2023-6-27 Weekly This & That Newsletter
Successful Field Day 2023!!
SCHH ARC Enjoys Fine Day at Lake Somerset with Seven Stations Up and Running
If you weren’t at Lake Somerset this past Saturday, you missed a great ham radio experience. The SCHH ARC put seven KE4HAM stations on the air between 2 PM and 5 PM and welcomed guests and media to our annual summer outing.
Our final tallies of QSOs and sections worked should be available for next week’s This & That. They should be fine.
Results in all other areas were more than just fine.
Our event was covered by Sun City TV. A 3-person crew led by host Chris Chase toured the site and interviewed club president Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW for over ten minutes. This & That will post a link to the coverage when it is available. Also, The Bluffton Sun indicated that it will use one or two captioned photos snapped during Field Day in an upcoming issue thanks to Ed Stratton, W1ZZ’s contacting them.
KE4HAM originated an ARRL radiogram to new SC Section Manager John Gendron, NJ4Z, and relayed it to SCHH ARC member Charlie Bess, AD5EN who was operating Field Day at his home QTH.
Gordon Mooneyhan, W4EGT — the ARRL SC Section’s great Public Information Officer — came down from Myrtle Beach to spend some time with us as well. Gordon is pictured with past SCHH ARC president Russ Treadwell, N1ZK, below.
SCHH Board president, Anna Marie (Tab) Tabernik — who is also serving the Bluffton area as a member of the Beaufort County Council — spent some time with us as well. Ed, W1ZZ, had a nice conversation with Tab. It was great to see Larry Ross, W4YR, at the site with Tab as well.
Our site’s power system utilized batteries charged from solar panels that fed DC power into an inverter to power all stations at 120 VAC for the afternoon. Thanks to Bob Officer, WA6WAY, for designing and setting up the power distribution system for our site.
Bob and his wife, Sharon, also collaborated on bringing some awesome pizza to our Field Day. Several others from our club brought food for all to enjoy! Many thanks for that!
Set-up of the site began at 11 AM. Rick Garan, WA8NLX, and Ken Finke, KN8F, paired up to lead the installation of 15-meter and 20-meter dipoles in the trees at the lake.
Ken captained one of our SSB stations using his own transceiver on 20 meters. He’s pictured here with guest CW operator Brad Fox, K3BR below. Brad sat in for Harve on CW between 3 and 4 PM and did a fine job for us. He’d never used an ICOM rig before and had never computer-logged before but he stepped up big-time!
Ed (W1ZZ) operated SSB on 15 meters with the club’s trusted Kenwood transceiver. KB3FW with help from visitor Brad, K3BR, from Rose Hill operated on 15 and 20 meters CW using Harve’s ICOM 7300.
Jack Frisch, K2ITZ, had his Kenwood on 40m SSB.
Dennis Hopkins, AC4DH, operated a QRP station on FT8 during the afternoon. Bob (WA6WAY) and Ron Frick (AI4HH) were on 6 meters, 10 meters, and maybe one or two other bands. Ron Kramer, W2RJK, was on hand to help with that effort as well.
Frank, K2OS, set up a 6-meter Moxon antenna and made some QSOs on that band. Frank also installed an antenna to attempt a satellite QSO. There was much interest in this as can be seen below with Dennis (AC4DH), Ed (W1ZZ), Bob Kennedy (N0DQD), and Bob McCormick(KD8IH) encouraging Frank to catch the satellite. KE4HAM almost made a complete QSO via a late afternoon satellite pass!
As with any undertaking of this magnitude, there is much gratitude to all who participated in the planning of Field Day 2023 and providing the “elbow grease” to make those plans become a reality. The club held two Zoom planning meetings and presented the overall Field Day plans to the club members at our June 1st membership meeting. There was a final Field Day Preparations Meeting on June 22nd as well. Successful Field Days don’t just happen…it takes many members to make it happen and our team did a great job!
There are two great events coming up this summer. Hope to see you at one or both of them.
Details below!
A Parks-on-the-Air Outing is also being planned…we’ll finalize the date once we are sure when the Bluffton area needs more rain (inside joke).
So, please stay tuned!
Upcoming Club Events
July 15th – SCHH ARC Fox Hunt
Organized by Ron Frick, AI4HH, and Ed Stratton, W1ZZ. More details to follow.
August 19th – KE4HAM Operation on Hunting Island for International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend (ILLW).
Coordinated by Jack Frisch, K2ITZ. More details to follow!
Next Membership Meeting
The Club’s next Membership Meeting will be on Thursday, September 7th, at the Lake House. Plans are to have an Elmer Presentation by Frank Pollino, K2OS, at 6:45 PM followed by the evening’s main program, which will be presented by Ken Finke, KN8F, and cover how to get an antenna installation approved here in Sun City. The business meeting will follow Ken’s presentation. More info will be sent as the date gets closer on the calendar.
Club Website
The URL is https://www.ke4ham.org. If you notice any errors or have site-related questions, email: webmaster@ke4ham.org.
Nets:
Sunday NET (8 PM) operates on 147.550 MHz simplex and Echolink node: KE4HAM – L
Wednesday Nets (8 PM) operates from KK4ONF/Jasper repeater, 147.060+ and Echolink node: KE4HAM-R
Thanks to our regular Net Controls: Bob Officer, WA6WAY; Russ Treadwell, N1ZK; and Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW.
Thanks to Ron Frick, AI4HH, for keeping the nets on Echolink.
Please check into our nets when you can. The nets are informative and interesting and foster club camaraderie.
If you are interested in being a Net Control, please let Ron or Harve know.
Other Operating:
Daily — DX spotting and open chat 24/7 on 147.550 MHz simplex and the Jasper Repeater, 147.060+ (no Echolink).