Mar 25th License Upgrades

Congratulations to Linda Eagan-KI4WHO who upgraded to Extra Class and to Will Griffin-KJ4PSU who upgraded to General Class at today's VE Session.

Thanks to our Volunteer Examiners, Steve-K4SDJ, Sue-W4SWJ, and Mac-AF4KL.

Mar 24, 2010 Radio Work on the B-17 Restoration Project

Spent a few hours at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum today working on the BC-348 reciever.  Carroll-WX4Y and I showed up about 2:00pm and opened the reciever on the workbench and tested the tubes and some of the capacitors and resisters.  Seven of the eight tube are all still good!  The eighth needs to be replaced.  Pretty good.  Capacitors and resitors are looking good as well.  I took out the dynamotor which takes a 28 volt input and delivers 227 volts to power the tubes and we inspected the armature, the bushings, and the bearings.  The bearings still have grease!  Awesome.  Next visit we will service the dynamotor and test it with a 28 volt power supply.  Carroll will bring his service monitor and we will do some initial testing of the circuitry.  The restoration team has set us up with a very nice workstation.

Later in the day several other HAMs that are also going to be working on the project arrived for the restoration team "All Hands" meeting to get a project update from Jerry McLaughlin who is the project manager.  Steve-K4SDJ, Mark-KA4CID, and Al-KJ4SMY and myself enjoyed the company of other restoration volunteers as we had drinks and pizza.

Chatham County ARES Meeting

Had a great ARES meeting on Monday evening with over 20 operators from four counties.  Particularly awesome was the fact that we had four new operators from our most recent Technician class and we registered nine new members into the ARES program!   Here was our agenda.  Next meeting in June or July.

• Welcome and Introductions
• Served Agencies Overview
• Activity Summary
• Things To Accomplish This Year
• Training Requirements
• Upcoming Activities
• Next Meeting Date
• Adjournment

Mar 20th 100th Anniversary Scouting Event

On Saturday, Mar 20th about a dozen local area Hams gathered at the Taro Drop Zone on Fort Stewart to teach scouts about amateur radio and to help them earn thier radio merit badge.  What a great time and the weather was absolutely beautiful!  We had a couple of HF stations and a 2 meter station set up operating with the Special Event Callsign W4S which stands for We're 4 Scouting.  Clever, huh?  This is the callsign that Philip-KA4KOE always gets for scout related radio events like this and like the annual Jamboree on the Air (JOTA).  As an added bit of fun, Kevin-KW4B brought out a couple of his telescopes and everyone was able to get great views of the sun, the moon, Saturn, a nebula, and a couple of distant galaxies.  What a big hit the star gazing turned out to be.

ARES St. Patrick's Day Support

On Wed, Mar 17th our local ARES program activated to support a couple of our served agencies during the St. Patrick's Day parade and festivities.  St. Patrick's Day in Savannah is a big event and significant enough for both the Chatham EMA and Memorial Medical Center to activate thier respective Emergency Operations Centers.  At 0600 Steve-K4SDJ arrived at the CEMA EOC to bring up the amateur radio station and ensure the EOC staff that we have backup communcations established in the event it is needed.  Steve began to take checkins from local ARES members to establish a network of available operators around the city. 

Guy-K4GTM arrived at Memorial Medical Center at 0830 and and reported to Jimmy Gordon who is the Safety Officer for the hospital and to Ra Meguier-N4RVM who was the executive in charge of the hospital EOC activation.  Guy brought up the amateur radio station and established communication with Steve at the CEMA EOC. 

Throughout the day, we transferred the Net Control duties back and forth between the CEMA station N4CEM and the Memorial station K4MUM based on the situation.  We used the Red Cross repeater, 146.850, as our primary repeater for the based on it's proximately to the downtown area.  It worked great.  We maintained a "resource net" of sorts on the primary Chatham County ARES repeater where folks that wanted to be part of the "Parade Net" could be redirected to the Red Cross repeater.  Once again this year we had a number of radio operators in and along the parade route which provided us with great coverage for the event.

Throughout the course of the day we had operators arrive to support the activities at the CEMA EOC and the Memorial EOC.  John-N2DRL worked with Steve at CEMA and Lester-KF4JBQ and Ted-KJ4EGZ worked with Guy at Memorial.  We also had Carl-KC4UHM, who is an employee of Memorial, spend some time with us.

