Subj : Newsline Part 1
To : ALL
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Thu Jun 30 2016 07:59 pm
Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2018, July 1, 2016
Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2018, with a release date of Friday,
July 1, 2016 to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.
The following is a QST. Wildfires and floods imperil public safety, and
challenge the amateur community. An Ohio ham takes one college assignment
to new heights. Germany hosts its 41st global amateur expo. And Radio
Caroline is back on the air.....well, sort of. All this and more, in
Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2018, coming your way right now.
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BILLBOARD CART HERE
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DEADLY WILDFIRES CHALLENGE FIELD DAY EXERCISES
PAUL/ANCHOR: This week's report begins with the weather, all kinds of
extreme weather. There's the blazing heat, raging fire and elsewhere,
torrential flooding that can call radio amateurs into emergency action,
or preparedness and, in some cases, even cancel plans for a long-awaited
Field Day. Our two reports are from Albquerque, New Mexico and Kanawha
County, West Virginia. We hear first from Amateur Radio Newsline's Kent
Peterson, KC0DGY, who's been following the wildfires out west.
KENT: We've all heard the horror stories about field day miseries. Things
like the tent blew over, or that lightning made us disconnect our antennas
for five hours, but what about when a raging wild fire forced evacuations
from a site? Well, that happened to the Albuquerque DX Association. Bob
Norton N5EPA explains.
BOB: There were just way too many uncertainties. Too much was still
happening. The evacuation orders were lifted only on Thursday before
Field Day. So when most field Days start setting up on Friday, that's not
a whole lot of a window.
KENT: A raging wildfire was burning about 20 miles from Albuquerque.
BOB: It's probably an unbelievably rare situation. It's the first time
ever there was a threat to a Torrance County Park. This might be a
once-in-a-lifetime threat.
KENT: Norton explained what plans their association had in store for this
year's Field Day.
BOB: We intended to have a stand-alone CW station, a stand-alone side
band station as well as a VHF station, Kind of too optimistic for this
year.
KENT: But the wildfire was bearing down on the Cedro Peak group
campground.
BOB: A couple days after the fire started, they closed that entire ranger
district down, so we looked at the alternate site. But, back at Torrance
County Park, with the wildfire going, if we were to use the park and the
fire jumped the lines, they had concerns with evacuations. With the
wildfire going on, we didn't feel comfortable with using the park. We
could be a bigger problem for them. We didn't have a third contingency
location planned out, so we reluctantly passed on conducting our own
Field Day.
KENT: With some help from Mother Nature, firefighters were able to get
the upper hand on the blaze.
BOB: It's heavily wooded where they had the fire line. They were about
to stop the fire at the main state highway. There were some residents
that lost homes. If the fire had continued going northeast, it would
have headed into a very heavily populated area. Fortunately, on
Wednesday and Thursday, just before Field Day, there were some fairly
decent afternoon thunderstorms, which parked right over the fire burn
area, and that made all the difference of turning around that fire.
KENT: In the end, all wasn't lost on this Field Day.
BOB: We had invites from other area clubs. Others just chose to say home
and operate a little Field Day from the home station. Which is what I
did. Because in the end, I was happy to still have a home. The fire line
for me was only four and a half miles, and that was just too close for
comfort.
For Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Kent Peterson KC0DGY.
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� Synchronet � The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, AR - wx1der.dyndns.org
