Howdy folks,
I
recently moved here to the Pritchett area, my wife and I. That's
between Big Sandy and Gilmer for those who don't already know. After
nearly 21 years of faithful service to the Railroad, I was forced to
retire in July 2021 on disability.. So we decided since there was
nothing keeping us in Atlanta GA anymore, to come back to Texas. The
part of Texas we were in before is Smithville, but we wanted something a
little further North and East so here we are! We are both originally
from Central Florida, think mickey mouse area.?
Anyways
I have been a Ham since June 1993. I was just a kid when I got my
license and have always enjoyed combining the hobby with outdoors. This
POTA program has been a good excuse for me to get back into combining
the two again. A lot of what I enjoy doing is helping out. If that means
sorting paperwork for the club or selling tickets at the gates of some
hamfest, etc. I've participated in hundreds of parades, bike races and
triathlons, rodeos, community events and even a Filming lot. If there
was a way to help out AND use my radio, I was probably there!
Recently,
I assisted in the rekindling of a fire that was a dying radio club just
south of Atlanta ,the Henry County Amateur Radio Society. A big part of
the fallout was COVID, where the club lost the ability to hold meetings
or testing and study sessions. They also had some personality conflicts
between the Henry EOC, the Hospital and the radio club officers. So
after new people were appointed to the EOC, they were interested to see
what the radio club had to offer. I proposed that the members of the
radio club go out and confirm that each of the 48 sirens were audibly
functioning each month during the scheduled tests. The first
ham-involved test was April of this year where we had 8 hams and 3
non-ham volunteers. During that test it was discovered that only some of
the sirens were actually audible. Over the course of the next few
months, we were able to test all of the sirens and out of 48, only 23
were audibly functioning. Until the hams got involved, Henry EOC
believed the sirens were all working because the tests came back saying
no errors and that's all they had to go on. The contractor who installed
the sirens are now repairing or replacing the malfunctioning sirens. An
additional 25 sirens are being placed in the county to cover the newly
developed areas that were not well covered by other sirens.
The
next service we provided the EOC was to host Field Day in June of this
year at the EOC. Everyone was quite impressed by the variety of stations
available in such short notice, so that we could keep the county on the
air in the event of a disaster or loss of communications
infrastructure. There's lots more to be done with that radio club, but
once they got a new website and started talking again on it and the
repeater, I felt they were in good hands and I could dip out.
Now
with that being said, how's everything here in this club? What kind of
activities are y'all hosting? I attended the meeting last month and I
will be attending the meeting this month as well. I went to and helped
out (I think) with the POTA activation at Daingerfield SP. I've looked
around and I've not seen any kind of a calendar for events but perhaps
I've missed it? Has anyone struck up the idea of hosting a hamfest or
swap meet here in Gilmer? There's several places that would be well
suited to a gathering but the Yamboree grounds would probably be the
best place if you were to have a full-on hamfest. Do y'all have a PR
booth for events like the fair or the yamboree, so you can introduce
non-hams to the hobby? Does the radio club sponsor any other kind of
activities? For instance, the Henry County GA group also hosted a Team
in Relay for Life and we had a campsite in the Relay event. We also had
(itinerant business band) radios and a repeater we could give to the
staff so they were not relying only on phones or tablets to communicate
with each other. In the Winter, the same place that hosted Relay in the
spring also had a Christmas lights walk and the same radios and repeater
were set up for their staff and managed by the club. If you have a
chance to participate with something like this, would you take it? I am
just asking and I hope I am not being too forward.
Anyhow,
thanks for giving me a new place to hang out with local hams! If
there's anything else I can do to help, please reach out to me by any
means!
73's
Jason - KE4CPC
(Yes, a 4-land call)
