Fort Wayne Radio Club

The saying goes “April showers bring May flowers”. But the major rain we’ve experienced this May has also brought us floods. We thought that might be the case for the May hunt, but as luck would have it, the sun made its appearance on Sunday the 7^th. All in all it was a great day for a fox hunt.

Three teams were assembled at the Cobin Memorial Park starting point. They included the team of Charles, KC9MUT and Fred, KC9EZP, the team of Steve and Linda, K9’s SAN & LAN, and single hunter Don, K9LI.

The role of the wily fox was provided by Jim & Annie Pliett, K9OMA & KA9YYI. They located themselves in the Huntertown Family Park (the Huntertown Dog Park) north of Ft. Wayne, and they hid the microfox inside a piece of rotten wood in a copse of trees and underbrush.

The contest commenced at 1:35 p.m. with everyone hearing the fox from the get-go. First to arrive at the Huntertown dog park after about an hour were W9SAN and W9LAN followed by KC9MUT and KC9EZP, and then K9LI.

Once having localized the fox the teams quickly assembled their portable fox sniffers and commenced stomping about the park. After considerable searching amongst the flora and fauna, and not a little bit of digging, the microfox was found embedded in a rotten piece of wood. First to unearth the subterranean fox was Don. He was followed by Steve & Linda, and then by Steve and Charles. Among the comments heard were; “that darn poison ivy”,…” those nasty brambles”,… and of course “those damn ticks”. The good news, no mosquitoes!

Following the hunt the weary hunters relaxed and refueled at a friendly watering hole, the Willows Bar & Grill in Hunter town. A nice end to a pleasant day and enjoyable contest.

Why not join us next month (Sunday, June 4^th) as Don serves as the fox and hides it in some devious locale?

Scores

The next volunteer examiner test session here in Allen county will be Saturday August 5. The test session will be held at the Boy Scout Office on the southwest side of Fort Wayne. Their address is listed as 8315 W Jefferson Blvd. but they are actually located at the end of Olde Canal Place, which intersects with West Jefferson at the entrance to Lutheran Hospital, just off I-69 at exit 302. We will be in the basement next to the kitchen.

We will be taking check-ins from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. The W5YI volunteer examiner coordinator fee for 2017 is still $14; you will need a photo ID and a second form of ID as well. If you are testing for an upgrade, you will also need to bring a photocopy of your current license to leave with the paperwork.

The final test session of the year will be held at the Fort Wayne Hamfest in November. If you have any questions please call Tom Baker, N9TB, at 747-2714

The Fort Wayne Radio Club will hold its spring banquet for 2017 tonight at the Good  Shepherd United Methodist Church, 4700 Vance Ave, starting at 7:00 pm. As usual, the club will  provide placeware, drinks, and grilled and fried chicken. Attendees are asked to bring their favorite main dish, side dish or dessert to share with their fellow hams.This is always a really yummy event! We hope to see you all there for food and fellowship!

Minutes of the March, 2017 FWRC general meeting are available for download using the link below.

Indiana Michigan Power has notified the FWRC it plans to temporarily disconnect power to the building at its north Clinton Street substation that houses several local repeaters. The outage will allow workers to remove a generator transfer switch. The work is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 21 and the company expects the task to take about one hour.

Repeaters that might be affected include:

• FWRC 146.76 MHz
• FWRC 444.875 MHz
• ACARTS 147.255 MHz
• ACARTS 144.390 MHz packet radio