07/04/2005 | K7SI Snake River Amateur Radio Club (K7SI)

John (KD7HGS) provided the tent. The club owns a trailer that has
very limited operating space but has considerable battery storage
and is also used to haul the generator that we recently purchased.


At the end of setup we had two beams with 10, 15, 20, plus 40m dipole on towers.

For HF we also had two 5 band verticals and a few other wire antennas later on for support of the GOTA station.

In addition there were three UHF/VHF antennas on shorter mast near the tent.

The pressure was on Bob (W7RLS) to start getting the operator positions up and running. We had quite a mix of operating positions ranging from a K2 QRP CW position, a K10 SSB, a TS2000 and a TS850. Additionally there was a packet station with a PK12 tnc and one FM/SSB two meter rig.

During the day we also had an older HW100 unit but due to power loads it was not on the air long. (Used mostly at night to keep the tent warm).

John KD7HGS operating the tent warmer and the two meter section which included an APRS, Packet, and SSB operation.

During the day we were visited by several agencies, no they were not there to shut us down, Idaho State police are one of our served agencies through the RACES program. We were also visited by the Section manager W7DVR, Doug Rich and the local Fire chief Mark Wendelsdorf. We were also visited by several former hams and several on lookers from the park. Fliers were handed out with information about the local clubs and activities in the area. Several people from the local CERT group also visited the operations.

Once everything was up and running and things were going smoothly as per normal in Idaho, we had a bit of an afternoon storm. We had to stop operating for about 45 minutes while the storm BLEW threw. After work the towers went back up and verticals were repaired and we had a pretty good evening. Note the typical sunset.

Our GOTA station W7VEO was only on the air Saturday and operated only on 20M SSB. Debbie KD7EHL made her first HF contact, in the middle of a 40meter pillup I might add. Good Job Debbie!

We had a charging station set up for solar power and operated the K2 of this source. Sunday this was very effective.

Of course by the end of the day Sunday everyone is pretty beat, but Don was recharging so he could help with the station break down. The root bear and coffee only go so far.

We learned a lot and we are working on the planes for next year, or when ever the next emergency arises.

73
Rod
AC7GL -- AC7GL