Aug 2-Aug 3, 0000Z-2359Z, Pittsburgh, PA.

Pittsburgh area Amateur Radio clubs, VARIOUS. 250th anniversary of the City of Pittsburgh. Call ins on 147.090 +, 28.350 21.350 14.250 7.250 3.850 and elsewhere.

QSL Certificate. Edward K. Oelschlager, N3ZNI, 60 Carl Ave B2, Eighty Four, PA 15330. Please include $2 for certificate.

www.pittsburgh250ham.org

A reminder to my Amateur Radio friends here, if you haven't had the opportunity please review and provide your input in a recent post and poll here:
http://community.livejournal.com/furryhams/35310.html

We'll work off the polled responses we get up to August 1, 2008, so you've got today & tomorrow to share your input. Thank you to all of you who have already taken the poll.

73!

Swift Fox
Pittsburgh, PA
KS3IFT - Extra

QST!

I just posted a really long post over on the furry_bikers community regarding my project to build a ham radio based bike-to-bike communication system for my motorcycle and my experience thus far. It's relevant to ham radio if anyone is interested!

Bike-to-bike Communication System

Oryx

Yesterday afternoon, NOAA laid down a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the Pittsburgh area forecasting, heavy rains, hail, and wind gusts to 60 mph. Last time I sat back and ignored a T-storm warning, Aspinwall got tapped out for three calls, two of them in town, and Spike and I were left sitting in a fire station with no power and the garage doors closed so we couldn't get the trucks out.

So I grabbed my gear this time and stuffed it in the car. I also had enough lead time to also pack the Vector Power Station 400 watt, emergency power supply, my FT-60 HAM radio HT and the 16" length of metal stud and C-clamps I used for the temporary mag mount for the truck antenna over the winter months. The DC inverter plug was already in the truck so I took it all up to Station 2 with me to see how that set up would operate in the event of an emergency.

I had the bay doors up, a card table set up in the kitchen with a folding chair and the power supply center ready to go. The rain was just starting to fall when I finished securing the SBB-5 antenna outside the kitchen door at the fire station. I had everything hooked up, powered on the HT and gave my call, location and that I was listening on the .090 repeater. I was surrounded by radios. My scanner was monitoring Allegheny County dispatch and you could track the storm based on who was getting called out. I also had a FD hand held that I could switch to if I wanted to monitor WX on the scanner. Of course, I could have monitored WX and commercial radio on the Power Station also.
The storm lasted about 5-10 minutes with heavy rain, a little thunder in the distance and wind gusts to maybe half of what was forecast for the area. Looking at the old tracks, the really heavy stuff split and went north and south of us on it's way east.

It was kinda neat sitting there and listening to all the chatter. I carried on a brief discussion with a mobile Skywarn station, David, as he moved through Fraiser Twp and Russleton, north of me. Another HAM mobile on the PA Turnpike chimed in and the two of them were talking together when Aspinwall was dispatched to a residential fire alarm over on Heinz Place in Sharpsburg. I waited until the sirens stopped before rolling solo in Engine 2 down to Station 1 and then down to the scene.

When I returned to Station 2 at 14:40 the warning had been extended until 15:15 hours, so I returned to my little ad-hoc emergency radio station and stood by for another half hour as the rain outside slowly dwindled to a drizzle and then ceased all together.

I packed things back up, the radios, the antenna, the power station, all the plugs, wires and cables, and the yellow note pad and put it all back in my truck. I realized then that a box might have been nice, provided some protection against the elements and more expeditious (saved more trips back and forth to the truck) if I wanted to try that again. Revising the means by which I create a platform to mount the mag-mounted antenna might also be of benefit. What I did worked, but a better option should be researched.

The HT worked fine across the repeater. I really had no question in my mind about that, but it really does need a test to see if I can reach the HAM station set up in the EOC in Point Breeze at 5 W using a 3 dBi SBB-5 antenna. (If my calcs are correct, that'd be like me sending a 10 W signal or something. It's nearly 6 dBi on 440 which'd be like sending a 15 W signal.)

