Tracks in snow fail to confuse fox hunters

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foxhunt cartoonDecember came and went…. cold, snow, and no foxhunt. Then came January…cold, lotsa snow, but still no foxhunt. And finally February arrived….still more cold and snow, but…. our intrepid foxhunters eventually came out of their caves and didn’t see the shadows of their yagis. So that meant that a foxhunt was on!!!

Thus for the February event, which occurred on Sunday, 8 February, (one week late because of, guess what, lotsa snow on the originally planned 1 February foxhunt date), three foxhunter teams gathered at the Off-Track Betting Parlor parking lot near Lima and Washington Center roads. They consisted of the team of Charles Ward, KC9MUT, Fred Gengnagle, KC9EZP, and Robert Dean, KC9UHU, the team of Kim & Jim Machamer, KB9’s DOS & DOT, and the team of Linda & Steve Nardin, W9’s LAN & SAN. In total seven rabid hunters.

Their quarry, the fox, was provided by Jim & Annie Pliett, K9OMA & KA9YYI plus Carole & Al Burke, WB9’s RUS & SSE. They travelled down to Klotz Park, near Southwick Village in south-east Ft. Wayne. From there they emitted the high-power fox signal on 146.430 MHz from a roof mounted quad with about 40 watts into the feedline. The low-power signal was loosed from a camouflaged micro-fox transmitter hung from a tree branch about 10 feet high in a copse of trees bordering a creek, and out in the middle of a show field, around 1000 feet from the Klotz Park ball diamond. (Let me tell you, tromping around in a snow field without snow shoes is hard work).

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Fox Hunt season resumes Sunday — with new rules

Please join us this Sunday, March 1st, for the first club Fox Hunt to run under new rules adopted at last Friday’s special Fox Hunt meeting. We will meet at the Parking lot for Carrington Field on Coliseum Blvd, just south of the old K-Mart store. This is very close to the geographical center of Allen County. This hunt will be on the 146.430 FM simplex frequency, with 146.76 as the intercom.

Since there is a possibility of heavy snow on Sunday, we will meet at 10:00 am on the 146.91 repeater and Echolink node on Sunday morning, to decide to go ahead with the hunt or postpone.

Look for the new rules in the March Allen County Ham News or on our website. Also look for information about new “Novice” fox hunts to be held on the Saturdays following club meetings. These will be geared for those who want to learn the ropes and get involved in Fox Hunting.

We’ll look for you all this Sunday!!

SKYWARN storm spotter training Feb. 17 in Ft. Wayne

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SkywarnLogoTxtOutln3The National Weather Service (NWS) will conduct live, in-person SKYWARN storm spotter training in Fort Wayne Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. at the Public Safety Academy/Ivy Tech South Campus, 7602 Patriot Crossing (off Lafayette St. south of Tillman Rd.). As you might have read elsewhere, the Fort Wayne Radio Club will not hold its regular, monthly meeting in February and encourages its members to attend the SKYWARN training in lieu of its February meeting. If you already plan to attend, please scroll to the bottom of this article and use the registration link.

The NWS relies heavily on trained, volunteer storm spotters. Ham radio operators have strongly supported the SKYWARN program for decades and recently more and more other volunteers, who are not ham radio operators, have joined in. An important part of supporting the program is to receive NWS training and to keep that knowledge up to date.

I want to be as helpful as possible to the NWS and, thereby my community. That’s why I attend SKYWARN training every year, even though the NWS only expects spotters to attend at least once every three years. I find it helpful to refresh my memory from the previous year and to make sure I’m aware of any new information.

If you’ve never attended the training, and you live in the Fort Wayne area, this is your chance to do so without traveling out of town. If you have attended in previous years, this month’s training will be a good refresher. If you don’t live in the Fort Wayne area, you can find a list of other classes taught by the northern Indiana NWS office here.

If you know anyone who is curious about what storm spotting is, invite them to attend. Remember that while a ham license is helpful to spotters, it’s not at all necessary, especially in these days of smartphones and mobile Internet.

The NWS considers the in-person training to be supplemental to online spotter training available on the MetEd website (https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_course.php?id=23). It recommends that all spotters complete the online training in addition to the in-person training and ideally, before the in-person session.

