The radio team from the Coastal Amateur Radio Society had a very successful special event today at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. The plan was to celebrate the 64th anniversary of the US Air Force becoming it’s own branch of the service by operating the amateur radio station onboard the B-17 "City of Savannah" and making contact with other radio operators across the country. We arrived at the museum around 0830 and connected our outdoor antenna and powered up the radio compartment. By 0930 we were communicating with other HAMs across the country. Throughout the day we had a total of 15 radio operators and 10 family members onsite. We managed to make over 70 contacts mostly in the southeast and up and down the east coast. Some states included GA, AL, FL, SC, NC, VA, KY, OH, TN. Everyone was very excited to learn about the B-17 restoration. The amateur radio station and the WWII Reciever perfomed extremely well today. We had a great time explaining the project to museum visitors as well. We also set up a live video feed from inside the compartment and streamed across the Internet to my blog site. This really added another dimension to the event!
It was great to have some family members come out today and walk thru the airplane. I even managed to get my wife, Lorie to come see what I do when I'm out at the museum!
We also got some news coverage when a cameraman from WTOC showed up to document the event.
http://www.wtoc.com/story/15488383/us-air-force-celebrates-its-64th-birthday
We wrapped things up around 1700 and buttoned everything up, shut down aircraft power, disconnected battery charger, disconnected our antennas, closed the aft hatch and moved the stairs back.
We're planning to do this again on Nov. 11th and 12th to commemorate Veterans Day.
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| Paul-KI4MNR operating the WW2COS Radio Station |
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| Some of the crew at the information table |
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| More members of the radio team |
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| Having fun talking about radio and airplanes |
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| Philip-KA4KOE operating the station |
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| Webcam providing the live streaming video feed |
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| Good view of the external battery charging cart |
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| Shane, Colby, Charles, Franklin (or is that Franklin, Charles?) |
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| More activity near the information station |
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| Looking from the radio compartment, thru the bomb bay, into the cockpit |
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| Paul-KI4MNR and Guy-K4GTM |
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| Guy-K4GTM at the radio operator station and Nicholas in the bomb bay |
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| Our beloved B-17 |
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| Nicholas, son of Mark-KA4CID had a great time exploring the B-17 |
