We’ve added a handful more of interested hams to our fledgling group. I’m glad to see so many people popping up that want to play radio once again and get active!
This past weekend we had a county wide 2m FM simplex drill. The goal was to talk across Dade county from border to border. We had field stations located all throughout the county. Not only did we get a strong turnout of ARES folks, we also had numerous other hams pop up. A total of about 17 operators came on freq to test their simplex range. We had stations at Cape Florida lighthouse, 40 mile bend on highway 41, North end of Key Largo, City of Homestead EOC, Kendall, Westchester, West Lake in the Everglades, Opalocka, and Naranja to name a few locations. The ARES stations were all field stations, many on solar.
I think the drill was a success in proving that average Joe ham can cover 20-30 miles in Dade county with a modest 2m setup and 20ft of mast. We didn’t stop at 30 miles though. Longest hop was 53.5 miles from Cape Florida lighthouse to West lake in the Everglades. Both stations running on solar with 22′ and 24′ masts.
We’ll be discussing what we learned from this drill at the EARC meeting this Friday at 7pm. Meeting is held at Agricultural center on 288st and sw 187th ave.
Moving forward…
Pending a blessing from the EARC, we’re looking at combining field day with an ARES drill. We’re taking a break from VHF and moving a totally different direction, HF NVIS.
Between the typical footprint of VHF simplex and traditional HF you have HF NVIS operation. Some folks call this cloud warning as your signal is sent almost straight up into the clouds and bounced right back down within a 30-300 mile area. This type of operation is popular with the military when they have to communicate with someone on the other side of a mountain range lets say. For us it’s applicable as a way to communicate 1 or more counties over when it’s too far for VHF and too close for standard HF operation.
You dont need anything real fancy to do it. It’s all about antenna height. A common HF dipole at about 10′ off the ground works. The closer to the ground, the tighter the footprint. NVIS operation is frequency dependent though with 40m and 80m being the bands of choice. Once you go higher in frequency than our 40m band,the signals aren’t reflected back to earth as well and it can prove unreliable. If you have an HF rig and a 40-80m capable dipole, you can do this.
more info here..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
I’ll post more info as we firm things up.
by KE4MCL Robert