Fort Wayne Radio Club

On an usually warm first Sunday of November, the Fort Wayne Radio Club held its final Fox Hunt of the 2016 season. The foxes, Linda, W9LAN, Steve, W9SAN, and their grandson, Alex, had chosen an Acres Land Trust location on Chapman Road in northern Allen County. This location includes the main office of the Acres organization. Pulling our Honda fox vehicle into the small parking lot, we assigned Alex the job of hiding the micro fox, which he located behind an old garage in a dead Elm tree, sliding it behind some the bark on the tree at about 5 feet above the ground. This height would prove to be just enough to allow the micro fox signal to be heard before hunters could localize the site.

At 1:30 pm, after turning all of our clocks back an hour to go back on Standard Time, the fox began transmitting. Since initial reception reports were weak, we increased power to 25 watts, swung the antenna in the direction we imagined the start point to be, and continued. Most were hearing us with enough strength to get a decent bearing and the hunt was on! Included in the hunt were 5 teams; the Burke-Pliett team of 4, the Charles-Fred team of 2, Jason plus daughter Kylie and Deborah, Jim and Kim, and a new team consisting of Brenda and Jim, KD9GDX & KD9GDY, hunting on their own for the first time after several ride along hunts. We kept transmitting every 5 minutes despite several interruptions by curious passersby’s, curious bees, and Alex’s new found bird calling skills.

Little did we know the drama that the hunters were enduring!

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The November 2016 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.”

Attention all Allen County & FWRC hams:

Due to impending construction at the Indiana and Michigan Power company’s Robison Park substation, the FWRC voice repeaters on 146.76 MHz and 444.875 MHz and the ACARTS voice repeater on 147.255 MHz and digipeater on 144.39 MHz will be off the air for most of the week of October 30. The exact starting time of this outage is fuzzy right now, but most likely will start on Tuesday, November 1 and continue to the weekend.

Al Burke, WB9SSE, informed the FWRC board of directors yesterday about the move. I&M needs to build a new structure on the exact spot that we have our repeater shack, but has offered us a much bigger and nicer structure inside the fenced substation property, right next to the tower. I&M also informed us that they will take care of any feedline moving that needs to be accomplished for us to set up inside the newer structure. Included in this building is a much bigger uninterruptible power supply for emergency power.

Due do the rather fast timeline, the old FWRC shack, which was donated by Raytheon company back in 2005, will be taken down and removed by the I&M people. The building they are giving us is about 2.5 times the size and much newer, however.

We will try to keep  the membership up to date as all this takes place.

Stay tuned for more information!

The October 2016 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 August, 2016 FWRC general meeting, at which president Charles Ward, KC9MUT signed a tower space agreement with a local broadcast radio station (see photo at left), are available for download using the link below.

The September 2016 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.”