We maintained the net and the active EOC until about 1500 when both CEMA and Memorial de-activated thier respective EOCs and we stood down our ARES activation.  We closed the net and secured our respective amateur radio stations.  These activations give us great opportunities to train and show's our close relationship with our served agencies and the public that we are ultimately in place to support. 

March 10th B-17 Radio Work

On March 10th, Carroll-WX4Y, Mac-KF4LMT, and I went over to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum to do a closer inspection of some of the radio gear that came with the B-17 that is currently undergoing restoration.  We met Jerry, Marshall, and Jim and got our official "City of Savannah" t-shirts and volunteer name tags.  We're now official!  We only had a couple of hours so we went over to the equipment store room and got right to work.  We opened up the case on the BC-348 Receiver and were pleasantly surprised at just how clean and well preserved everything looked.  Wow, what a beautiful piece of equipment!  No sign of damage or age whatsoever.  Amazing how well this 65+ year old radio looks!  Carroll seems to think that this radio will be no problem at all to get running.  After some photos and documenting, we closed the case and moved on to an RT-18/ARC-1 VHF transceiver.  This particular radio was not in quite the condition that the reciever is in.  But, everything appears to be in place and "fixable".  Took some more photos and made some more notes then put the case back on this one.  After we cleaned things back up a bit we talked about some next steps.  Carroll is going to try to find a service manual and schematic diagrams of the radios.  Mac is going to find some articles on BC-348 restorations for future reference, and I'm going to research the RT-18 and find out the best way to clean the exterior cases and control panels.  On our next visit we plan to bring some of Carroll's test equipment to test the tubes and capacitors.  It was a great visit and we are on our way!

Mar 5-7 ARRL International DX Contest

Boy did we have a great time as a club participating in the ARRL International DX Contest as a club entry this year.  We operated our very fine club station at the Southside Fire Department with the new addition of a Icom 756 ProIII transciever that once belonged to Mr. Ed Bigbie-W4MMQ.  I was honored to operate his radio.  At about 4:30, Kevin-KW4B, John-N2DRL, and I arrive at the station to put up dipoles for 80 and 40 meters.  We used Kevin's air powered line launcher "canon" to get the lines up in the tress and used the pulleys on our tower for the other ends.  Got the antennas up, feed line run, and tested with the analyzer before dark.  Jere-KT4ZB arrived about 5:30 and setup the logging program on the computer and made sure everything was good to go.  Steve-K4SDJ arrived and helped with the final touches.  When 7:00pm rolled around we were on the air.  Jere made the first run of contacts and Kevin, John, Steve, and I ran out to grab some some dinner.  Once we had our strength back, we began to take turns on the radio.  Several operators began to show up as the evening wore on and many got an opportunity to operate the station.  Ken-W4JKG showed up at about midnight and operated till about 0400 making quite a few contacts on 40 meters.  I decided to stay overnight and worked a seperate radio on 80 meters under my callsign.  I made about 30 contacts till Ken left at 0400.  Then I jumped on the club station till 0530 when Kevin came back in.  Kevin relieved me and I ran home to shower and change then went over and met the normal crownd for breakfast at SunnySide Up.  After breakfast we went back to the station and many more HAMs began to show up.  I had the opportunity to give some "new operator training" to one of our new HAMs, Fred Kuhn-KJ4PST.  Helped Fred setup his handheld for all of the local repeaters and tested it.  Fred got to make his first radio contact with his friend, Ra-N4RVM, and was quite thrilled.  Operateors came and went throughout the day and we have a total of 10 HAMs that made contacts in the contest.  Once dinner time came around, Ra-N4RVM had pizza delievered for us all.  Thanks Ra!  As the nght wore on we were really racking up the contacts.  The bands were in really good shape and our very nice rotatable beam antenna was doing a great job.  We even had a handful of contacts on 10 meters.  Going on 40 hours with no sleep I decided to stay as loong as I could Saturday night to keep the station in operation.  I finally called it quits at around 0200 and locked things up and headed home for a few hours of sleep.  Steve and Kevin were back at the station at around 0700 and things were rolling again.  We only had about 5 hours out of the 48 where the station was not in operation!  Nice feat!  Once again we operated with several HAMs throughout the day on Sunday.  Kevin really had some nice runs and had well over half of our total of 451 contacts.  Great job Kevin!  Kevin made contact number 451 with about 30 seconds left in the contest.  What great fun.  At about 1800, Steve and I started getting things ready to stow and took down the 40 and 80 meter antennas.  Byt he time Kevin and completed the final contact, we had things just about packed away.  What a sense of accomplishment when 1900 arrived and we looked at our final tally!  I want to personally thank Jere-KT4ZB for his idea and for his guidance and expertise in the contest.  What a tresure he is.  And to Steve for his logistics and coordination support.  To Ra for the pizza.  And of course to all of the HAMs who operated and assisted with this effort.  Here is a list of those who operated the station followed by an list of all who participated in some way.

