On Saturday, June 28, 2008 at 10AM, the Chief Anderson Radio Club in conjunction with EMCOMM ECI will be setting up a Field Day site at Morrow's Meadows located across from the Yorktown High School in Yorktown, Indiana. The exercise will continue thru noon on Sunday, June 29, 2008. All amateurs, family members, and general public are welcome to attend at any time during the event. We will be demonstrating HF as well as digital communications. If you need directions or further info, please call Josh Beeson, N9GQA, at (765)744-1501.
On Saturday, February 9, 2008, at 1PM, EMCOMM ECI hosted Dave Tucek, Meteorologist of the Indianapolis National Weather Service at Yorktown Fire Department. A large crowd of 60 people from public safety, ham radio, and the general public attended the training which lasted about 2 hours and was very informative. Muncie Star Press reporters and photographers also attended and featured a story on the training. Thanks to Dave Tucek and the National Weather Service for putting on the training session.
On Saturday, February 9, 2008, at 1PM, EMCOMM ECI will host Dave Tucek, Meteorologist of the Indianapolis National Weather Service at Yorktown Fire Department. The public, ham radio community, and all public service agencies are invited to attend. Mr. Tucek will give a stormspotter training session which should last approximately 2 hours. There is no charge for this training session but due to demand, we expect a large crowd to attend so arriving early is recommended to ensure available seating. A Delaware County SKYWARN orientation session will be held at Yorktown Fire Department on Saturday, February 2, 2008 at Noon for all interested Delaware County amateur radio operators. This SKYWARN group is being formed under Delaware County ARES.
Members of EMCOMM ECI and Delaware County ARES were activated on Saturday, December 2, 2007 at approximately 6:30PM to assist in a search detail for a 60 year mentally challenged female missing from the Yorktown, Indiana area. After a three square mile search by more than 70 police, fire, CERT team members, and amateur radio operators, the search was called off by the incident commander at approximately 10:30PM. She apparently had stolen a vehicle from the area and was located in the area of the command post the following morning by a sheriff deputy patrolling the area. Special thanks for all who assisted including Joe, N1ESB, Bonnie, KC9EMV, Josh, N9GQA, Terry, KA3UTD, Steve, NX9N, Jordan, K9NZF, Gary, KC9CCL, Bill, N9RI, Pat, KC9KSK, John, KC9KJN, Brian, KC9EPJ, and Charles, KC9GFA.
Members of EMCOMM ECI are teaching a General Ham Radio License class on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the month of November. The class is held at the LDS Church at 4800 W. Robinwood Drive, Muncie, Indiana from 7PM until 9PM nightly. For further information contact Joe Krupa, N1ESB at 765-287-1761 or Josh Beeson, N9GQA, at 765-212-9904.
The Yorktown Fire Department organizes a annual Halloween party for the Yorktown community. This year's event consisted of several games and refreshments for the children, refreshments and candy, and a haunted hayride from the fire department to the Yorktown Lions Club Park. This year the event was attended by approximately 620 people. EMCOMM ECI was asked to participate this year. A net was called on 146.490 by Josh, N9GQA, who acted as net control and liasion around 5:50PM and continued until the event ended at 11:00PM on Saturday, October 27, 2007. Thanks to everyone who assisted. Those who helped were Steve, NX9N, Gary, KC9CCL, Joe, N1ESB, Rick, N9XGM, Adam, KC9KSJ, and Gil, KB9NPW.
The group was asked to participate by setting up an informational booth about emergency communications. The group setup a demonstartion station at the Delaware County Fairgrounds on Saturday, October 20, 2007 from 8AM until 4PM. There was a HF station with 40 meters vertical antenna and a G5RV dipole set up. There was also a 2m/440 mobile display as well as a triband portable on display. Several contacts were made on HF and VHF/UHF. Thanks to Joe, N1ESB, who put together a video loop on ham radio information which was displayed by a projector. The booth was visited by numerous hams and some prospective hams as well. Thanks to everyone who helped staff the booth, Jordan, K9NZF, Rory, KC9MDX, Joe, N1ESB, Gil, KB9NPW, Terry, KA3UTD, Gary, KC9CCL, and Pat, KC9KSK.
