15 at the Sevier County Fairgrounds, 754 Old Knoxville Highway in Sevierville. Gates open at 7: 15 AM. For more information, please visit www.seviercountyars.com
The West Tennessee Hamfest and Swapmeet, sponsored by the Area Wide Amateur Radio Association, will be held on Saturday, March 22 at the National Guard Armory on Industrial Park Drive in Trenton, TN. For more information, contact Tom Bridgewater NA8X: [email protected]
Win a Dream Station with the Latest Gear: members who join — or renew — their ARRL membership any time from January 3 through December 31, 2025, are automatically entered into the ARRL Sweepstakes to win a dream station from Icom. If you’re not an ARRL member, you can join today! If you are already a member or Life Member, there are even more ways to automatically earn entries. Please visit www.arrl.org
Promote Amateur Radio By Using The New Radiogram Gateway: If your club is planning to staff a table at a local community fair or event (like perhaps Field Day), offer to send radiograms. Recruit volunteers to explain what a radiogram is and, later, send the messages. Who in your radio club is active on the traffic nets? How many members know the radiogram format or know how to send a radiogram message on the air? Fear not! Your club can put its best foot forward and hold an amateur radio message fair with minimal traffic-handling skills using an exciting new tool: the Radiogram Portal!
Jonathan Taylor, K1RFD, inventor of EchoLink, has developed a web-based tool that the public can use to enter a short message by following simple instructions. The message will be picked up by a participating amateur radio volunteer operator (called a “radiogrammer”) who logs in to a restricted portion of the website, takes the message off the gateway, and sends it over the air on a National Traffic System (NTS) net for relay to its destination. The recipient will get a local phone call from a nearby ham. Along the way, ham operators will relay the messages by voice, digital, or even Morse code and get valuable practice in emergency public service.
“It’s not a problem if your club lacks an active traffic handler to check into the traffic nets,” says Phil Temples, K9HI, who chairs the ARRL EC-FSC NTS subcommittee. “You merely set up a laptop at your message fair using a Wi-Fi connection and allow members of the public to enter their own messages. Later, a skilled traffic handler in your area will pull the message off the portal and send it in a timely fashion.”
The Radiogram Portal was successfully demonstrated at the 2024 New England Division Convention. An extensive display sponsored by the Nashua (New Hampshire) Area Radio Society highlighted the NTS and the Radiogram Portal running on a computer, along with a trifold that pictured the NTS2 website, the NTS Letter, training videos, and a downloadable handout available for clubs and public gatherings.
For more information on the Radiogram Portal, visit nts2.arrl.org/radiogram.
73,
David Thomas - KM4NYI
ARRL TN Section Manager