The Day In Radio

Had the normal Saturday breakfast with some of my radio buddies this morning. I really look forward to our time together every week to talk radio. I do miss Mr. Bigbie-W4MMQ though. I'll never forget him.





After breakfast today a few of us hung around and helped a new HAM to the area, Glenda-KJ4LWE, do some troubleshooting on her mobile HF radio. She's trying to get it to connect to her laptop so that she can run PSK31. Keven-KW4B, Mark-KA4CID, and myself tinkered with it for a bit and then decided we'd step back, do some research, and then try it again later. We did rule out some things but still couldn't get it to work. However, later in the day, Kevin and I both determined that we were not using the correct port on the radio. Now it all makes sense. Maybe we should have read the manual first.........nah, not as much fun that way. Anyhow, we'll do some testing then get back with Glenda at a later date to get things up and running.

After that Kevin and I headed over to Candler Hospital to unpack and test the new VHF/UHF radio on the newly installed dual band antenna. Candler is one of our "Served Agencies" for Chatham County ARES. We put the analyzer on the feedline to test the SWR and we found that it was a little high (about 3:1) on 2 meters but just fine (1:1) on 70 cm. We went ahead and got good comm checks on all the local repeaters and even a couple up in South Carolina. At least now we know we'll be able to communicate from Candler if needed. Thanks to Mac-KF4LMT and Mark-KA4CID for the help with the checks. We'll need to get Savannah Communications out there to test the line again on 2 meters just to be sure everything is ok. We might also need to see if there is an adjustment that we can make on the antenna to bring it resonant in the 2 meter band. After we get all that sorted out the next big step with be to get the HF radio ordered, installed and tested. Once we're done at Candler, we'll move on and get things up and running at St. Joseph's Hospital. One step at a time.

Video Stream From Amateur Radio Station K4GTM

Watch periodic streaming video broadcasts from Amateur Radio Station K4GTM.

How's this for a Net?

This is the net that we used to establish on the Worldwide Airborne Command Post as part of the Post Attack Command Control System. Good 'ol Cold War stuff baby!

HF Antenna Repairs

I had an HF Dipole get blown down during one of the storms earlier in the week. Another good reason to have two antennas up out back! Finally got around to getting it repaired and back up in the trees this afternoon. My son, Jackson, was a big help. I used my magic softball to launch the lines back up. Everything is up and running now.

EOC Training Today

Ted-KJ4EGZ and I attended an Emergency Operations Center training class today at the Chatham Emergency Management Agency EOC. We now better understand how the EOC is manned and the procedures involved with managing an emergency. We'll be back there tomorrow to learn about the Web EOC application and then run thru an exercise. We have an Amateur Radio Station -N4CEM, located in the EOC that we are tasked with manning during an EOC activation.

Talked to Steve Jonas-K4SDJ Today

I talked to Steve today for the fist time since he was hospitalized on July 3rd. He sounded good. He's in a normal room now and the doctors think he may be able to go home in the next week or so. Praise God. He asked me to go over to his house and disconnect power from his radios and disconnect feedlines from his antennas. We've had some severe weather in the area and he wanted to be sure that everything was isolated while he's away. I should have thought of that before but he's good to go now.

New Generator

Got a brand new Honeywell HW2000i 2000 watt generator thanks to my good friend Ted The Bargain Hunter - KJ4EGZ. Got it for about 30% of normal retail price. Thanks Ted. Now I get to see just how much of my Command Center I can power with it. Come on hurricane season. http://www.honeywellgenerators.com/products/hw2000i

Checked into W4MM Weekly 2 Meter Net

While down in Valdosta on business/pleasure tonight I checked into the Monday night Albany Amateur Radio Club 2 Meter Net from the Valdosta Amateur Radio Club repeater via the Tall Pines Intertie. This is the club the Dr. Gene-W4AYK (Georgia ARES SEC) belongs to and he was on the net. I also checked in back in Savannah on the 146.700 repeater via the W4SGA Echolink Node. Had a nice QSO with Robert-KJ4HAL.

