Field Day Plans Come Together

Field Day is Saturday and Sunday. We will have at least 3 stations set up at all times and will be operating as a Class A site. This means no commercial power will be used to transmit signals. All stations will be using the SEKARC club call sign of KØSEK.

Saturday we will decide the numeric portion of the identifier based on how many stations we have set up and will be running most of the time. We most likely will use 3 or 4. Final call on that will be made at start time.

Please try to stop by, and you can just pop in and out or you can operate one of the radios we will have set up, or you can BYOS (bring your own station) and make some contacts for KØSEK.

Solar Freakin' Roadways !!

Now this is how you do solar. Finally a solar project that makes sense on a wide scale !! Imagine the options, the benefits and the jobs that this could create.... and you could have Google Maps Night Version? Imagine never shoveling a driveway or plowing a road? Driver warnings, changeable lane markers, no more power lines to fall or ugly poles to block the views?

Field Day Trial Run

Testing two things today. My field day portable set up and posting a piece from my Android phone.

On the radio side... set up is good! Figured out a way to improve my SWR on my fishing pole vertical by straightening out the ground radials instead of letting them just lay on the ground! The copper j - pole is in a tree hanging up about 20 feet and getting me to 4 area repeaters.

Flashback to Field Day 2013

Field Day 2014 will be even bigger and better !! Be sure and plan to come by and stay a while!

WWI Museum Field Day 2014

Here is a great post regarding the WWI Museum and the events this month including Field Day with Amateur Radio! One of our members, Gailen Gillespie ADØHW will be participating with the club in Kansas City operating from the museum on Field Day! I am hoping for photos from the event! Below is an excerpt from the article, and the YouTube video within the post. From the Museum website... Enjoy!

ARRL Affiliation APPROVED!

It's official... Southeast Kansas Amateur Radio Club is now affiliated with ARRL. You can check out our listing HERE. I need to tweak a few of the details but it looks good! Hopefully this will open up some new avenues for growth! Or at least will offer new and interested operators a method to find us!

Meeting Recap

SEKARC had a very succesful meeting Saturday. One of the best in attendance and news! We had 12 hams and one interested for a total of 13. There were 2 first time attendees, one came when Justin brought Michael KDØDET and the other was a VIP of sorts in the name of Phil Rankin KØPR.

Phil made the most news by offering to join forces with the currently mostly inactive PRO group, and offered the funds in their treasury for a potential new repeater for the area. Possibly a 440 repeater on the 500ft tower south of town. He has previously mentioned that he had internet access at that tower and that would allow us the options of linking to other repeaters and to add an Echolink access to the area! There will be much discussion going forward and we would appreciate your input in the possibilities that this offers the club. In the weeks to come, we will be getting together and developing a plan for moving forward. This is a HUGE step for amateur radio in the Southeast Kansas area. Thanks to Phil and the PRO group!

We had some giveaways provided by All Spectrum Electronics when they sent us some sample reference cards. Be sure and visit their website (link above) as they seem to have a wide variety of electronic supplies and equipment. I have a few left and will have them on Field Day if you would like one! Below is a sample.

Field Day was discussed and it looks like we will be having at least 4 overnight campers and hopefully lots of operators stopping by and making some QSO's with the KØSEK call sign! Please feel free to bring your own mobile rig setup if you would like or we will have radios setup for use also. Remember it is June 28th and 29th so mark your calendar! This will also double as our June meeting so it should be a great weekend.

One note... if our group contnues to grow like it has, we may need to look at a larger more robust meeting location. Everyone please keep an eye open for a possible location to hold our monthly meetings! It could be city buildings, churches, hotels or any place with a meeting room. ( A coffee pot would be kind a requirement or I guess we could bring our own? )

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for the club you all have helped build! Let's keep it rolling into bigger and better things!!