On Nov 7, 2022 at 12:07 AM, <jason turcyn via groups.io> wrote:

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)

?

Good evening Rod, It is gonna depend on which antenna you have or select. My suggestion would be to temporarily mount it where you would like it and check your SWR but in my experience 2 feet minimum?seems to be the magic number. Hope this helps.

W5MSM