Tag Archives: HF

April Communications Exercise

I moved our regular March Training to April, as most of you know. I did not want to miss out on an opportunity to do some traffic practice. Discussing this with some of our surrounding friends, this has grown a bit beyond just a standard PWCARES training.

Here is the general outline.

We will have an in-field operation at the Prince William County Government Center (our normal grassy area). This will be the centre of operations. I anticipate the following:

HF:

  • 40m station (7240 kHz)
  • 20/10m station (Suggest a frequency)

VHF:

  • A simplex station on VHFARES1 (147.525)
  • A repeater station (OVH or WWI or both if I can get permission)

UHF:

  • A simplex station (445.925)

There will also be a short training via WebEx (for those that wish to operate from home or our friends outside the immediate area) where we will cover the basics of passing traffic.

Logistics:

We will need some volunteers to help set up antennas and gear at the site, and we will need some antennas, radios, and tuners (for HF).

Because of this, we will do the WebEx training at 10 AM on Saturday, April 9, 2022, but we will set an arrival time at the site at 0800. This will also allow us to test frequencies and make alterations.

We will also have a dedicated Slack channel for remote information – if you are not on the PWCARES Slack, we will add you.

Types of Messages:

Over the next couple of weeks, I will send out some sample messages, but you are more than welcome to write up your own.

We will focus primarily on ICS-213s and ICS-213-RRs for this exercise and passing messages with voice.

We are still working out some of the details, so if you have questions, please send them my way, and I will develop a FAQ as best I can.

I will post updates to https://blog.pwcares.org/, so check the blog for the latest and greatest on this exercise.

Weather:

If the weather is bad – bad being below 50 degrees, high winds, or active precipitation – we will move to a fully remote exercise. I will still conduct the WebEx training.

To participate, please fill in this Google form.

If you have any questions or additional comments, please drop me a note.

Winlink Wednesdays

Standard check-ins this week (no weather snapshots or attachments of any type, please).

  • WHO: All amateur radio operators located in Virginia.
  • WHAT: Winlink Wednesday (Virginia’s Weekly Winlink Net)
  • WHEN: Wednesday, 13 May 2020, 0000-2359 EDT
  • HOW: This net will accept check-ins via Winlink only. Please do not use a “Telnet Winlink” connection (which defeats the purpose of Winlink). The goal is to have the message leave your station via RF.

Please remember to use the correct format for check-in, as shown below (check-in message on a SINGLE LINE), over an RF connection.

Sample

To: KW6GB

Subject: Winlink Wednesday Check-In

Message body:

call sign, first name, city or town, county, state (HF or VHF, etc.)

WA4GSD, Dan, Woodbridge, Prince William, VA (HF)
KG4GIY, David, Manassas City, VA (VHF)

On Thursday, all check-ins will be acknowledged, and a net report and complete roster will be published to the Web.

PEER-TO-PEER SESSIONS:

  • Morning session: 0730-0930L, Winmor P2P, 3582 kHz (dial).
  • Afternoon session: None.
  • Evening session: 1900-2130L, ARDOP P2P, 3582 kHz (dial).
  • Watch Facebook for details when active.

Weblinks

  • The current week’s net report and roster is now available at:

http://winlinkwednesday.net/WWRoster.pdf

(New home for Winlink Wednesday information – site is being developed.)

  • The current week’s participant map is available at:

https://www.qsl.net/kw4shp/WinlinkWed/WWmap.html

(Don’t forget to explore the interactive features that Steve has built into this map: pan, zoom, Virginia view, world view, etc.)

End Fed Wire Antennas

Over in the PWCARES Slack channel, Brian, WC4J and Dan, WA4GSD have been having a spirited discussion about end-fed half wave and other sorts of wire antennas.

It was suggested (hey, even I don’t need to be clubbed up side the head) that some of this discussion should be memorialized (since none of us have taken our ginkgo this morning) for future reference.

First up then, this handy dandy PDF of wire lengths.

Then there are a couple of YouTube videos:

And finally this little bit of information:

EFHW have better efficiency, lower SWR and is more forgiving on bands covered. EFLW tunes most bands but is 15% less efficient. You can look up more at this link on random wire.

Where might you use this? Why, in the field, like Brian did at National Night Out this week.

You Always Learn Something

The weekend of June 25 – 26, 2016 was Field Day, an opportunity to get on the air, test out some gear and generally have a good time operating. While many Amateurs were busy with Field Day, a small group of PWCARES members were participating in Operation United Resolve, a national communications exercise. The scenario was:

A series of catastrophic events across the United States has occurred. California has been hit by a massive earthquake causing extensive damage as well releasing a tsunami which has hit Alaska causing damage there, the central states experienced a derecho wind storm that caused extensive damage to the power distribution system, and at the same time a F5 hurricane travelled up the eastern seacoast flooding coastal areas. Additionally with these natural occurrences, various areas of the country are experiencing sporadic power outages of varying durations and fluctuations of unknown origin.

Many Governors state that their emergency management resources are overstretched and are asking neighboring states for assistance. As part of the recovery effort, SDFs across the US are mobilizing to assist their state Air/Army National Guards as they are called to active duty. Establishing reliable communications is a part of that effort and is the first step in determining who can communicate and what their local operating status is.

While a bit unrealistic, any one of these events could lead to a national call up of resources and strain the system.

The bad news is that the exercise never really seemed to get off the ground, at least as far as we could tell from our listening post at PWCARES headquarters.

The good news is that, even from this small, non-exercise, things were learned.

  • HF is hard : Perhaps it is better to say, if you do not do it a lot, HF can be challenging. The first thing we learned is that gear left in storage can, and does go bad. Or at least it seems like it does. Brian, WC4J, brought his IC–756ProII out to use and for a few, tense moments, we thought we were not going to be able to see it because the backlight did not seem to work. It did eventually, but there is a long track record of the backlights failing on that model.
  • Keep your gear together : It was a good thing Brian brought his rig, because David, KG4GIY could not find the tuner for his IC–706MKIIG (it did eventually turn up late on Saturday but only after a small excavation of half the house). This is not just for HF and tuners, but all those necessary cables, jumpers, and sources of power.
  • The higher the better : Putting up antennas is an art. Especially when you do not have all the height you might want. As we discovered hanging David’s G5RV Jr, even though the oak trees were high, getting the cables over the right branches to pull the antenna up was as much of a challenge as where to tie off the legs. Still, it was high enough that we could talk to others, and hear as well.
  • Sunspots matter : When all is said and done, if the sun is in a low activity pattern, the bands are not going to behave. As we have learned, we are in a real trough of solar activity and things are likely to continue this way for a while.

Despite only hearing two calls on the frequency we were instructed to monitor, and neither one of them requiring us to call back, we had a good exercise and everyone learned something useful.

My thanks to Brian, WC4J; Mary, KK4GOW; Derek, KV4SH; and Jack for coming out and exercising, and Jeff, WB6UIE; who was remote but proved we were getting a signal out.