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 7th 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.
New Section of the Website -- "Suggestions for New HAMs"
A number of club members have mentioned to me that it would be helpful if there was a section on the website just for newly licensed Amateur Radio Operators. It was first suggested that we should come up with a tips article so a new HAM would understand what they can and should do next. As you may guess this is harder to come up with then you think. We all have our own individual ideas of what we should and could do in the hobby and coming up with only one article to cover things would be difficult. So to accomplish our goal of being a resource for each other we have created a new section in the website under the menu item Learn the Hobby called Suggestions for New HAMs.
Now for the fun part. This area is open for all Registered Members of the Davis County Amateur Radio Club to submit information for the public to read. Once you log into the website you will see a new option under User Options entitled Submit an Article. From this link you will be able to submit information to this category and have it appear for all to see!
A couple of quick suggestions. When submitting an article to this area of the website please be specific with your comments. Remember this is for new operators (or even us veterans) who may not understand what you are saying. Keep it Simple. Also, keep it legal. Just like in school plagiarism is NOT OK. If there is a web article you think we should read post the link and then summarize it. Also remember to keep the comments specific to our Hobby -- Amateur Radio. THIS isn't the place to tell everyone that the neighbor kids are selling stuff for school and we should all go and get it. Finally Keep it Clean.
If you are a member with rights to add articles to other categories please be sure to select the right category for your article before saving it.
If you have any questions please send an e-mail to me through the webmaster e-mail address.
Days of 47 Special Event Station - K7U
Announcing the Days of 47 Parade, Ham Radio Demonstration
The public is invited to see the capabilities of Ham Radio, on Monday July 25, 2016.
We will be using Special Event Call sign: K7U on the air from 9 am to 6 pm.
"Ham Radio Works" is more than just words to the hams, as they prove they can send messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, Internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis.
During public demos, people will have a chance to meet and talk with ham radio operators and learn what the amateur radio service is about. Operators will show the still highly utilized historic Morse Code as well as voice and digital communications. We will also discuss other on-air communications such as Moon bounce, satellite capabilities, some of the newer digital modes like JT65, PSK31 as well as the still very popular RTTY.
"We hope that people will come and see for themselves, this is not your grandfather's radio anymore," says Allen Pitts of ARRL. "The communications networks that ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives in the past months and years when other systems failed or were overloaded."
When trouble is brewing, ham radio operators are often the first to provide critical information and communications. Ask us about how you can be more prepared for safeguarding your family during an emergency?
We will set up in two canopies with rigs, power and antennas to demo and operate. All contacts made will receive a special events QSL card for K7U.
This event will be at Salt Lake City Library Square park, 210 E 400 S., in conjunction with the Days of 47 Parade.
For information please contact:
Bob Carter - WR7Q President Utah DX Association
