Just last weekend (the 19th of August) I received a relayed ‘Plea for Help’ from a fellow AmRRON Operator in the midwest.  Another of our radio operators, Ruth (from Georgia), volunteered to put on a Ham Radio HF demonstration to a local group of preppers.  As soon as I received the email from the relay, I put out an email to all the AmRRON Operators for assistance.  We received responses from every corner of the United States, including from across the American Redoubt, saying that they’d be on the air attempting to make contact, or listen.  Some were able to hear, some were able to talk, and some didn’t hear anything at all.  But it was daytime and the antenna she was using is normally good for only a few hundred miles.  But those who stepped up acted as relays to the rest of the country.  Here is her “Thank You” letter to all who participated.

-John Jacob Schmidt

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Successful HF Ham Demo for a Local Prepper Group, Despite Lack of Equipment

By Ruth, member of AmRRON, TAPRN, GPN

Late evening Saturday August 18th, I emailed Steve, asking him for a favor – please email the TAPRN BBS registered users about a HF Ham demo that I was going to be doing the very next day for a local prepper group that’s part of the Georgia Preppers Network.  The email included my plan of an approximate frequency/time/how long to listen, along with backup frequencies on two other bands to try to make out-of-state contacts.  Not only was he nice enough to email the TAPRN BBS users, he also posted a BBS message to everyone.  By a little after midnight, John Jacob of Radio Free Redoubt got word of the demo and forwarded the same email to all the AmRRON members, asking for anyone to also try to join in and make contact with me.  My first thought was – Wow! What a wonderful group of folks we have among the TAPRN and AmRRON families!  J

Sunday afternoon, I set up my portable rig – a UHF/VHF/HF transceiver, tuner, power supply, inverter/battery combo, headset, and my only HF portable antenna (a home-brewed AS-2259/GR for NVIS comms) at the county recreation park where the meeting was going to take place.  I had also planned on having a 7-band OCF dipole set up for me (since I didn’t have one yet as part of my portable rig), so then I could reach anyone farther out than the typical 300 miles that NVIS can reach, but last minute, plans fell thru.  I was a little discouraged about the dipole not getting set up, especially since folks were nice enough to spread the news about my little ole’ Ham demo, but I wasn’t going to give up.

A total of twelve folks showed up for the meeting/Ham demo.  Let me tell you, while I wasn’t THAT nervous, there IS a difference between trying to make contacts while you are alone in your little ham shack versus doing your first Ham demo in front of several folks.  Questions ran thru my mind – Was the frequency I had planned going to already be in use which would cause me to move up and make it harder for folks to try to find me, was the propagation going to behave, how far was my antenna going to reach, was anyone going to be within my reach, etc.  Before I knew it, it was show time.

Determined to make some contacts despite only having a 40m NVIS antenna set up, I turned on my rig and slowly turned the dial to the first planned frequency.  Whew, it wasn’t currently in use.  I tuned up, cleared my throat, and said “CQ CQ CQ for any AmRRON, TAPRN, and GPN members.  This is ….”.  And way down in the noise, I heard a very very faint voice.  I was glad someone was there, but I couldn’t quite make out his total call sign.  After a few more tries, I mentioned I might have to give up on trying to get that contact, and then BOOM, a strong signal came in with the encouraging words “Relay”.  Thank goodness, I thought to myself.  A familiar Georgia Preppers Network ham named Lou, who I knew was south of Atlanta and had an HF antenna that could reach out, was there.  He helped me get the first contact, who happened to be Ray in Virginia.  Then came my next contact, this time I could hear the contact clearly – it was Rick in South Carolina.  I thought to myself, ok, given my NVIS antenna, that makes sense we can contact each other directly.  And then three more contacts came in, via relay though – Ridge in Florida, Mark in Texas, and Jeff in Michigan.  I called out a few more times.  It went silent on the 40m frequency after that for both myself and the relay.  Unfortunately because I only had 40m NVIS set up, I couldn’t switch over to the other two backup bands that would have had a MUCH better chance of reaching farther west (sorry about that), but what a great demo for the group to observe.

I want to personally thank the following folks for making this demo possible:

Steve of TAPRN

Whoever was nice enough to pass the info to John Jacob J

John Jacob of Radio Free Redoubt/AmRRON

Lou in Georgia

Ray in Virginia

Rick in South Carolina

Ridge in Florida

Mark in Texas

Jeff in Michigan

I also want to thank those I was not able to make contact with, but still monitored to give it a go.  I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to try.

With the unplanned chain of events, the demo ended up being even better than expected.  The group was able to see several things.  First, they were able to see how an NVIS antenna can only reach so far directly, which I explained can be good and bad, depending on what you wanted to accomplish.  Second, they were able to see how hams help each other pass information by relaying for each other when one can’t quite make another contact out.  Third, they were able to see how much farther a regularly set up HF antenna (Lou’s) can reach out.  And fourth, they were able to see that they were not alone.  There are several good folks spread out around this wonderful country of ours, prepared when disaster strikes.

– Ruth

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