Welcome to the Frederick Amateur Radio Club!

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

.

Frederick Amateur Radio Club will meet this Monday, August 19th 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.  This month, we’ll have a presentation by Steve W3ATN, discussing: programming Pi-Star HS for DMR, YSF, D-Star Operation.  Discuss challenges of getting all three working at once.  Use of Pi-Star Admin page to select TGs, REFs, etc. and linking/unlinking.  Challenges with radio programming (e.g., D-Star Duplex/Simplex programming of radios).  Meetings are open to ANY community member with even a slight inkling of interest in amateur radio. If you’re curious, we’ll gladly fill in the blanks.

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!

Please let me know if there are questions.

73!
Mike K3MMM

The Antietam Radio Association, our neighbors in Washington County will sponsor their annual Tailgate Fest on Saturday September 7th.  Doors open to visitors at 8am. Let’s go support the neighbors!  See all of the details here:  https://antietamradio.org/posts/tailgatefest-2024

The Montgomery Amateur Radio Club (https://marcclub.org/) is looking for radio operators for the 2024 Parks Half Marathon on Sunday, September 8th.

The Montgomery County Road Runners Club (MCRRC) will be sponsoring the Parks Half-Marathon on September 8, 2024, and has requested MARC provide amateur radio support.  This event starts at the Shady Grove Metro and runs down Rock Creek Trail to Beech Drive and Rockville Pike near the Beltway.  The Parks Half Marathon web site (https://www.parkshalfmarathon.com/) has additional details on the race and the course.

MARC’s primary functions for this event will be to:  provide a communications link between the MCRRC race officials and the County police, Fire & Rescue, and other government agencies; provide a link between the race director and the three course section chiefs, six water stops, and medical coordinator to ensure that all course locations are properly manned and equipped; and provide any other communications requested by race officials and County government officials.  A few bicycle mobile operators will be helpful for this event.

We will use the MARC 2-meter repeater (146.955) as the primary operating frequency for this event.  Most of the operating positions can use an HT.  A couple positions may need a short mast or more power to effectively hit the repeater.

The race will run rain or shine.  Fixed stations must be in their assigned locations and be set by 6:15 am to avoid problems with road closures.  Net operation will begin at 6:15am.  Operators shadowing a race official should coordinate a meeting place and time with that official.  This may be earlier than the net begins operation.  The race will start at 6:45 and should finish at 10:15 am.  Radio operators will be released when their location has been officially closed by MCRRC.

If you simply want to observe what goes on before you commit to working an event, contact us and we will arrange for you to work with an experienced volunteer to observe and understand what is involved in working a public service event.  Don’t have a radio but want to participate?  MARC has appropriate equipment you can use to participate in an event.

If you would like to help with radio communications, logistics, or planning and administration for this event, please email Paul via his call sign (N3RQV) @arrl.net.