Vikings + Amateur Radio = Belgium and Hawaii Amateur Radio Outreach
As days in the park go, today was an exceptionally good day as returning Viking Amateur Radio club member Itzel and her brother Marcos worked 20 meters on $13.00 worth of antenna parts as they would share over the air. They would be joined by a pair of Viking members, 11 year old, 6th grader Laura and returning 7th grader, 12 year old Chris.
September is the most pleasant month for us in South West Oklahoma and today was a picture perfect example. With temperatures in the mid 80’s, low humidity and a southerly breeze, today was certainly a great day to be in the park and having fun. By 11am, the park already had a couple hundred visitors.
With wall to wall bright blue skies the Vikings worked the 20 meter band. Robert, KI4HEE enjoyed listening to the kids on the radio so much that he stuck around for over an hour and jumped in at the tail end and thanked the Vikings for their efforts and encouraged them to continue to work towards their individual amateur radio license.
Earlier, KC5CYY was verifying the SWR using the meter on the radio. The antenna is cut for the top end of 20 meters, so a low SWR would be expected. Of course he turned the 706MKIIG power to the lowest setting, about 5 watts. Verified the 1:1 SWR and set the power setting back to hi power, about 100 watts. At least those were his intentions!
The Vikings were undaunted by the fact that they were only getting occasional responses from their CQ calling efforts. With a couple of state QSO parties going on, certainly some hams should have stumbled onto them at 14.325 mhz. KC5CYY even resorted to calling a friend and having him put a shameless self spot on the Internet to help drive traffic to the young Vikings during their activities. KC5CYY will later admit that he had no shame in the request as these kids deserve to have an honest appreciation of all that amateur radio has to offer. The contacts came but they were sparse, painfully sparse. You already know where this conversation is going … KC5CYY forgot to put the power back on HI! Admitting his oversight, he explained that all the previous contacts were done with Low power, about 5 watts but will now be using 100 watts.
Within minutes the Vikings had more calls than they could handle. The response from the amateur community was positive as station after station replied to their CQ’s. After a short while, the kids only had to finish a call with QRZ to get the next station. A few times they had to ask stations to stand by and most operators patiently remained on frequency.
To the amazement of the young Vikings, stations wanted to talk to them! One after another they answered the calls from all parts of the country. Laura, born in NC, has lived in several states, many she got to say hello to again. A US station called us, and asked us to turn our beam towards Europe as several European stations were trying to work us! With our portable homebrew 20 meter vertical wire antenna, our hands were tied. After sever minutes, we finally got the call, ON6DSL, name Luc, and country, Belgium. Considering that calls from Belgium to Kid’s Zone Park are rare we never expect or plan for such a contact. To avoid any 3rd party operator issues, KC5CYY took the call directly, while the young Vikings experienced the excitement and saw first hand the importance of learning the phonetic alphabet.
When Hawaii station (KH6RC) called K5USA with a big Aloha, Marcos replied with Aloha and told the station (Randy) that he was a Native of Hawaii, a fact enjoyed by the calling station as they expressed greetings. Yes, today was certainly a great day to be part of amateur radio and exploring the hobby with interested young people.
One of the contact stations asked if the picture on http://www.qrz.com/db/k5usa was live? sounded like a cool idea and they asked if that was possible. We are going to try to put together a live feed for our next Amateur Radio Outreach event on Monday, Labor Day 9/6/10 from about noon until about 6pm CTS. If we can make it work, we will try to have a link in place. Because the connection is limited to 15, the Vikings will announce the site location over the air during the outreach event.
Although it has taken two years to get to this point, regular faces are returning to the park and participating in Outreach events. It’s still early, but so far, they want to learn about amateur radio, study the materials and talk to other people while sharing in the diversity of culture, excitement and occasional frustration of the hobby. With so many variables, the amateur radio experience is still best enjoyed using a radio and an antenna and a microphone or key set. Other technologies have their merits and benefits. But there is nothing like throwing your callsign “out there” and wondering if anyone will reply, if your equipment is working properly, are your connections correct, verifying you’re in the correct segment of the band for your license class, or verified your power level?
