New Toy for Christmas

I got a nice new toy for Christmas this year. I've been wanting to get a scanner and couldn't pass up a deal at the local Radio Shack over the holidays. They had the Pro-96 Scanner at a significant discount for a few remaining in inventory. The Pro-96 is a Digital Trunking Scanner and will allow me to monitor all the local public safety traffic as well as just about anything else you can think of. I also purchased the DC power adapter and the serial cable (USB interface) to configure the scanner via software. This is a great time saver. I'm using the ARC96 software from Bu-Tel which I downloaded from thier site. I also registered on the Radio Reference website with has just an enormous amount of scanning and monitoring information. The cool thing is that the ARC-96 software will pull the local (or any other) frequencies/talkgroup information directly from the Radio Reference website and and move it into the scanner. Wow, what a great tool. I have the scanner audio jack outputting to the input of one of my computers and that in turn is outputting to my Bose Waveradio so I have greata audio here in the shack. Thanks to Mac (KF4LMT) for all of his input and expertise in the selection, configuration, and operation of my new toy. Here are a couple of relevant weblinks.

ARC96 Software at Bu-Tel website - http://www.butel.nl/products/arc96/arc96.html

Radio Reference website - http://www.radioreference.com/

Space Shuttle Endeavour Launch

Last night several local radio operators gathered at the Tybee Island Pier to view the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour. Although viewing conditions were very poor due to the local weather, we had a great time and did catch a brief glimpse of the Shuttle as it cleared the curvature of the earth. Tybee Island is just about 25o miles from Cape Canaveral with nothing but ocean in between. See a summary and some photos of the activity on Mac's (KF4LMT) blog at www.kf4lmt.blogspot.com

Red Cross Satellite Terminal Test

This morning Steve, K4SDJ, and I had the opportunity to bring up and test the satellite terminal at the Savannah Red Cross Station K3SRC. This system is portable in nature and is designed to be easily packed up and transported to any location during an emergency response. Well, the system electronics themselves are in a portable hard case but the satellite dish is not what I would really call "portable" but it can be loaded up on a truck or ERV if needed. The station consists of the dish which is currently installed on a cement pad out back of the building near the 40 ft comm tower, an ACU (antenna control unit), a rcvr/xmit unit, a Cisco router, a Cisco wireless access point, two Cisco wireless IP Phones, two Cisco desktop IP Phones, a server, two laptops, and a small UPS. This system allows communications via satellite to a Red Cross data center where the paths to the Internet and the Public Telephone Network are. We successfully tested voice and data on all four phones and two laptops. The Red Cross has asked Chatham County ARES if we will assist them with testing this station twice per month. This was great fun and reminded me of my Air Force days!.......K4GTM

Peacemaker Ship

On Saturday morning we held a VE Session here in town and upgraded seven technicians to general class operators. We also had two young men successfully test for thier technician license. These two men are crew members on a sailing vessel called the Peacemake that is currently berthed at River Street on the Savannah River near the Hyatt. After the VE session Bill K4WP, Ra N4RVM, and myself went downtown and recieved a personalized tour of the ship. What a treat. We got to spend quite a bit of time on the bridge and had a great conversation with the captain as well as the 1st mate who is an Extra class operator. They have a Yaesu FT-450 for HF operations and an FT-8800 for VHF/UHF operation. With four HAMs on the ship now and with the fact that they plan to stay in Savannah for the winter, you may hear them on the air here locally. Yachiyl is the name of the 1st Mate and his callsign is NB1X.

Oct 2008 ARES Station Testing

The Chatham County Amateur Radio Emergency Service held it’s monthly station testing and familiarization training at the Memorial Health University Medical Center on Oct 11. Memorial is one of our served agencies and has the call sign of K4MUM. We fired up the station and got good comm checks on HF, UHF, and VHF. We also took the opportunity to provide some “How to Operate” training for a couple of our newest operators, Melissa (KJ4HAI) and Robert (KJ4HAL).

Other participants included Ken-W4JKG, Kevin-WD0GFG, Mark-KA4CID, Mac-KF4LMT, Mac-AF4KL, Steve-K4SDJ.

Chatham County ARES tests at least one of our served agencies stations at least once per month. Stay tuned for Nov station testing information.

My Old "Radio Shack"

July 19 Installation of the CARS 146.700 Repeater

On July 19, 2008 a handful of local HAMS from the CARS club gathered to assist in the installation of the 146.700 repeater. The repeater is located at the WSAV transmitter site in Savannah, GA. Special thanks to Lowell Beckner(N4ZLJ) who is the Regional Director of Engineering for WSAV and to Ed Bigbie(W4MMQ) who is the patriarch of the local HAM community. Ed's son, Don Bigbie of Savannah Communications and his crew did a truly profession installation! More to follow when the new 70cm repeater and the new dual band antenna are installed.

