April 8 2006 ARES/RACES is meeting at the Community Education Building in Bangor.  Starts at 9:00 a.m. SHARP.  Tackling the IS-100 and the IS-200, so don’t miss out

Overview of March 18, 2006 for the Boy Scouts of America Eagle Project.

A few months ago Evan Coder called me to ask me about Amateur Radio. He was wondering if we could put on a demonstration utilizing emergency communications with amateur radio.  We set up a date with other groups (Van Buren County Sheriff Dept, Mattawan Police, Mattawan Fire, Van Buren County Emergency Medical Service, and the American Red Cross) for March 18, 2006.  Well as it turned out it was also on the same date of the largest ham fest in Marshall Michigan.   

I enlisted Charlie Chapman (KB8SFR) from the Kalamazoo ARES/RACES group and we managed to get the Black River Amateur Radio Club/Van Buren County ARES/RACES trailer to Mattawan.  After the trailer was dropped, Harry Hahn (KC8SDS) started the furnace to get the heat going. As well some Boy Scouts helped out getting the extension cords and the generator out.  Bill Coulter (KC8TWZ) worked on getting the fuel for the generator and getting that running.  However, we did find one problem at this time. The generator cord and the plug in for the trailer did not match. So for a while we were running just on extension cords (which looked very messy).  After a while Harry went to the Mattawan Hardware store and purchased a matching set of electrical outlets for the trailer and installed them on the cord. As for antenna set up, George Bartholomew (WB8WXE) and Bill Coulter managed to place several antennas up for the demonstration.  There were 2, 2meter antennas and 1, 20meter.  One of the 2 meter antennas was for APRS and the other was set for the Bangor Repeater which worked IRLP.

Eventually, several people came through the Ecom 1 Trailer.  It was amazing on how people are interested in Amateur Radio. We managed to sign up 7 for future Amateur Radio Classes.  Several were interested how a repeater work and how HF works. It’s funny to look at someone while there listing to a ham talk to us from Antarctica.   Then some were also interested in APRS.  “You mean you can watch other people for free on a map!” as one person said.  The trailer also got a lot of “OHH’s and AHH’s” on how well the trailer looks.

Overall the presentation went very well expect for a few minor snags.  Well, what do you think?  After all we are Amateurs Radio Operators.

 I also want to thank Scott Garvison (KA8JNO) for keeping trailer up and using his own diesel, Donna Stahlbaum (KC8DPP), Donald Stahlbaum (KC8HVQ) for setting up radio equipment and the Black River Amateur Radio Club for use of the trailer.

73’s
Harry Hahn
KC8SDS
Van Buren County ARES/RACES Group