Quarterly Chatham County ARES Meeting

Had a great ARES meeting tonight at the Southside Fire Station. Good turnout from Chatham and surrounding counties. Gave a summary of events since the last meeting and an overview of upcoming activities. Then we had a very nice class on Formal Message handling from Charles Pennington, K4GK. Charles is the Section Traffic Manager for the Georgia Section. We really appreciate Charles coming down from Sandersville tonight. Now we can begin practicing message handling on our local nets and exercises.

Shuttle Endeavour Launch

Well, I've been following the launch (or lack thereof) of the Shuttle Endeavour for the last three days. It has now been delayed five times now. I went down to Titusville for the last launch and had a really good time. This launch I'm hoping to monitor tha air to ground transmissions during liftoff from right hear in Savannah. I've done it a couple of times before. Once from out at Tybee Island and once from here at the house. Once the Shuttle reaches a certain altitude we will have line of sight from here in Savannah. I'll be monitoring the air to ground comm on 259.700 using my VX-7R, my ID-800H, and my Pro-96 scanner. We'll see which one will be able to hear the best. I'll use two external antennas that are up in the trees at about 30 feet and an homebrew ground plane antenna that I have in the attic. I'll also tune the HF rig to 5.711 to try and catch the Solid Rocket Booster recovery team communications. Next lauch attempt will be on Wed, July 15th. I'll post again after the launch.

4th of July HAM Station

I set up a simple station at the Southside Baptist Church 4th of July Community Picnic and Fireworks Display over the weekend. Kind of a last minute idea but thought it might be fun to operate a little since I would be outdoors most of the day. I borrowed Mac-KF4LMTs battery and G5RV Jr. antenna and found a good spot to setup in right field of one of the ball parks over there at Paulsen Sports Complex where we were having the picnic. I put up a 12 x 12 canopy and setup my station on a small table that is perfect for events like this. I brought along my Yaesu FT-857D and my LDG Z-11 Pro tuner. In no time I had the radio and tuner connected to the battery thru my RigRunner power panel. Next step was to get the antenna up in the air. I solicited the help of Charles Cobb, one of my friends from church. We used the magic softball and a spool of chaulk line. Charles flung the ball up and was able to snag one of the foot pegs on the outfield light post. Did the same on the other side and tied everything off nicely. Got it up about 30 feet. Took just about 15 minutes. Hooked the feedline to the tuner and boom, I'm on the air. Operated for about an hour before my wife called me over to help with the picnic. My job was to cut up 30 watermelons! Dang, that's alot of watermelon. It took me about 3 hours till we ran out. Then I was able to clean up and get back over to the radio station. I operated right on thru the fireworks display and even had the opportunity to explain HAM radio to a bunch of my friends and my daughters friends. After the fireworks ended I broke down the station and headed to the house. Sure was fun. The simpler the better when operating an event like that.

CARS 2009 Field Day Summary

Here is a very nice summary of our Field Day activities at the Coastal Amateur Radio Society as taken from our club newsletter......