Operators participating in this effort were: Lowell-N4ZLJ, Ed-W4MMQ, Steve-K4SDJ, Bill-K4WP, Ra-N4RVM, Mark-KA4CID, Guy-K4GTM

Aug 9, 2008 K4MUM Station Testing

On Saturday, Aug 9th, several Chatham County ARES members met to test the Ham station of one of our served agencies. We met for breakfast at 0700 as we usually do on Saturday mornings then it was over to Memorial Health University Medical Center for the second session of station familiarization training and operational testing. We had a good turnout with 12 operators in attendance. We tested our VHF and HF antenna for SWR before operating the radios. We had an SWR of almost 4 on the HF side so we decided to do some more investigating before bringing the HF rig online at the next session. Got good 2 Meter comm checks on a couple of the local repeaters with several local operators. We plan to do periodic testing like this monthly at our various served agencies. If you would like to volunteer to become a member of ARES and use your radio skills to serve our community please contact me at k4gtm@arrl.net.

Those participating in this months testing were, Steve-K4SDJ, Ed-W4MMQ, Mark-KA4CID, Lester-KF4JBQ, Carl-KC4UHM, Russ-K4YGD, Lynn-KD4POC, Ed-KI4DZD, Andrew-KI4WHN, Ken-W4JKG, Ray-WA4ZXJ, Guy-K4GTM.

July 12 ARES Station Testing

On Saturday, July 12th, several Chatham County ARES members met to test the stations of a couple of our served agencies. We met for breakfast at 0700 as we usually do on Saturday mornings then it was over to Memorial Health University Medical Center. We spent about an hour or so onsite as we setup and tested the HF and VHF rigs. Everything operated ok and we had good comm checks on 2M, 80M, 40M and 20M. After packing up the station, we moved downtown to the Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) operations center. We tested out both the VHF and the HF rigs at our station in the ops center. Got good comm checks on 2M and 40M. After testing the station we moved up to the roof of the building where we did a physical inspection of the antennas and support structure. After about an hour or so at CEMA we all went our seperate ways until next time. We plan to do periodic testing like this monthly at our various served agencies. If you would like to volunteer to become a member of ARES and use your radio skills to serve our community please contact me at k4gtm@arrl.net.

Those participating in this months testing were, Steve-K4SDJ, Susie-W4SWJ, Ed-W4MMQ, Ra-N4RVM, Mark-KA4CID, Bill-K4WP, Lester-KF4JBQ, Dustin-KI4MQD, Carl-KC4UHM, Guy-K4GTM.

Jun 19 Tornado

Had a tornado and some microbursts hit the area on Jun 19th. Including my neighborhood! I'm used to responding to someone elses neighborhood with the Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief Team or with ARES but this was a unique situation where the disaster was on my own street! But as usual, amateur radio operators responded in great form. As the storms began to intensify, we started to get reports from vairous operators in the area including Kurt-N4CVF and Mac-KF4LMT. I raced home from work and as I got closer to my neighborhood, the storm destruction became very evident. Downed trees, powerlines, etc. I managed to make it into the neighborhood but couldn't get to the house. After walking the rest of the way, I was able to determine that my family and my house were all in one piece. Thank God. Then it was time to help the neighbors. We began to check to be sure that everyone was safe and accounted for. We had maybe seven houses damaged with most having trees through the roofs. I counted maybe 15 tall pines down on our street. After this we began to clear the road of a number of down pine trees in the event that we needed rapid ingress or egress. The storm happened at about 1530 so we had plenty of daylight to do relief and recovery. This daylight proved extremely valuable since we were of course without power. As I continued to provide information via the 146.970 repeater, the help began to pour in. Steve-K4SDJ and Susie-W4SWJ mobilized in support of the Red Cross and began to do assessments in the affected areas. The Red Cross began to deploy their ERVs and had one of thier operators using the new callsign, K3SRC. Bill-K4WP arrived in the neighborhood with chainsaw in hand and began to help clear downed trees. Shortly thereafter, Ra-N4RVM and his XYL arrived with food and water for me, my family and my neighbors. What a blessing. Mac-KF4LMT wasn't too far behind and arrived to offer assistance. I was blown away how quickly our local HAM community jumped into action to assist in a variety of ways. Net discipline was awesome and the flow of information was unimpeaded. We have once again proven just how valuable and how much of an asset that we can be to our communities. There is nothing quite like the instant movement of information via radio. 73, Guy-K4GTM, EC Chatham County ARES

"Chainsaw Cowboy" Bill, K4WP

In front of my house. We were lucky.

Some of the worst damage two doors down

K4WP and KF4LMT survey the damage

Mothers Day Tornado in Macon - GA Baptist Disaster Relief