Joshua Beeson, N9GQA, Communications Director for EMCOMM ECI was appointed in October 2007 to the Amateur Radio Emergency Service position of Delaware County, Indiana Emergency Coordinator. ARES is making a comeback and it will be his responsibility to organize, coordinate, and train emergency communicators for emergencies in Delaware County. Any amateur radio operator interested in emergency communications is welcome and membership in the ARRL is not required, but ARES registration with the county emergency coordinator is required. You can find the registration form at www.arrl.org/ARES. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Josh, N9GQA at (765)212-9904.
The Yorktown Fire Department is responsible for staging and organizing the Yorktown High School Homecoming Parade. This year our group was asked to help the fire department with the staging of the parade participants. This occurred at the Marsh Yorktown Warehouse on Saturday, September 8, 2007. The group consisted of Alan, W9VEA, Joe, N1ESB, Jordan, K9NZF, Chris, K9CJC, Gil, KB9NPW, Rick, N9XGM, Adam, KC9KSJ, Kevin, KC9KJM, and Josh, N9GQA. We called a net on the 444.675 repeater and used it with HT's for communication as well as the fire department's channel 3. The net went well and everyone did a fantastic job. The assistant fire chief stated it was the smoothest operation he had seen and thanked our group for our assistance.
Several members of EMCOMM ECI assisted Mike Palmer, N9FEB, and the Indy Ham goup at the Mt. Comfort, Indiana Airshow on August 25 and 26. It turned out to be a fairly nice weekend with only a few short downpours of rain. The cloudy weather kept temperatures cooler than they have been recently. This kept injuries to a minimum and made less work for us. The air show was very interesting and we had a great view of all the events. At the end of Saturday's show, there was a serious injury which our group assisted in helping secure the perimeter for Lifeline Helicopter to land and pick up the patient for transport. Thanks to Gil Wilson, KB9NPW, Joe and Bonnie Krupa, N1ESB and KC9EMV, Steve Phillips, NX9N, and Josh Beeson, N9GQA, for all their help at the show.
The 2007 Muncie Endurathon was held on July 14, 2007, and was a great success. Thanks to all the hams who came out to support the communications efforts for this year's event. This was the first year in the past several years that I have had every position filled and I actually had to turn away 4 volunteers on the day of the event because I did not have positions available for them. My thanks to those hams too, even though they did not get assigned. I did appreciate their willingness to volunteer. We used the group's Communication Response Vehicle and set up next to the picnic shelter at the beach area. The location worked out very well and I had several participants who stopped by and thanked us for our help. There were even two who stated they were from the Mt. Pleasant/Yorktown area and they were very glad to see a group from the area helping out. The weather helped make it a shorter than usual day with extremely fast times and the net closing at 4PM. After review, the event went extremely smoothly and ended with a safe event due to our volunteer efforts. Thanks to all who participated this year and please help next year.
The group participated in Field Day 2007 by setting up at N1ESB's home. We set up several emergency antennas ( 1-80 Meter Loop;1-G5RV in an inverted V formation; 1-80 Meter dipole; 1-40 Meter dipole; 1-20 Meter dipole; and 1-10 Meter vertical) and we operated 3 stations on emergency power for the entire 24 hours. We used a Yaesu FT-847, an Icom IC7000, and a Yaesu FT-817 which we were going to use for digital modes interfacing a Toughbook PC with a Rigblaster to the FT-817. After trying it for a couple hours, we gave up on working digital because we could not get the audio back out on the transmission. We could receive the signals fine but could not get the audio levels right for the transmit side. Even though the digital HF station did not work, we still demonstrated a digital mode by setting up an APRS demo station. The group had about 7 visitors and 10 operators during the operation. Special thanks to Bonnie Krupa, KC9EMV, for creating a wonderful buffet which we snacked on the whole time. Overall, the group ended up with around 250 contacts for the operating period.To view a photo gallery of our 2007 Field Day operation CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS!
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Webmaster: Joshua L. Beeson, N9GQA,
Communications Director, Emcomm ECI
Last Update:June 2, 2008