Finally, the NWS sincerely requests that all individuals register in advance for in-person training sessions. If you register in advance, your wait to check in at the session will be much shorter than if you don’t register in advance. I have already honored that request, by registering for the Feb. 17 session. You can register online for the Fort Wayne class at http://allen-in-spotter.eventzilla.net/ or you can register by phone by calling the Allen County Office of Homeland Security at 260-449-4663.

SKYWARN traning replaces Feb. general meeting: Fox hunt meeting set for Feb. 20

Remember that there will not be a usual club meeting this month, as we are encouraging all members interested in public service to attend the National Weather Service spotter training on Feb 17. Read more about the SKYWARN training here and please register in advance if you plan to attend.

At 7 p.m. Feb. 20, we will have a special meeting at Good Shepherd United Methodist Church 4700 Vance Avenue, Fort Wayne, to determine the future of the fox hunt program with FWRC. If you are an active hunter, or would like to be, or have suggestions for making fox hunting more fun, please plan to attend.

The February 2015 issue of Allen County HamNews is now available

HamNewsIcon 2015 02The February 2015 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.”

allen_county_hamnews_2015-02.pdf

900.65 KB 1055 Downloads

The January 2015 issue of Allen County HamNews is now available

HamNewsIcon 2015 01The January 2015 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.”

allen_county_hamnews_2015-01.pdf

1.11 MB 816 Downloads

146.94 antenna move exhausting work

Just to make it official:  the antenna for the FWRC 146.94 repeater has been relocated to a slightly lower position in its home at Parkview Hospital’s Randallia campus.  Due to the renovation of the Hospital, the antenna tower on top of the main core of the complex was considered too ugly, and the administration wants it to be removed. This meant that any antennas mounted on the tower structure had to be removed. Our 94 antenna was actually the second highest on the tower.

The antenna for the 94 is now on the edge of the main core’s roof, at about 120 feet above the ground. While up on the roof last week helping with the take down, it was clear from our view that we have a nice unobstructed view in all directions, so we believe that the range of the repeater will see little degradation.  I simple test the other night with a mobile headed to Kendallville showed that coverage to the north was not seriously degraded. The tower itself is still up there, but will be dismantled shortly.  (the original plan was to use a Helicopter to take down the tower. This was judged to be unacceptably risky, so it was decided to disassemble the tower in place)

This work was very difficult. We were asked by the tower crew that stripped the tower of its antennas to help out and identify our assets and get the repeater back on the air. We spent almost 8 hours on the roof in the cold and the rain, and were pretty exhausted when it was all done. When finished, we had the repeater operation restored, frequency was tweaked to about 10 Hz of nominal, and the output tone was changed to the co-ordinated tone of 97.4 Hz (no input tone required).

I want to thank the following people for their work on this project:

  • WD9AVW, John Morton
  • KA3OPA, Paul Prestia
  • N3QKX, Bruce Dennis
  • W9SAN, Steve Nardin
  • Dave Duprey

Dave Duprey is my cousin from Waterbury, Connecticut, who was visiting with his wife for Christmas. I told him we might put him to work if he came, and we sure did!!

For our efforts, the club received a bunch of tower hardware, 3 standoffs for tower mounting of antennas, a bunch of heliax, and two VHF repeaters (GE), and assorted other bits and pieces.

Again, thank you to the folks that did this work. It was a fantastic effort, but the 94 is still on the air and working as good as always. 

146.94 repeater back on the air

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Street view of Parkview Hospital, showing tower

After a several-hour outage to move the antenna, The Fort Wayne Radio Club 146.94 repeater located at Parkview Hospital on Randallia Drive in Fort Wayne returned to the air at 4:45 p.m. Monday, Dec. 22.

The antenna had been on a roof-mounted tower, which workers removed. It is now mounted about 20 feet lower, at the roof level.

In addition, FWRC President Steve Nardin, W9SAN reports that the repeater now transmits a CTCSS tone of 94.7 MHz. Although the repeater does not require CTCSS on its input, the CTCSS on the output will enable users to block reception of distant repeaters on 146.94 MHz.