March Fox Rings a Bell

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The Foxhunt Chronicles

fox cartoonThe second foxhunt of the 2013 FWRC’s foxhunt season occurred on Sunday, the 3rd of March on a sunny but cold March afternoon. In  general good foxhunting weather albeit a little nippy.

The March hunters included the team of Jim & Annie Pliett, K9OMA & KA9YYI plus Carole & Al Burke, WB9’s RUS & SSE, the team of Charles Ward & Fred Gengnagle, KC9MUT & KC9EZP, the team of Linda & Steve Nardin, W9’s LAN & SAN plus their grandson Alex, and the team of Kim & Jim Machamer, KB9’s DOS & DOT,…. In all a total of eleven rabid hunters just chomping at the bit to find their elusive prey.

And serving as the prey for this contest were Bob Dean, KC9UHU & Dave Spence, KB9VTK who were holed-up at a baseball diamond at Harlan Community Park. They had erected a yagi driven by about 50 watts of rf for the high power fox signal, and hid a microcontroller controlled “microfox” within a brass bell located on the baseball diamond property as the actual fox. The microfox was programmed to automatically produce about 50 milliwatts of cw on the fox output frequency for one minute every five minutes. For this hunt the fox frequency was set to 146.31 MHz which is the input frequency for the FWRC’s 146.91/.31 repeater, and thus allowed area hams to listen in on the progress of the hunt via the 146.91/.31 machine.

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March Board Meeting on Air

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Due to the approach of inclement weather, the BOD of the Fort Wayne Radio Club has decided to hold the Board Of Directors meeting for March on the air (OTA). (The church will most likely not be open tomorrow night anyway)

The meeting will take place on Tuesday, March 5th, at 7:00 pm on the 146.76 repeater in Fort Wayne. All members are invited to listen in, and there will be a time for comments from club members.

Summary of 2013 SKYWARN Spotter Training

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About 35 people attended SKYWARN spotter training Feb. 26 at the Allen County Public Library. Here are some highlights:

Photo of spotters attending training sessionWarning Coordination Meteorologist Michael Lewis reminded spotters of the importance of their reports. He pointed out that studies have shown that members of the general public pay more attention to weather warnings when they include eyewitness reports. In other words, if a tornado warning says a spotter has seen a tornado on the ground, it’ll get a lot more response from the public than a possible tornado indicated by radar.

Reporting Methods

Lewis covered the preferred and less preferred reporting methods.

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SKYWARN Training Handouts

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Due to budget constraints, paper handouts are/were not available during the Allen County SKYWARN spotter training Feb. 26. Below are links to the handouts, so you can view and/or print them for yourself. They are in PDF format, so you’ll need Adobe Reader.

Reporting criteria (new for 2013)

Graphical depiction of how to maintain Severe Weather Awareness

Hail Chart

Beaufort Wind Chart (and Spotter Reporting Format)

Thunderstorm Type Chart and Associated Threats

QR Codes and Shortened Webpage Addresses

Owlie Skywarn Booklet (1.6 MB pdf) from NOAA’s National Weather Service