This week’s annual FWRC auction will include the Huster mobile antenna system shown above, with resonators for the 10-, 15-, 20-, 40- and 75-meter HF bands. Everything you need to know to participate in the auction appears elsewhere on this website
Friday’s annual FWRC auction is starting to generate some real interest! Items will include the two Kenwood HF rigs below, both in excellent condition. Everything you need to know to participate in the auction appears elsewhere on this website.
| What: | Our annual January Auction. Got some treasure to sell? Bring it out and see what you can get for it! Looking for stuff? Maybe some accessories or a spare rig? Come on out, you never know till you’re here. |
| Where: | Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, 4700 Vance Avenue in Fort Wayne. |
| When: | Friday, January 19. Registration starts at 6:30 p.m. Auction begins at 7 p.m. sharp. |
| Who: | Anyone with stuff to sell or a need to buy! If you have a higher dollar item, please send a description and photo to Steve, W9SAN, at w9san@arrl.net. We will try to post on our website and Facebook page so that people will see and hopefully come prepared to buy! |
| Terms: | The Fort Wayne Radio Club gets 10 percent of the selling price up to a maximum of $20.00. Cash is preferred. Checks are accepted with local valid ID (like a driver’s license). No credit cards. |
| Other: | This is always a fun time! |
It’s once more time to dust off our roof-mounted mobile and hand-held direction-finding (DF) Yagis, check our DF receivers, and upgrade our maps of Allen County in preparation of the 2018 fox (hidden transmitter) hunting season. The first hunt of the season will occur in early February with hunts planned for the following dates through November:
| 4 February | 4 March | 8 April | 6 May | 3 June |
| 8 July | 5 August | 9 September | 7 October | 4 November |
Fox hunters gather near Daryl B. Cobin Memorial Park (in the former K-Mart parking lot) off Coliseum near the Lakeside Golf Course.
Each hunt starts at 1330, with whoever is serving as the fox transmitting a high power fox signal, strong enough to be heard at Corbin Park, on 146.430 MHz, for one minute. After that, the fox transmits a high-power signal every five minutes, immediately followed by a low-power (microprocessor-controlled) hidden fox transmission, also on 146.430 MHz, for one minute. The low-power fox transmission is a cw signal. Generally speaking, the low-power fox is camouflaged to make it difficult to detect visually.
The board of directors of the Fort Wayne Radio Club will hold its January 2018 meeting tonight, at 7 p.m. in room 138 or 139 at the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, 4700 Vance Ave. in Fort Wayne (just south of Snider High School).
All are welcome!
The main topic will probably be the upcoming (Jan 19) annual auction.
The 2018 SKYWARN storm spotter training session for the Fort Wayne area is scheduled for Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Public Safety Academy on Fort Wayne’s south side. Pre-registration is expected and can be completed at http://alleninspotter.eventzilla.net. NWS recommends that all participants complete online training in advance of the Feb. 20 class. The online training is available at https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_course.php?id=23.
More information appears in the flyer below.
The January 2018 Issue of the Allen County HamNews newsletter is now available for download using the link below. This and previous issues are also available for download by clicking the “Files” link in the main menu and then clicking “Newsletters.”
The December 2017 Issue of the Allen County HamNews newsletter is now available for download using the link below. This and previous issues are also available for download by clicking the “Files” link in the main menu and then clicking “Newsletters.”
Minutes of the November, 2017 general meeting of the Fort Wayne Radio Club are now available for download using the link below.
The November foxhunt, the last one of the year, was held on 5 November, 2017. Three foxhunting teams awaited the start of the contest at Cobin Memorial Park. They consisted of the team of Charles Ward, KC9MUT, Fred Gengnagle, KC9EZP and Tim Hearld, KE8ECF, a visitor from Galesburg Michigan, the team of Steve and Linda Nardin, WA9’s SAN and LAN, and the team of Jim and Annie Pliett, K9OMA and KA9YYI plus Carole and Al Burke, WB9’s RUS and SSE. Jim was trying out a new piece of software he had acquired that depicted our GPS derived current location on a Google Maps type display and allowed him to draw vectors from our current location on the true DF bearings we were getting off the roof mounted quad antenna. The idea was that after a few bearings were taken the crossing point of the bearings would indicate the general location of the fox, i.e., it was quasi automated triangulation.
Their prey was provided by Don Glick, K9LI who was ensconced a little over seven miles from the starting point at Buckner Park off Bass Rd. The weather was very freaky around the start time of the hunt with torrential downpours occurring off and on. (Weather Underground was forecasting ¾ of an inch, just between 1:00 and 2:00 pm, and further significant downpour through the rest of the day)! With all of the rain predicted Don decided to hide the microfox in the trunk of his car rather than put it out in the park thus likely preventing (somewhat) the drenching if not downright drowning of the hunters.
As it was, Don parked his high power equipment under an open-sided pavilion which provided some protection until the rain was driven horizontally by the high winds accompanying the storm. Needless to say he got WET and cheered his pursuers on. His high power fox consisted of a 25 watt radio driving a soggy four element beam situated about seven feet of the ground.