Please look for a posting shortly after Labor Day and we will share our results. 73
September 5, 2010 – KC5CYY
Hi 5's All Around Back to the park -- Finally!
The temperature for late August finally returned to a comfortable mid 90s and Clifton KE5YZB and I ventured to Kid’s Zone and setup a couple of radios. Clifton showed up with his portable station. Using a flipped over empty trash can for a ground plane and a mag-mount HF antenna on top and he’s in business … total setup time, less than 5 minutes, Impressive!
My typical setup requires about 20 minutes for the 20 meter wire antenna made one afternoon while at the park. There are some learning lessons that come from using a wire homebrew antenna. After all, it’s a $13.00 investment and generally, we get great feedback even when conditions are marginal as today would prove.
Earlier in the week Clifton had his first Viking Radio Club KF5CRF meeting of the year. There were 19 students including about four returning from last year, one in 8th grade, ten 7th graders and eight 6th graders. More than half the students speak a second language and we hope to take advantage of that diverse wealth of culture. This year’s Viking Radio Club members will focus on achieving an amateur radio license and participation in community activities such as amateur radio outreach, recruiting and other activities that amateur radio can be utilized. A field trip is planned for later in the year to the USS Batfish, a WWII submarine http://www.ussbatfish.com/ now located in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Above, 6th grader Viking Member Isaiah looks on as Clifton demonstrates use of the radio.
During our return to the park on Saturday, Viking Member, 6th grader, 11 year old Itzel, her brother Marcus and mom stopped by to introduce themselves. In no time, Itzel was on the radio. Her 1st contact was with VE6BSH, Ron, located north of Calgary, Canada. Impressed? Ron asked Itzel to spell her name phonetically. My initial thought was no problem, I'll say the letter/word and she will repeat the letter/word, job done. Imagine my shock when she independently spelt her name phonetically without any coaching … Hi 5s all the way around. Mom deserves some credit too. She works at Fort Sill as part of the civilian workforce inprocessing Basic Training soldiers. Great Job Mom!
Itzel racked up another 6 contacts from CA, MN, MI, OH and GA and NC before she has to leave. Conditions were marginal at best, but Itzel persevered and worked through the challenges. Left, Itzel being coached by KC5CYY and a pre-printed coaching script using the K5USA callsign.
It was great to talk with Keith, K6YA who was participating with other hams hosting their own version of Amateur Radio Outreach. His group utilizes a scientific research facility to host their activities and about 15 hams in total. With the weather finally starting to cool off we are looking forward to returning to the park as the weather and schedule allows. Vikings have committed to coming out to the park and supporting the program and we look forward to these opportunities. See ya at the park!
September 3, 2010 – KC5CYY
WX5LAW and N5PLV Make Contact with the International Space Station! Audio Files Attached
Every once in a while, my long time friend Matt, N5PTV and myself find time within both of our busy, clashing schedules to get together at his house and play radio. On one early Saturday this past July, we found to be a day allowing us to do so. We set up and worked 6 meters due to a great opening in progress. After getting exhausted with that, we both decided to put a temporary station together and work some of the amateur LEO satellites. We dragged out his trusty Kenwood TS-2000X and went to work. We took turns operating the radio and holding the antenna. We use a handheld Arrow dual band yagi to work the birds. Our operations seemed effortless with this setup as we worked FO-29, SO-50, and AO-7 to say the least through the SSB transponders on multiple passes. This was my very first experience with transponder work. Needless to say, I was hooked!
After another break, I went to the truck to retrieve my new dual band HT to show Matt. We were thumbing through the memory channels that I had programmed in the HT and coincidentally stumbled across Col. Doug Wheelock on the International Space Station during a pass at that time over the Great Lakes region taking calls on FM with callsign NA1SS. He was full scale on the rubber duck! It was at this time that I decided that I was going to start listening for the ISS, and possibly establish contact with the crew.
