Amateurs in Eastern Massachusetts along with dozens of hams along the US East Coast demonstrated Amateur Radio’s ability to deliver messages without commercial power, infrastructure, or permanently established stations for officials of the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
[Story, courtesy KC1CIC]
Marcia Forde, KW1U, writes on May 24 at 5:15 PM:
I wanted to say how very impressed I was with how Greg KC1CIC carried out our section’s part in the Red Cross Demo on May 23. When I first heard from Tom K1TW about the possibility of our section taking part I immediately thought of Greg. On mentioning this to Greg he immediately jumped on the idea, willing to take a day off work to participate. He has built a very impressive go-box capable of operating on HF and VHF, including voice, CW and digital. He has a wire HF antenna which he is able to put up as an inverted Vee with the use of his bow and arrow. The antenna is very neatly and compactly stored along with his bow which disassembles into smaller parts for convenient storage, and this along with his go-box, battery and generator packs very neatly into the back of his jeep. Added to these are a laptop computer and folding table and chair for comfortable operating.
The demo included both voice and digital comms including a preloaded message to go out via MT63-1KS on a Red Cross form using Fldigi. This was a new operating mode for Greg but he was quite capably able to master it and successfully sent out the prepared message to W1AW on 80 meters. Other stations heard were not always so successful.
In addition to thanks to Greg, I would like to give credit and thanks to Peter KC1HHO who while a relatively recent ham has shown a great interest and curiosity in amateur radio especially in messaging and who practiced with Greg using this digital mode on 2 meters. Peter was also present to observe the demo and I think was equally impressed.
73, Marcia KW1U
STM EMA/WMA