The Royal Harbor Amateur Radio Club of Tavares, FL took part in SKYWARN Recognition Day - an event to strengthen the relationship between amateur radio operators and the National Weather Service.
During times of dangerous weather conditions local ham radio operators within their communities become the eyes and ears for the NWS by reporting things like tornados, hail storms , and damaging wind conditions to a regional NWS office.
These people are trained by the National Weather Service to be certified Skywarn Spotters. The members of the Royal Harbor Amateur Radio Club in Lake County decided to see how many NWS stations they could contact across the United States to help celebrate SKYWARN Recognition Day.
We set up at my home of (Ted Luebbers, K1AYZ) and operated on HF, VHF, and UHF using single sideband, packet, Echolink and PSK 31. Since the RHARC is made up of retirees that need their sleep, we didn’t operate overnight like some serious contesters might.
We started at 1230 UTC and continued until 2200 UTC. There were six members involved in making this event a success. They were Carl DePoy, K8BBT; Ken Secora, N9KS; Mike Ward, WA9VIQ; Luke Short, KJ4QVK; and myself. Also my XYL , Deb Luebbers, KB1FEF, provided logistical support with coffee and food.
Three members of our club are already card carrying SKYWARN Spotters. We contacted 30 National Weather Service offices across the country exchanging current weather information with each location. We accumulated the above total using the following modes of communication: High Frequency ( 9 ), PSK-31 ( 3 ), Echo Link ( 17 ), and 2 meter FM ( 1 ) .
Although these numbers may not be impressive to most contesters, we had a lot of fun making those contacts. This is the first time our newly formed club has tried anything like this and as a result we will be trying some other special events and contests in the future. Besides having a good time running the equipment and chasing down NWS contacts we learned how to divide up the jobs so we were not in each others way by splitting up operating positions and how not to cause interference with the various modes of communication we used.
We also got a chance to exercise some of our portable emergency equipment first by finding it, then getting it to run properly. Another benefit that we had not anticipated was the opportunity to acquaint two of our newer members with the two digital modes they had not seen before in operation. This may have sparked a new interest for them.
Our equipment consisted of two laptop computers: one for packet and the other for EchoLink. One PC was devoted to PSK-31 using Digi Pan 2.0 software with a SignaLink-USB attached to an ICOM 718.
For high frequencies we used an ICOM 756, for 2 meter FM and packet the gear was a Yaesu FT-7800R and a Kenwood TM-G707. Our antennas were a J-Pole for 2 meters, a Cushcraft R-6000 ground mounted and a Hustler MO-2 Spider mobile antenna mounted on a tripod on the back lawn. All in all it was a rewarding and fun day for all of us.
- Ted Luebbers, K1AYZ
IN THE PHOTOGRAPH: Carl DePoy, K8BBT, makes contacts during SKYWARN Recognition Day 2009 at K1AYZ in Tavares, FL. (Photograph courtesy of K1AYZ)
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