The April 2021 issue of Allen County HamNews is available for download, using the link below or the newsletters link in the menu above.
2021 Indiana QSO Party
Fort Wayne Radio Club Involvement
Defending our Honor
Saturday, May 1, 2021, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. (local time)
Once again, it’s time to make our club stand out! The club competition for the Indiana QSO Party (INQP) relies on aggregate scores submitted by individual club members. That means all we need to do is get on the air from our home stations, makes some contacts on HF (SSB or CW or both), and submit our logs as members of the Fort Wayne Radio Club.
During the 12-hour event, stations from all over Indiana will be calling, “CQ Indiana QSO Party.” Simply contact them, log their information (signal report and county . . . . or, if out of state, signal report and state) and give out a signal report (everyone sends 59 for SSB or 599 for CW) and your county.
Logging of contacts can be made by using special logging software like WriteLog, N3FJP, or N1MM. The INQP webpage (http://www.hdxcc.org/inqp/) also suggests several others but these are the ones that work the best. Both WriteLog and N3FJP are for purchase. The N1MM Logger+ is totally free and supports all contests and state QSO parties without having to download extra files. Like N3FJP and WriteLog, it can interface with your radio, connect to a DX Cluster via telnet, interface, and log FT-8, PSK, RTTY, along with producing files for uploading to ARRL’s Logbook of the World and whatever computer logbook you operate. You can also have it submit your score!
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Normally, we start the fox (hidden transmitter) hunt season on the first Sunday in February, but sadly this year one of our enthusiastic hunters, Don Glick, K9LI, passed away suddenly before the hunt. FWRC decided to cancel the February hunt and focus on March. So, Sunday, March 7, we started the first transmission with 30 seconds of silent air to honor Don. This began our hunt and the start of the 2021 season. If this first hunt is any indication, this could shape up to be a great year!
From the staring point we had a variety of hunters, some new to FWRC hunts, some experienced, and some new to the sport. The teams of Al, Jim, Carole, and Anne (WB9SSE, K9OMA, WB9RUS, KA9YYI) were there along with Charles, KC9MUT, who had a ride-along with newbie KD9QHL. We were happy that the team of N9FEB and ND9C, both from the Indianapolis area, drove up to the Fort to participate in one of our hunts. Then there was a new team of several Trine University students and their professor in the form of KC2TCP, N9AMT, KD9OKH, KD9QQW, KW9S, and Abigail (not licensed yet). Also, we had a visit from Fred, KC9EZP and his dog, Izzy. They weren’t in the hunt but passing through the Fort.
Prior to this first hunt, the fox team of Linda and Steve (W9LAN & W9SAN) had made several trips around the county searching out new hiding spots. We had identified six potential places but decided on returning to Franke Park back by the old soap box derby hill. With the help of grandson Alex, the microfox was literally hidden under the edge of a large rock and a small pile of leaves completed the disguise. At 1:30 pm, we started transmitting with the 25 watt fox and activated the microfox, the hunt was on! It was a beautiful late winter day with plenty of sunshine, but the temperature was not too warm in the range of 40 degrees. Since we were only about six miles from the start point, we figured it would be a short time before the hunters started showing up. Boy were we wrong! After about an hour we began to wonder if our “easy” hiding spot was anything but!
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Minutes of the March 20201 general meeting of the Fort Wayne Radio Club are available by clicking the link below or the “Files” menu item above.
The Fort Wayne Radio Club will kick off its 2021 fox (hidden transmitter) hunting season Sunday, March 7, at the Corbin Park trailhead, 742 N. Coliseum Blvd., near 24/30 Surplus. That’s just north of what long-time Fort Wayne residents know as the city’s original cloverleaf intersection. This is near the geographical center of Allen County.
Gather there at about 1 p.m. ET, and be ready when the hunt starts at 1:30 p.m. sharp. The fox will be W9LAN, W9SAN and Alex.
The fox frequency is 146.430 MHz simplex. It transmits on high power for one minute starting on five-minute boundaries. The microfox transmits every 2.5 minutes on the same frequency, but at a 25 milliwatt power level. Foxes are always somewhere in Allen County. Use the 146.76 MHz repeater in Fort Wayne as an intercom to contact other fox hunters or the fox, if necessary. It is also OK for home stations to help hunters with antenna bearings if you have a directional antenna at home!
If you are new to fox hunting, we often have ride-along or follow-along space, and plenty of advice! For those who participate, we will build you a tape measure yagi to use with your mobile rig or HT! Attenuators can be home brew or purchased kits from K9SFX, or pre-built from Arrow Antenna.
We have picked a challenging but not too difficult hiding spot for this first hunt, so come on out for a fun afternoon this sunny Sunday!
The Whitley County W5YI volunteer examiner team announced virtual, remote test sessions to be held March 8 and March 22. The team plans to hold such sessions every other Monday, wrote Roger McEntarfer, N9QCL in an email. More of information is available on the web and by contacting McEntarfer at n9qcl@arrl.net.
The National Weather Service (NWS) plans to conduct a statewide tornado drill in Indiana Tuesday, March 16, at 10:15 a.m. ET.
At that time, the Allen County Skywarn® net plans to activate in directed net mode, according to net manager Jay Farlow, W9LW. The net control station will encourage operators to make simulated severe weather reports, using time-event-location (TEL) format. As usual, the net will occur on 146.88 MHz. If for any reason that repeater is unavailable, the net will operate on 146.76 MHz.
During the drill, NWS will issue a “test” tornado warning, which will activate NOAA Weather Radio receivers, according to NWS warning coordination meteorologist Michael Lewis, KG4KJQ. The test warning will not, however, automatically trigger broadcast Emergency Alert System alerts, or Wireless Emergency Alert messages, Lewis wrote. Depending on policies and configurations of equipment and software, the test warning might activate automated outdoor warning sirens in some communities and trigger notifications by some text message services, according to Lewis.
The March 2021 issue of Allen County HamNews is available for download by following the link below or choosing “newsletters” from the menu above.
Please note! This month’s issue reports that in-person meetings of the Fort Wayne Radio Club will resume Wednesday, March 17 at 6 p.m. at the downtown headquarters of the Allen County Public Library. See the FWRC president’s column in this issue for details.
The northern Indiana office of the National Weather Service (NWS) has opened registration for online storm spotter classes for the spring, 2021 season. The office will teach no classes in person this spring. Click a class date below to register for that class. All four classes contain the same content, so you need attend only one.
- Saturday, March 13, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET
- Wednesday, March 17, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. ET
- Wednesday, April 7, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. ET
- Wednesday, April 14, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. ET