Silent Auction for 2 of W7CWK's HF radios

North Salt Lake City Fireworks Event

North Salt Lake City will be hosting their annual  fireworks event on July 2nd, at Eaglewood Golf Course.  The public is invited to this event, and continues to be an exciting event every year, that attracts thousand of people for this event.

What will we be doing? We will be communicating with the attendees about the keep out area, and the NSLPD about anything we see or hear.  We are keeping folks out of the fireworks keep out zone, off of the greens, out of the skydiver landing zone, out of the possible RC airplane pilot areas, and out of the ponds.  We will also be watching for lost children or other (medical, or disturbance) problems and generally being extra eyes and ears for the NSLPD. We help with the vendor parking entrance, prior to the golf course opening.

It is very laid back, and you have the opportunity for a front seat to the fireworks; I have a lot of couples come together to help out, get some vendor food, watch the activities and the fireworks.  It is a super easy way to help the community, practice a little radio, and get some entertainment in! We have a flyover scheduled this year, and skydivers will drop in on us too.  There are vendors, and most of the time there is a potluck dinner with NSLPD.

The Incident Commander holds a briefing at 16:00, with an event opening at 18:00, parking at the golf course is available by pass for volunteers. We will have the SDMFA Command Center with us to use, and can use the golf carts for transport.  If you can come at 16:00, please do so, to help cover the parking lot entrances.  Otherwise plan on being there at 18:00.  I have room in my vehicle if you would like to be up there at 16:00 and leave approximately 23:00. We will use the ARES simplex frequencies 145.570 Mhz (primary) and 145.750 Mhz (backup) for the event. Talk-in will be on 145.570. No tone or codes needed.

Questions? Want to sign up? Please feel free to contact me.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Home 801-683-8279 Cell 435-512-6425 Thank you for your help!

I will send out an email with more details a few weeks in advance, with details about frequencies and parking.

The Eaglewood Golf Course address is:

1110 E. Eaglewood Dr., North Salt Lake, UT 84054              WEB: www.eaglewoodgolf.com

The city event calendar item is at http://www.nslcity.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=853&day=8&month=7&year=2016&calType=0

Field Day ....long ago

I’ve been prompted to share a story this month about Field Day. I think I’ve verbalized to some of you, but for those of you that have not heard it before, here we go:

My brother Clint and I got our Novice licenses in 7^th grade.  We were young, clueless, and living in a rural area we lacked a real elmer so a lot of what we learned we learned (on our own) the hard way. In those days a Novice could only work a small chunk of HF voice on 10 meters, and we had a borrowed Swan radio at home. But thanks to our limited skimming of QST magazine articles we understood (barely) in general what Field Day was all about…..operating somewhere other than home under your own power….and we were determined to take part.

Of course, we didn’t understand anything about contesting, registering our station, submitting logs, or any of that other important stuff. We just understood that dad let us off work a little early that day and we drove my 1973 Ford Thunderbird a few miles down a dirt road behind our house to be ready to operate.

I had a Uniden HR2510 (the best my meager savings could afford), a mag-mount on the trunk, and we weren’t at our home station. To us, that was Field Day, and we had a blast. Suddenly the airwaves leapt to life and we were off. We sat there, baking in the sun and sweating on old brown leather seats, passing the microphone and log book back and forth. Our similar voices and call signs (both starting with KB7FJ, mine ending with M and his with N) caused confusion as we both tried to work stations one after the next. We heard so many stations, but few heard us. We didn’t understand station types to know what a “three alpha” was. We had no idea what an exchange was. Was that on the FCC test? We didn’t know. But we worked statins, or tried to work stations, for hours. We started the car occasionally and revved the engine to make sure the battery stayed charge.

We were clueless. We made very few actual contacts. It was hot and miserable. I think we started a campfire but can’t remember cooking food. As it got cold and dark, the band dropped off and 10M became useless. We went home, and didn’t come back the next day. I think mom made us go to church or something like that. In the end, it was probably a total fiasco. From a contesting point of view, we were a waste, holding people up on the exchange and not submitting a log for contest verification.

But for one short time, we really felt a part of a larger ham radio community showing our ability to operate in less-than-ideal situations. The excitement my brother and I felt was palpable. We were hams, and we were operating from somewhere other than our home QTH, and we were operating on our own power, and sometimes people actually heard us.

And for that place and time and space…....that was enough for two young, clueless hams that just wanted to be a part of something more. So, whatever you do this Field Day, just do Field Day! 

Tutorial on how to submit an Article to the website

In this short tutorial you will see how members of the Davis County Amateur Radio Club can add articles of interest to the club website.  If you have any questions, please submit a comment through the club website.

https://youtu.be/hbf9NhECW10