Welcome to the Frederick Amateur Radio Club!

The Mountain Club of Maryland (MCM) will be sponsoring the Hike Cross Maryland on Saturday May 11th. This hike starts at Pen Mar Park in Highfield-Cascade MD and progresses south along the Appalachian Trail (AT), ending in Harpers Ferry, WV. As a club, our goal is to provide:

• Communications between checkpoints and net control, then then on to MCM folks.
• Communications with sweep hikers via Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS) HTs.
• Assistance and input with tracking hiker and sweep progress via shared spreadsheet.
• Sweep hiker tracking via Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS).

To support this event, we’ll need volunteers to cover:

• Ten checkpoint locations along the AT. Most of these locations are where the trail crosses a roadway, so access to checkpoints is fairly painless.
• Net Control operator first (6am to 1pm) and second (1pm to ~8PM) shifts. Net Control can be stationed at a home shack for one or both shifts.
• One or more backup net control operators, in order to give primary net control periodic breaks. Backup net control can also watch the APRS map to help know where sweep hikers are located, as well as assist in getting data into the shared info spreadsheet.
• Shared Spreadsheet Manager, ensuring that shared documents are current for both hiker progress and sweep location. This can be a home-shack volunteer.
• Hilltop operator – mobile vehicle to shadow sweeps via accessible roadways. Vehicle will provide standard amateur capability, plus MURS with high-gain antenna, and APRS digipeater/iGate capability. Know that volunteer doesn’t necessarily need to provide all of this capability, as club or others will lend equipment for success.

Notes:

We expect to use the three UHF linked repeaters (Frederick (N3ITA), Thurmont (K3KMA), Clear Spring (N3UHD). At least one of these repeaters is accessible from many of the checkpoints via HT.

This is a GREAT opportunity, particularly for new ham operators, to get out and really exercise your license. We’re happy to pair you up with an experienced operator if you’d prefer – just put it in the note on sign-up form. It’s an event that you’ll certainly remember!

To volunteer, please use this link for the sign-up form: https://forms.gle/cszFRzv9BEYp6MFm8

As always, let me know if there are questions – my email address is valid on qrz.com.

Thanks!
Mike Forrence K3MMM

We plan to activate two parks as a group on Saturday April 6th, beginning at 9am as a part of Parks on the Air (aka POTA, found at: www.parksontheair.com).  We will activate the Chestnut Picnic Area at Catoctin Mountain Park located here and Monocacy National Battlefield at the Welcome Center located here.  

One very important note regarding access to Chestnut Picnic Area at Catoctin Mountain Park:

MD Rt 77 (aka Foxville Road) is currently closed between the eastern edge of the park and Park Central Road.  If traveling north on US 15 from Frederick and points south, the best route is to turn left on Catoctin Hollow Rd, follow that to the end, then turn right onto MD 77 and then left onto Park Central Road.  This adds about five minutes to the journey.  If coming from the west on MD 77, the construction is a non-issue.

Mike K3MMM will spearhead Catoctin and Justin AB3E will spearhead Monocacy.  Feel free to bring a portable radio setup or part of a setup or simply show up and use one of our radios.  Since others can act as control operator, no need for any particular license.  Each contact you make will count towards the club K3ERM score as well as your own, if you create a free POTA account in advance.

Please check back here for updates.  We look forward to seeing you there!  If there are questions, my email is valid on qrz.com.

73!
Mike K3MMM

We hope you can join us for an Amateur Radio Fox Hunt at the Old National Pike District Park on April 21, 2024 starting at 1:30PM (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 12406 Old National Pike Mt, Airy, MD 21771. (https://www.recreater.com/248/Old-National-Pike-Park) We will meet in the parking lot near Shelter 2 at the woodland trail (see map on recreator site or flyer). 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 need 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 woods! 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 a few miles of the park for you to find. The 146.730 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 else in case you are the first. Just let us know you found it.

Please share this flyer with your friends:  https://frederickarc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Foxhunt-4_21_24-2.pdf

Hope you can join us!  Questions to Tony KC3MBE

Please join us on Monday March 18th at 7pm for the FARC meeting, held at the Independent Hose Company social hall (310 Baughmans Lane, Frederick – parking and entrance in rear of building). Meetings are open to ALL interested parties from the greater community.  No need to be a member or be licensed or anything.  If you even THINK that you might possibly maybe be interested, please join us!  In addition to a quick FredFest recap, we’ll have a presentation by Jim Kane (W1DF) from nearby Gettysburg, who will discuss: Ascension Island: The “Rock” and Role.

As always, joining us in person is best.  But if that’s just not possible, join via zoom here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86031809702?pwd=bkFCM0pYL0g1RndpZVNjd01rN2FYQT09

We hope to see you there!