After breakfast at Sunnyside Up, CARS members assembled at Southside Fire Department Station 1 on White Bluff Rd. at 8:00 AM to begin setting up for Field Day. As the temperatures and humidity rose, so did the antennas: A hex beam for 20 meters, dipoles for 80, 40, 15, and 10 meters, a 6 meter yagi, a military HF vertical, and a 2 meter/70 cm satellite antenna. We operated as a 5A station using the club call sign W4LHS. Radios were provided by various club members with a multi band setup on Philip’s military radio, dedicated stations for 80, 40, and 20 meters, and a 10/15 meter station. In addition to the HF stations, Ralph Quinn, W4REQ set up a 6 meter station and Dan Scott, KF4MND set up a satellite station. In addition to the antennas and radios, a wireless network was set up and logging software was used on the 80, 40, and 20 meter stations. That made logging the busiest of the 5 stations much easier. The recently renovated and improved club station, which is located at the fire station, was used for our Get on the Air (GOTA) Station as K4S on 10, 15, and 20 meters as well as 2 meters and 70cm. Many
thanks to those who showed up early to get the antennas in the air and the stations set up, without their hard work; the rest of Field Day would not have been possible. Field Day was a success. There were 45 total attendees throughout the weekend, with 25 staying for dinner on
Saturday evening. Propagation may not have been cooperative, our score may not have been high but we had fun, and that is the key thing. During Field Day, several CARS members made their first HF contacts and prospective hams were introduced to the hobby with the opportunity to get on the air. With the exception of dinner time, there were stations active for the duration, even over the "midnight shift." In fact, many 40 and 80 meter contacts were made in the late night and early morning hours. During the daytime, 10 meters and 6 meters didn’t decide to
cooperate with us, but 15 and 20 meters did. 302 contacts were made, 46 of which were CW contacts. The GOTA station contributed a further 35 contacts for a total of 337. After the score was tabulated, we had 1290 bonus points and 778 points from contacts. Field Day was also a success away from the radios. Saturday morning, in addition to station preparation also saw a VE session and an introduction to operating class. The VE session resulted in one new Technician Class operator, a
General Class operator who passed the Technician and General exams at the same session, and an Extra Class upgrade. Jack Beaty, Jr. earned his Technician Class license and Edward Meyers passed the Technician and General tests, earning his General Class license. Jack Beaty, Sr., KI4QAP earned his Extra Class license. Jere Conan, KT4ZB conducted the HF Operating and Radio Set up class prior to the beginning of operations to help new operators and those new to HF get a good start on Field Day and HF operations in general. Field Day brought two new CARS
members: Joe Carroll, AG4BO and Jack Beaty, Sr., KI4QAP. The Field Day dinner not only paid for itself, but also brought a small profit; $125 was taken in to cover the cost of $98. The after dinner auction raised $112.

Military Crossband QSL Card

Received my first QSL card from the recent Military to Amateur Crossband exercise back on May 9th. This one is from Station WUG-231, the Memphis District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who were operating from the W.G. Huxtable Pumping Plant in Marianna, Arkansas.

New Call Sign for Kevin

Kevin Bell, formerly WD0GFG, has been issued a brand new call sign effective today. Kevin's new call is KW4B. Congratulations Kevin. It'll take us some getting used to.

I think this is the picture you never wanted anyone to see!

CARS Club Station Work Day #2

A group of us met at the Southside Fire Station again today to continue our work in the radio room. We got quite a bit done again and should be ready for this to be the GOTA (Get On The Air) station for Field Day. We finished the work station surfaces by bracing them and securing them. We then installed a very nice electrical ground bus designed by Steve-K4SDJ. This bus is made of copper pipe with nuts and bolts providing nice ground points for various radios and other equipment. See pictures below. Paul-KJ4FAV did a very fine job of drilling the holes with his drill press. Nicholas, son of Mark-KA4CID, soldered the elbo joint together. Good job Nicholas! After the radios were set up, we got good comm checks on 2m, 70cm and 20m. Bill Solomon-K4WCS contributed a very nice Yaesu FT-840 for use in the radio room. Thanks Bill!! This will be a great assett to the club station. We just need to get an RF switch so we can toggle between the two HF rigs. Everyone did a great job today and we are almost finished with our "station makeover". Thanks to the following HAMs who came out to participate today.

Steve-K4SDJ

Guy-K4GTM

Kevin - KW4B (formerly WD0GFG)

Mark - KA4CID

Nicholas

Paul - KJ4FAV

Bill - K4WCS

Russ - K4YGD

Lynn - KD4POC

Matthew - KG4NKE

Jeff - KJ4HAF

Lester - KF4JBQ

STARS Club Meeting Tonight

Had a great time at the Statesboro Amateur Radio Society monthly club meeting tonight. Always good food at RJ's. Lyndy-ND4XE gave a nice presentation on how he uses his laptop to remotely control his FT-857D. Very interesting. It was great to spend some time with all the gang in Statesboro. Thanks to Bob-W4WTO for picking up Net Control for the Chatham County ARES Net in my absense.

