Amateur Radio Club hones skills for emergencies during Field Day
Tom Anderson, our ?rst visitor, tells George Hoffman that he has gotten his Technician License since his visit last year. He is working on getting his General license.
Tom Edgar uses a slingshot, ?shing line and a weight to get the lead line for his antenna high up in a tree.
Marv Jahnke demonstrates good soldering techniques.
Susi Edgar puts the ?nishing touches on her balun.
The Haugan’s Heroes amateur radio club arrived Friday morning on June 23 at Savenac Historic Nursery with the aim of setting up two stations for the annual American Radio Relay League Field Day. The league is a national association for amateur radio and Field Day is held every year during the fourth weekend in June.
Ham operators were given 24 hours to set up antennas and transceivers which they used from noon Saturday until noon Sunday Mountain Time to make as many radio contacts as possible using CW (Morse Code), voice or digital methods. They were restricted to using portable power sources such as battery, generator, solar power or wind power. All this was done to encourage Ham operators to hone the skills required for assisting in an emergency situation.
The club consists of four members, Tom and Susi Edgar; George Hoffman and Marv Jahnke. They worked in shifts throughout most of the 24 hour contest window and managed to make 389 good contacts covering most of the states and much of Canada despite fairly poor propagation conditions. George made 322 of the contacts using CW (Morse Code), which demonstrates why Morse Code is still a very popular and powerful tool in amateur radio. It has a much longer range and is less prone to miscommunication.
The event was open to the public and the club’s ?rst guest was Tom Anderson from Haugan. He attended last year and showed up this year sporting his Amateur Radio Technician license which he earned last fall. Anderson said his visit from last year encourage him to take the plunge and get licensed. He is currently studying for the next level and hopes to have it by this time next year.
Neal Buckhouse from St. Regis walked in the door and said, “wow, why can’t we have a club that does stuff like this?”
In response Bruce Charles with the West End Volunteer Fire Department said that a group of people are trying to set up a similar club. He said the ?rst meeting will be held at the Superior ?rehouse on July 8 at 7 p.m. Some of the goals of the club would be to offer classes for amateur radio licenses, hold exam sessions for those licenses and support Amateur Radio Emergency Services. The club could also be the beginning of a group of Hams that could hold events such as Field Day, as well as provide communication services for community events.
Field Day ended with a hands-on educational session on making a balun. This is a device that converts the unbalanced signal coming from the co-ax to one that is balanced into the antenna. Members also were given a lesson and tips on repairing co-ax cables and proper soldering techniques.
“All in all our ?eld day was a great success,” said Tom Edgar.