Items of Busines
Discussed at the last OARC meeting was the business of OARC sponsoring the upcoming Ham Fest – Normally held in southern Utah, the previous sponsors have decided to take the summer off. The options were not have a Utah Ham Fest this year or have another club sponsor it this year. A vote was held with an outcome of about 90% in favor of OARC sponsoring this years Ham Fest.
The proposed location is to be the Browning Armory during some time in August. Some OARC members suggested pushing the date back to Labor day (Monday, Sep. 6, 2004 - Labor Day) while others suggested that August 14th would be a better date. As yet there has not been a firm date set.
Boy Scout Food Drive
Ogden Amateur Radio Club helped with the communications of the Boy Scout Food Drive “Scouting for Food”. The command center was set up at the Browning Armory. Of the notable OARC members heard at the command center was Vice President: Mary Hazard W7UE.
The frequencies used were UHF and VHF using the club repeaters and 145.090 for digital communications. Jamie Lucas K9LTR was the technical expert in charge of setting up site command(s) digital packet radio using the Kenwood TM-D700’s supplied by Weber County Sheriffs office. Only two stations were available via packet radio: KD7ZMH and N7ZI. KD7ZMH station was using a Radio Shack Personal Computer 200 with the Kenwood TM-D700 connected to a deep cycle battery with a center loaded adjustable antenna capable of handling 27Khz to 900Mhz derived from the equation 2834 divided by the frequency (which yielded the length in inches).
Once set up the digital communications were between Business Depot Ogden (BDO) and Kent’s (Gary – N7ZI) was very stable. Gary’s station was sending out a beacon that was received when the stations were not connected. Apparently Gary could not disable the beacon despite trying for quite some time.
Christopher Smith KA7CDS counted close to 80 cars and trucks dropping off food at the BDO location
Several pictures are from the food drive at the BDO command center - the location for the Ogden Rescue Mission food drop-off.