Pembroke D-Star Gateway KJ4GGV Back Up and Running

Well, we made another trip out to the WVAN Transmitter site in Pembroke this afternoon to try and determine why the KJ4GGV D-Star gateway can be seen as active on the Internet but not allow for any linking. I picked up Mac-KF4LMT and we met Bob-KI4YRY and Larry-W4RA at the site around 1630. I connected the laptop to the router to double check all of our port forwarding settings to the gateway and found everything was just fine. However, I noticed that on the bottom of the page there are three tabs.....ADD, SAVE, APPLY. Well, I quickly determined that when we were out there last Friday I clicked SAVE but never did click APPLY. So all the setting were correct but I hadn't applied them to the active config of the router. Geez. And I'm in the technology business! Of course, after I clicked APPLY and we got someone to trigger the link to the reflector, boom we were good to go. Gateway connectivity back up and running! Mac had his IC-91AD with him and was able to verify the connection to the reflector. I'm glad it was a simple fix. Now let's see how long things continue to run. I think we're in good shape now. I sure appreciate the STARS Club (of which I am a proud member) for hosting and maintaining this D-Star system.

VE Session Held in Savannah Today

The Coastal Amateur Radio Society held a VE Session today at the Memorial Hospital. This was on the heels of a General Class that we just completed on Thursday. We had three operators test for General and three test for Technician. Unfortunately one of our Techs from the class was not able to make it to the test session so he might try it on Field Day. We had two folks pass the Technician exam and one pass the General exam. Congratulations to John Finn-KJ4KOF for his upgrade to General!

D-Star Work at the Pembroke KJ4GGV Repeater Site

We are very fortunate to have a D-Star system located fairly close to Savannah at the WVAN transmitter site in Pembroke. The Statesboro Amateur Radio Society has done a great job of learning and maintaining the system since it was installed last year. There have been some issues over the past few months with the Internet connectivity, which of course is what enables all of the D-Star systems to connect to one another. The guys suspected it might be a bad router this time so I volunteered to go out there with them to take a look since I had a spare router that I wasn't using. So I met Bob-KI4YRY and Larry-W4RA out at the WVAN tower Friday afternoon to take a look. We quickly found that the Internet router was dead. As in, won't even power up dead. I connected my router and began to program it to connect to the Internet via the Pembroke Telephone Company DSL modem. No joy. Called the help desk folks at the phone company to determine what type of authentication we need to configure for. Found out it was PPPoE which uses a telco provided username and password. She gave them to me and I configed the router accordingly. Still not syncing up to the Internet. Couldn't connect directly with the laptop either so we began to suspect the modem. The rep on the helpdesk dispatched a tech to come out and take a look. He was onsite with a new modem in about an hour. Don't expect that kind of response in Savannah! Gotta love small towns. Well, we installed the new modem, recycled the router and boom, we're on the Internet. Good stuff. While we were waiting on the tech to arrive we got the go ahead to run an ethernet cable from the DSL modem directly to the D-Star gateway. This is huge as it eliminates the need to connect from the modem to the gateway using Wireless LAN with two routers needed. Plus this would take away one more potential point of failure. We found about a 100 foot cable and began to plan how we would route it thru the facility. Easier said than done. In a totally different room about 50 feet apart in a building with cinder block walls! Well, I managed to find a suitable route after climbing around a little. We ran the cable and connected the gateway directly to the Internet router. Next, we ran into another problem. Whatever had killed the DSL modem and the #1 router also scrambled the brains of the #2 router which was connected to the gateway. Great. So Bob called his contact in Atlanta and he told me all the settings that I needed to re-configure the router for the D-Star gateway to connect to the network. Once I got it all configured and ready to go I made sure to save the config file to my laptop so that we'll have it in the future in case we ever need to re-program the router again. That will save alot of time. Once the config was complete we verified that the gateway could be seen as active via the Internet. We weren't able to get a good link established to another node or to the reflector cause no one was available that knows how to do that. So we packed everything up and decided that was enough for one day. Got alot accomplished and we should be better positioned going forward. We'll see how it goes. I sure enjoyed visiting the repeater site and getting a chance to play around with things a little. Thanks to Bob-KI4YRY and Larry-W4RA for letting me tag along.