Welcome to the Frederick Amateur Radio Club!

Come one, come all to the October  meeting of the Frederick Amateur Radio Club, to be held on Monday, October 21st at 7pm.  We meet in the Social Hall of the Independent Hose Company, which is located at 310 Baughmans Lane in Frederick.  Parking and entrance are in the rear of the building.  This month, we’ll have an extended discussion regarding the 146.64 K3ERM repeater, which is currently experiencing difficulties.  In addition, the floor will be open to discussion of any ham radio relevant topic.  Bring your questions, your radios, or whatever you might need help with.

Club meetings are open to anyone from the greater community who has even the slightest interest in amateur radio.

While joining in person is always best, sometimes, that’s just not possible. If you can’t be there in person, join us via Zoom using this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86031809702?pwd=bkFCM0pYL0g1RndpZVNjd01rN2FYQT09
If you join via Zoom, PLEASE either include your call sign or name in your Zoom profile.  This will help identify you as a human and not a bot. Thanks!

Upcoming events:

Saturday October 26th: Club Simulated Emergency Test (aka SET).  

2024 FARC SET Exercise
Version 1.0
When: 0900 – 1200L, 26 Oct 2024

Where: Frederick County MD

Why: A simulated ice storm has knocked out power to the county. Cell service is down. Temperatures are plummeting, warming shelters have been activated at local parks and public schools.

How: The Frederck County Health Department (FCHD) has tasked the FARC to deploy two communication pods (HAM1 and HAM2) to 2 separate county warming shelter stations located at public schools. These stations will:
1. Setup UHF/VHF/6m HF/GMRS ch15 communication channels and establish connectivity between HAM1 and HAM2 at 0900. Initial setup will be Channel 1 W3FDK on A and Channel 2 K3ERM on B using the FT-8900 radio.
2. Verify which of channels 1 – 10 connect HAM1 to HAM2. Establish whether HAM1 or HAM2 will initially record APRS while the other records voice traffic. These rolls will switch back and forth periodically to enable winlink message retrieval and APRS tracking/message retrieval.
3. Begin a roll-call for participants to check-in on channel 1 (W3FDK-R).
4.  Participants are asked to report their current environment (home or shelter) temperature reading by either voice, APRS message, APRS position comment, Winlink, or use all modes.  For those using Winlink please utilize RRI Quick Welfare Message txt and send it to KB3EOF with cc to  K3MMM, and include a phone msg to me at 301-524-5823 (verizon) or a concerned spouse/relative (emphasize “exercise” in the message). Don’t forget to include your environmental temperature and GPS or What 3 Words location for your home or park or school parking lot (exercise shelter).
5. Exercise completed at 12 noon.

Hello radio fans! This Friday October 11th, the Frederick County Division of Parks & Recreation is sponsoring the Frederick County HAM-VENTION at the Utica District Park. The park is located at 10200-B Old Frederick Road Frederick (north of Frederick and south of Lewistown), and the event begins at 6pm and will take place in the overflow parking near the north end of the park.  Bear to the right as you enter the park and follow signs.

The event will have demonstrations of amateur radio equipment, along with hidden transmitter foxhunting (no animals involved), emergency messaging (hurricanes are still a thing) and long-distance communications. Of course, if you have questions, there will be folks who can provide answers.

As a part of the event, we will be participating in a Red Cross pop-up emergency communications exercise. If you’re an experienced radio operator, please participate by sending someone a Winlink Quick Welfare form, and CC: KC3WDO. We’ll also be monitoring the 146.73 W3FDK repeater.

The Frederick Amateur Radio Club will meet this Monday, September 16th at 7PM at the Independent Hose Company social hall.  This is located at 310 Baughmans Lane in Frederick.  The social hall and parking are in the rear of the building.  Meetings are open to anyone in the community that has even the slightest interest in amateur radio

This month, we’ll have a presentation by Aldo W2AGC, discussing: Exploring ATSC 3.0 Transmission Over the 70cm Ham Band: A New Frontier in Amateur Radio

While we hope that you can join us in person, sometimes that’s just not possible.  Second best option is to join via Zoom via this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86031809702?pwd=bkFCM0pYL0g1RndpZVNjd01rN2FYQT09
If you join via Zoom, PLEASE either include your call sign or your name in your Zoom profile.  This will help identify you as a human and not a bot. Thanks!

Other upcoming events include:

• Saturday, September 28th at 1pm: Fall hidden transmitter foxhunt.  Details here: https://frederickarc.org/hidden-transmitter-foxhunt-saturday-september-28th-at-1pm/
• Saturday October 5th: Scout Camporee at Walkersville Watershed.  This is a weekend scouting event and we will be providing demonstration and radio-centric activities for the scouts to perform.  If you have any ideas for an age-appropriate (9 to 16) radio challenge that would be about fifteen minutes in length, please let me know.  My call sign (K3MMM) @arrl.net
• Friday October 11th: Frederick County Parks and Recreation ham radio day.  This is a developing event, but please keep it on your radar and participate.
• Saturday October 12th: Local emergency response exercise.Details coming soon.
• Sunday October 27th: Marine Corps Marathon. This is, by far, the most complex and detailed event in the mid-Atlantic region, and is on the bucket list of many radio operators.  There is a two-step process to sign up: First as a volunteer for the event: https://www.marinemarathon.com/volunteer/ and then as a radio volunteer here: https://hamvolunteers.com

I hope to see y’all at the meeting!
Mike K3MMM

We hope you can join us for an Amateur Radio Fox Hunt at Othello Park on September 28, 2024 starting at 1:00PM (weather permitting). We will have both walking and driving foxes (hidden transmitters) in place for you to use your radio Direction Finding (DFing) skills to find. The park is located at 1901–A Jefferson Pike, Knoxville, MD 21758. (https://www.recreater.com/705/Othello–Regional–Park). Per Frederick County Parks and Recreations, we will meet in the Equestrian Trail Parking area – just look for the fox hunt signs and vehicles with antennas! An Amateur Radio Fox Hunt is a practice drill to find hidden or lost radio transmitters using RF Direction Finding techniques. This is a receive only drill, so you do not have to be licensed to participate in this event. All you need to participate is a receiver/scanner capable of listening to signals between 144MHz and 148MHz, and an antenna. There will be extra equipment at the site for you to use. All our foxes will be on the 2M band. We’ll have multiple fox hunts set up and running at the same time.

1. For the walking hunt, we’ll have a few low power (10mw) foxes located around the park for you
to find while honing your DFing skills and enjoying a walk in the park! If you are “DF honed”
you might hop in the car to find the fox located a few miles away. At the walking hunt there will
be assistance for those new to fox hunting.

2. For the more skilled fox hunters, there will be a driving hunt using a 1W fox located within five
miles of the park for you to find. The 146.730M repeater will be used to coordinate this hunt.
At the beginning we’ll announce the fox frequency and take check–ins on the repeater so we
know who is hunting. When you find the fox don’t tell everyone where you are, in case you are
the first. Just let us know you found it.

Hope you can join us for the walk in the beautiful Frederick County Park!  Need a flyer, including a map of the park, to share with friends?  We have you covered right here:  FARC Foxhunt 9_28_24

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