OPERATORS
- KT4ZB, Jere
- KW4B, Kevin
- N2DRL, John
- K4GTM, Guy
- KJ4EGZ, Ted
- W4JKG, Ken
- N4RVM, Ra
- KA4CID, Mark
- KG3Z, Tom
- K4WP, Bill

OTHER HAMs in ATTENDANCE
- K4SDJ, Steve
- KI4DZD, Edward
- KF4JBQ, Lester
- W4REQ, Ralph
- KJ4PTP, Kirk
- KJ4FAV, Paul
- KJ4PSU, Will
- KJ4HAI, Melissa
- KJ4PST, Fred
- KD4LUG, Andy
- KJ4SMW, Arthur
- KG4NKE, Matthew
- W4SWJ, Sue

Mar 3rd CARS Club Mtg at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum

On Mar 3rd we held our monthly club meeting at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum where we are assisting with the restoration of the radio compartment of the B-17 "City of Savannah".  With almost 30 club members in attendance, we held a short club meeting in one of the very nice conference rooms then we heard from Jerry McLaughlin who is the Project Manager for the B-17 restoration.  Jerry gave us a short history of the aircraft and how it came to become part of this fine museum.  Next we went downstairs to actually get an up close and personal look at the aircraft.  Jerry introduced us to the Wed night crew of volunteers who were working on the aircraft and we were able to actually climb into the plane and look at the bomb bay, cockpit, and of course the radio compartment.  What a treat.  We spent a good hour in awe over this mighty machine.  Took alot of pictures and talked about our plans for the radio gear.  What a huge success the meeting was and what a great group of hosts that Jerry and his team were.  We are looking forward to getting started!

March 2nd, 2010 Air Force One Visit To Hunter Army Airfield

Had a rare opportunity to observe and monitor Air Force One as it arrived and departed Hunter AAF in Savannah on March 2nd, 2010.  I positioned myself at the north end of the runway 10 at Hunter around 0900 on Tuesday.  I had a pair of binoculars and observed ground activities on Hunter as they prepared for the arrival.  I was also monitoring the Hunter Security Forces on my scanner and was able to feed updates to my friend Ann Lindholm who was positioned along the motorcade route with other Tea Party patriots.  My friend Mac-KF4LMT relayed to me when he heard Air Force One transition into Savannah airspace so I tuned over to the Hunter tower frequency to hear Air Force One contact tower and recieve clearance to land.  Aircraft 28000 touched down around 1135 and taxied to the terminal where it was still visible from my vantage point.  Most of the comm that I monitored was of the tower and ground control and then of local security.  Of course all Secret Service comms were encrypted.  Once POTUS was in the limo and on his way to Savannah Tech, I broke off and met Mac for some lunch.  Later in the afternoon I went back to the same location to monitor and observe departure.  Not much comms until Air Force One requested clearance for engine start from ground control.  As Air Force One taxied to the active runway 10 they switched over to Hunter Tower where they requested and recieved clearance for takeoff.  Air Force One began takeoff roll and rotated at around 1530.  I snapped this photo just before they dissappeared into the low cloud deck and switched over to departure.  What a great time.  I so appreciate all of the airmen that operate that fine aircraft.......especially the comm crew!  Sorry, I'm partial!

MASONIC PANCAKE BREAKFAST AND HAM RADIO EVENT

On 27 March 2010, from 8am to 11am, Bryan Masonic Lodge #303 will hold a Pancake Breakfast. The cost is $5.00 - all you can eat. The proceeds from this fundraiser will go to benefit the Masonic Children's Camp located at Shellmans Bluff. Bryan Masonic Lodge is located on Bass St., Richmond Hill, GA. The directions are listed below:

Directions to the lodge:

A: From I-95: Take Exit 90, GA 144, East for ~1.5 miles;
Right onto Edsel Drive for ~300 yards;
Right onto Bass Street; lodge is on the left.

