| FRRL Special Event - 23rd Annual Scarecrow Festival - 2008 |
| October 11, 2008 - FRRL members set up their ham radio equipment at Campton Nature Trails park west of Wasco, off Route 64 on Saturday, October 11, 2008. The annual event was attended by 21 amateur radio operators from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm. Click here to see pictures from this event. |
| The first antenna set up was by Dick AH6EZ. He had made a wire beam for use during this years Field Day exercise and brought it along to the Scarecrow event. It only took a few minutes to unpack it and set it up. Dick used flex-weave wire and nylon rope along with fiberglass fishing poles for construction. It has four main support poles and a push-up mast. Three guy ropes keep it in place atop a wood pivot point on the ground. A slip ring is incorporated to allow for easy azimuth positioning. This antenna is designed for 20 meter operation and was hooked up to an Icom 756Pro which Greg N9CHA had brought along to the event. |
| Next the 40 meter dipole was erected. One of the clubs Penninger Radio Tippers was used to quickly get the dipole up in an inverted-vee configuration. The snap tube design made quick work of getting the antenna on the air. The dipole was made from THHN #14 house wire and a W2AU balun. RG8X feedline was used to connect it to the radio, a DX-77 brought by Charles KC9DAO. |
| Bill NF9D brought along his FT-817 QRP rig to see if he could make a few contacts on 20 meter CW. Greg N9CHA brought out his Buddipole antenna and Penninger Radio tripod and push-up mast system so that was set up and used for the QRP station. There was some interference between the 20 SSB station and the QRP CW station when they were both on the air at the same time, however the operators took turns sending and all went well. The club owns several band-pass filters. The 20 and 40 meter units were used and provided excellent spurious signal rejection. There was no cross-band interference at all! |
| At 11:00 am, John AG9D used the Icom IC-2820 set up for talk-in to connect the FRRL UHF IRLP repeater and the Discovery Reflector to listen to an ARISS contact. The "Colombia Mission Project" at Buchanan High School in California had students talk to the ISS via telebridge. Participants at the Scarecrow event were able to listen in via the IRLP connection. Just as the event started, Ken N9WCX announced that he was able to hear the down-link audio from the ISS on his handheld! It was fun to hear the direct signal and the one coming through the IRLP. |
| Thanks to Becky KB9UBU and Kim KC9EIF, we all enjoyed a wonderful lunch! Grilled pork chops, hot dogs, potato salad, veggies, fruit and chips were on the menu. Great job and thanks! Later in the day we started a fire in the fireplace and roasted hot dogs. Again, thanks to Becky for making up some great hot dog roasting sticks. They worked great! |
| The three ham stations made a total of 122 contacts. The first station contacted was HB9RDE in Switzerland at 10:02 am, and the last station contacted was KW6LA in California at 5:38 pm. To download the log (PDF), click here. |
| QSL cards sent to the club should be addressed to: |
Fox River Radio League - W9CEQ
PO Box 673
Batavia, IL 60510 |
Sample QSL Card |
| Visit the official web site to learn more about the Scarecrow Festival |