On July 10th, I knew of an up and coming ISS pass to our south at around 1950 UTC. I decided just to listen to this pass just to see if Doug would be on the air, and to see how well I could actually hear him. I was using my new HT and the Arrow satellite antenna. He did happen to be on the radio during that pass, and the signal was as good as someone standing next to me. I then decided that I was going to program the radio with the proper split to actually talk back and work the next pass.
Later on, the next pass came around 2129 UTC that same day. I stepped out in the heat to intercept the pass, and wouldn’t you know it, Doug was manning the radio again. This was going to be my first attempt to contact the ISS, so one can imagine that a bit of excitement within me. At 2132 UTC and after a few attempts of calling, Doug answered my call! I was a bit floored that I busted though all of the people calling with an Arrow antenna and a 5 watt HT. A guy from Michigan happened to be recording the pass, and sent me a half duplex recording of the contact. It can be played below:
At that point I was definitely hooked! A few days ago, I set forth to put together a bit more powerful radio setup to try and accomplish this again. I stuck a small 12volt lead acid battery to the top of a smaller Motorola mobile radio. This would give me about 25-30 watts of output power. I would still use the Arrow antenna to deliver the goods. I thought it would be nice to have this setup for events to allow other people to have an opportunity to work the ISS.
On August 1st, I set up to work another ISS pass at 2023 UTC to test the new setup. This time I would have a voice recorder running to capture the moment. Since I had already worked it with my call, N5PLV, I decided that this day I would use the club call WX5LAW. At just 2 minutes into the pass at 2025 UTC, I was successful! I then thought that since I had the recorder going, I would try again, but this time with my call. A minute later, at 2026 UTC, I scored another contact for N5PLV, and now have a full duplex recording of the whole event. On top of that, both occurred during the same pass! Quite an accomplishment if I do say so myself! On a side note, this pass had a maximum elevation of 15 degrees. The WX5LAW contact was at around 11-12 degrees elevation, and the N5PLV contact was close to maximum for the pass. On the audio file you will actually hear WX5LAW being answered twice and once for N5PLV, meaning that I broke though the pileup 3 times during this lower pass. The audio file for this event can be played below:
Since the first time I worked the ISS, this has sparked a new interest in local hams attempting the same accomplishment. Mike Minor, WD5USA, has also achieved with a voice contact since then. I hope to hear more stories of more locals making contact with the ISS overhead, as Col. Doug Wheelock, KF5BOC, seems to show a great interest in flying the ISS amateur callsign of NA1SS every spare opportunity he gets. Get out there and work him today!
Vikings + Amateur Radio = Belgium and Hawaii
As days in the park go, today was an exceptionally good day as returning Viking Amateur Radio club member Itzel and her brother Marcos worked 20 meters on $13.00 worth of antenna parts as they would share over the air. They would be joined by a pair of Viking members, 11 year old, 6th grader Laura and returning 7th grader, 12 year old Chris.
This year’s Viking Radio Club members will focus on achieving an amateur radio license and participation in community activities such as amateur radio outreach, recruiting and other activities that amateur radio can be utilized. A field trip is planned for later in the year to the USS Batfish, a WWII submarine http://www.ussbatfish.com/ now located in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Above, 6th grader Viking Member Isaiah looks on as Clifton demonstrates use of the radio.
During our return to the park on Saturday, Viking Member, 6th grader, 11 year old Itzel, her brother Marcus and mom stopped by to introduce themselves. In no time, Itzel was on the radio. Her 1st contact was with VE6BSH, Ron, located north of Calgary, Canada. Impressed? Ron asked Itzel to spell her name phonetically. My initial thought was no problem, I'll say the letter/word and she will repeat the letter/word, job done. Imagine my shock when she independently spelt her name phonetically without any coaching … Hi 5s all the way around. Mom deserves some credit too. She works at Fort Sill as part of the civilian workforce inprocessing Basic Training soldiers. Great Job Mom!