B: From GA 17: Turn East on 144 for ~.5 miles;
Right onto Edsel Drive for ~300 yards;
Right onto Bass Street; lodge is on the left.

If you need assistance with directions on the morning of the breakfast, call 912 660 2438, Larry or get on the 146.970 repeater and make a call to either KF4JCC, David; KD4NUE, David; N4VAD, Greg or AF4MI, Larry for assistance.

Additionally, there will 2 or 3 fully equipped portable Amateur and MARS stations operating for those that are interested. SSB, Digital and CW will be in use.

We look forward to seeing all of you there to enjoy the breakfast and 'playing radio'.

New Callsigns Have Been Issued

FCC callsigns have been issued for our newest Amateur Radio Operators.  Congratulations to all!

Charles Seyle - Technician - KJ4SMZ

Arthur DeMarchis - Technician - KJ4SMW

Cameron Bolduc - Technician - KJ4SMV

Patricia Gibbs - Technician - KJ4SNF

Freddy Fairman - Technician - KJ4SMU

Al Lucas - General - KJ4SMY

Rose Larkin - Technician - KJ4SMX

Hector Eide - General - KH2FA

Successful Amateur Radio Test Session

We had a very successful exam session today here in Savannah with six students from our recent Technician class all passing the exam.  Congratulations folks!  Special recognition to Al Lucas who passed the Technician and the General exams all in one sitting!  We also had a young man from Jacksonville who made the trip up here to test and he passed as well.  And we had another person, Hector, who passed the upgrade to General.  We'll be having another test session in March for those folks who were in the class but were unable to test today. 

Here's a list of the new and upgraded HAMs.

Arthur DeMarchis  -  Techician
Patricia Gibbs  -  Technician
Freddy Fairman  -  Technician
Rose Larkin  -  Technician
Charles Seyle  -  Technician
Cameron Bolduc  -  Technician
Al Lucas  -  Technician then upgrade to General
Hector Eide  -  General

Thanks a bunch to our Volunteer Examiner team of Steve - K4SDJ, Ra - N4RVM, and Bill - K4WP.

Technician Class Session #4

We had a good session #4 of the current Technician class that we are teaching here in Savannah.  This week we covered Licensing Regulations, Operating Regulations, and Electrical and RF Safety.  This finished up the study guide.  Then we did a short review session and ran thru a practice test.  Everyone seems to be doing just fine and should be ready for the exam on Saturday. 

Feb 12 Winter Weather Event in Savannah

Well a good swath of Georgia got some sleet and snow this evening. We got about half an inch in parts of Savannah with some of the inland counties getting as much as 2.5 inches. Once the rain started turning into sleet and then snow, a number of amateur radio operators and Skywarn weather spotters gathered on our local ARES designated repeater to deliver weather reports to pass on to the National Weather Service in Charleston. NWS Charleston has responsibility for twelve Coastal Georgia counties and really depend on weather spotters to provide real time weather updates. We established communications with the NWS Charleston office amateur radio station WX4CHS first on 3.975 and then moved to one of the South Carolina repeaters. As Dan-KF4MND who is the new DEC for NWS Charleston began to gather reports from Chatham, Effingham, Bulloch, Bryan, Liberty and Long counties, I relayed the reports to WX4CHS via the 146.715 repeater in Whitehall, SC. We continued to feed reports to Charleston until the snow had passed through the area. This was another great opportunity to exercise our ARES and Skywarn procedures. Great job all around.

Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief Article

Here's an article in the current issue of The Christian Index about our communications unit with the Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief Team.

http://www.christianindex.org/6232.article

CARS March Meeting

The March monthly meeting of the Coastal Amateur Radio Society will be held at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Pooler. We will meet at the museum on Wed, Mar 3rd at 7:00pm where we will hear from Jerry McLaughlin, the "City of Savannah" Restoration Project Manager. Jerry will give us an update on the restoration of the B-17 and we will get to see the aircraft and associated radio compartment equipment.

Technician Class Session #3

Session #3 of the Technician Class went very well this past Thursday evening. Everyone is following along nicely and seems to be having a good time. We covered antennas, feedlines, and made it all the way through chapter 4 of the study guide. Next week will be our last session and we'll be covering licensing regulations, operating regulations, and electrical and RF safety. Then we'll wrap it up with a review.