Either way, it was a neat experience and as good of an excuse as any to try it all out. Comments, suggestions, anyone wanna keep me company next time?

*Hugs*

Swift Fox
Firefighter/HAM radio operator
KS3IFT – Extra; Pittsburgh, PA

A message to my Amateur Radio friends here, if you haven't had the opportunity please review and provide your input in a recent post and poll here:
http://community.livejournal.com/furryhams/35310.html

We'll work off the polled responses we get up to August 1, 2008, so you've got two more weeks to share your input.

Thanks and 73!

Swift Fox
Pittsburgh, PA
KS3IFT - Extra

Hello fellow Furry Amateur Radio Operators!

Spike, K9SPK, Dobe, K9LDT, and I have received permission from the University of Pittsburgh Amateur Radio Club to utilize their 70cm repeater and EchoLink node to host a "FurryHam Net." The mission of this net is "to promote and practice amateur radio operation and to pass along news, information and messages of interest to Furry Ham Operators."

Repeater Information:
W3YJ-Repeater: 443.45 MHz (+5.0 MHz offset, PL 100 Hz)
EchoLink Node: 177325

While we put our heads together and draft a script to use for the FurryHAM "rag chew" net, you can help us by offering your input in this poll.

We thank you for your input. We'll be polling until the end of July. Once we've had time to review the data generated, we'll select a time, day and consistent week of the month and advise folks of when the FurryHAM net will go "on the air." That could happen as early as August, at the latest September.

73!

Swift Fox
Pittsburgh, PA
KS3IFT - Extra

Note to Yappy: Would you mind linking to this poll from the Furry HAM's website? TY

Does anyone know the callsign for the Anthrocon field day site and what HF bands they are using?

Since I haven't seen any posts about the times of the Fox Hunts and for Field Day at Anthrocon here yet, I am going to post the times that I found in the Anthrocon 2008 Programming Guide. I myself am looking very forward to these events since this will be my first con with my ham ticket and I can get very involved with these events.

Anyhow, without further delay, here is the scheduling for the Fox Hunts and Field Day at Anthrocon 2008 as found in the Anthrocon 2008 Programming Guide:

Fox Hunt
The introduction is held in the Lawrence Room on Friday from 1230-1300.
Friday's fox hunt is from 1300-1430.
Saturday's fox hunt is from 1200-1300.
Sunday's fox hunt is from 1300-1400.

Anthrocon Amateur Radio Field Day
The field day events will be held on Saturday from 1700-1900.

NCARC will once again bring the KF4RRY repeater to Anthrocon this year! We just finished retuning the duplexer and verifying it with a network analyzer, so we're ready to go. The configuration will be the same as last year:

Full duplex UHF: 443.4/448.4 (output/input) Tone: 100.0

Half duplex VHF: 147.555 Tone: 100.0 (cross-band repeat, simplex)

We look forward to hearing folks at the con! I'll have QSL cards with me in the Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom.

As a follow up to Swift's Post:
http://community.livejournal.com/furryhams/32891.html

Can I make a couple propositions as to frequencies to use at ac?

I propose to use 146.400/simplex, 136.5 Hz Tone for intra-con communications.  It's a clear frequency that is already used by a lot of furs in the area already. The tone is necessary as Downtown Pittsburgh is fairly RF saturated!

Also, for communications outside of the con, I suggest 146.090, Positive offset.  No tone is required, however it transmits an 88.5 Hz Tone for interference rejection. This repeater has coverage over all of the Pittsburgh Metro area.

The 146.880 machine will make a good backup, however it's coverage over the metro area to HT's isn't quite as good.

I'll be listening on both .090 and .400, possibly more, depending on how much of a geek I want to look like (read: how many radios I really want on my belt)

I look forward to seeing everyone at AC!