All posts by Mike (K3MJN)

Right now I'm an Amateur Extra radio operator, Scoutmaster, network admin, and geographic information systems manager. Previously a Jaycee, volunteer firefighter, youth soccer coach, and PSU Landscape Architecture alum.

Log Book Session 6

Session 6 – 5/30/2020 @ 20:30 EDT

Highlights from this week’s net: We added a new net control station in the South. Bill (KC3OOK) from Oxford (Chester County) is the furthest south we’ve had a net control station so far. He only had two stations check-in (one was a duplicate) but he was clearly heard by stations in Elizabethtown and Ephrata. Meanwhile, we had some stations in Elizabethtown that were totally unreadable a few miles to the east in Rapho Township. We had Bob (W3TEY) act as a spur of the moment relay for most of the net to pass traffic between West and CEntral controls. He did an admirable job given no training. All of this occurred on the same day when there were reported band openings 2m, 6m , and 10m. Stations in Missouri were heard clearly in Lancaster County on 2m SSB during daylight hours. A strange day indeed.

Open the log for session 5 using this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS99CX-8PYJMIeHFnUSgp_uBbZzDzM1_aHf8bs5oXg0nTUQHbH2c6zfjPHSXsS3xti8nNwbHxx7OMTO/pubhtml?gid=397119099&single=true

Net Control, Anywhere!

Making the Simplex Net happen each week requires the volunteer services of at least four net control operators that are spread out throughout our working footprint. So what happens when we run short? Somebody has to pick up and move their operations to a suitable location. Last week (5/23/2020) our existing Southern net control operators were unavailable due to other personal commitments and radios that were out of service.

Continue reading Net Control, Anywhere!