Saturday, September 17, 2011

Sept 17 Special Event Station WW2COS

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.

Paul-KI4MNR operating the WW2COS Radio Station

Some of the crew at the information table

More members of the radio team

Having fun talking about radio and airplanes

Philip-KA4KOE operating the station

Webcam providing the live streaming video feed


Good view of the external battery charging cart

Shane, Colby, Charles, Franklin (or is that Franklin, Charles?)

More activity near the information station

Looking from the radio compartment, thru the bomb bay, into the cockpit
Paul-KI4MNR and Guy-K4GTM

Guy-K4GTM at the radio operator station and Nicholas in the bomb bay

Our beloved B-17

Nicholas, son of Mark-KA4CID had a great time exploring the B-17