CARA

On Thursday evening May 12 CARA had its first in person meeting since the pandemic. This was a hybrid meeting with some in person and some on Zoom.

On Monday April 18th,  Dale  KC3RKP and wife  Debbie, and Dave KB3RAN went camping at Cunningham Falls with the intent to get on the air from the forested mountains.  Little did they know that they would arrive to snow.  Dale arrived with an inch of snow,  Dave to a couple inches and it continued until evening with about 4 inches total.  The temperature was hovering around freezing with light winds so it was just a different experience rather than a problem. We ate indoors together on some big juicy hamburgers.  
Antennae up the next morning.  Dale put up his ham stick spider web attached to the back of his travel trailer. Dave got a 20 meter wire dipole up in the trees and a multiband ham stick on the back of the van.  Dale was on the air making lsb contacts to hams in the eastern part of the US.  Dave was attempting to make contacts on 20 m PSK.  This being a new Roadtrek campervan; not all of the bugs are worked out and he was getting nowhere.  Most likely due to stray rf modulation getting back to his computer.   We cooked steaks outside on Tuesday smothered in onions.  That was tasty.
Wednesday we did more of the same.  Dave got on the air on 20 meter sideband, then changed his dipole to a 40 meter wire dipole in the trees.  It was warm enough to stay outside for longer and Dave played a bit and sang with his autoharp.
Thursday we had a round robin chat group with 4 stations in Calvert and 2 in Frederick County from the campground.   Participating were Dale KC3RKP, Dave KB3RAN, Steve N3BPM, Erik KC3QQD, Bob N3PPH and Shawn N3AE.  This was a great exercise of NVIS  capabilities and fun to chat with the folks back home.  It turns out NVIS Day on April 26 didn’t happen due to a lack of venue; so we got some practice in anyways. Dave never made a PSK contact but made more sideband mike conversations than he had ever done, so that was good. Ferrite beads are on order and will be put to use soon.
We left Friday morning to a beautiful day going up to the 70’s and all the snow had melted.  It was a great trip and we plan to do more of these and hopefully get more folks to join us.
Dave KB3RAN

On April 9,2022 CARA/AUXCOMM participated in the Hospital Emergency Radio Operator (HEROs) MDC Section Region V Drill.  This was a combined exercise involving Montgomery, Prince George’s, Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s counties.  Each county set up a station for message transfer and a communications and control station.  The purpose of this drill is to demonstrate MD Medical Region V continuous communications capability among the five Region V counties, specifically those hospital facilities therein during a disaster event.  The expected outcome is a better understanding of the process of setting up an off-site station ‘near’ the affected facility in the event of an evacuation.  Part 1 is a point to point message originating in Montgomery Co and passing through to St Mary’s through the other counties.  Part 2 is posting a WinLink Position report via an APRS server. 
Attending on Saturday were Shawn N3AE Emergency Coordinator, Dale KC3RKP Club VP, Dave KB3RAN Club Secretary, Erik KC3QQD, Les KH6CUJ, Ed WN6NCO, Dave W3PQS and others. Stations and antennae were set up on the grass at the north end of the Calvert Memorial Hospital campus.  All was battery powered with solar and generator charges.  The weather was cooperative with sun and breeze with temperatures in the high 40’s to 50’s.  
Messages were passed with just some minor glitches as to which station was to present the information to the which county.  Some on-the-fly adjustment of mode was made to accommodate changing propagation conditions. 
There was lots of free time for conversation and coffee and donuts.  It was good to have so many club members out for a portable radio operations event.
Dave KB3RAN

Due to a lack of meeting space on the first Thursday of the month club meeting are now the second Thursday of the month at the Harriet Brown Community Center, 901 Dares Beach Road, Prince Frederick Maryland at 7:30 PM.

Due to the unavailability of the only meeting room that has been found in central Calvert County on the FIRST Thursdays of the month and that the SECOND Thursdays are now reserved for the use of Calvert Amateur Radio Club at Harriet E Brown Community Center on E Dares Beach Road (formerly SMECO Building).

Dale KC3RKP, Andy KC3WRX and Erik KC3QQD set up shop and the Fairgrounds in Prince Frederick to play radio while promoting the club. Thank you to all three.

Hello all.

Here’s a summary of our 2022 Field Day plans as of March 22

WHEN:     June 25-26   Start setup at 9:00-am.  On the air at 2pm.   FD ends at 2pm Sunday.  Leave Broomes island by 3pm Sunday.

WHERE:
Broomes Island Community Center4080 School Road Broomes Island, MD 20615.  GPS 38.420232,-76.547372. Find Broomes Island Community Center .

2022 FD RULES:  http://www.arrl.org/field-day-rules .  If you are going to attend field a please take a look at the rules.

STATIONS:  to be determined

TALK-IN:  146.985 (-) 156.7

OVERNIGHT:   We have permission to stay and operate overnight. 

LOGGING:  In order to avoid duplicate contacts, each station will have a logging computer running N3FJP’s Field Day software.  The computers will be linked by either WiFi or Ethernet.   We may be short a laptop or two so please help if you can.  The software can be downloaded from https://www.n3fjp.com/fieldday.html  CARA has a password to use the software.

FOOD: Dale  KC3RKP

PARTICIPANTS:. Please let us know if you’re going to stay overnight   indicates will stay overnight.    indicates might stay overnight

Safety officer: Dale  KC3RKP

Next meeting for field day will be announced on the reflector.

David W3PQS

3 of our members showed up bright and early at the Mt. Hope site to clear out the old shelter, they did a fantastic job! Thank you to ED WB6NCO, Peter N3PH and Dave KB3RAN for their hard work. We will be trying to sell the fruits of their labor at the St. Mary’s hamfest this weekend and the Columbia Amateur Radio Association hamfest next weekend.