Amateur Radio Always Amazes Me

[JohnyMac]

Wednesday night I received a Signal Message from a ham radio friend who has been NCS for a new net he is starting in Pennsylvania. In essence, there was a cancellation the next day for another patient and the hospital called him and asked if he would like to pick it up and get his operation done sooner than later. He of course said, "yes" and reached out to me to see if I would  be NCS for his PA Readiness (PARN) net. Without thinking I said, "sure". Later that night I mentioned it to MrsMac and she wanted to know how I would do the net the next day when I would be proceeding over our ham radio clubs meeting.

In my eagerness to help my friend, I completely forgot that I am the President of our local ham club and our meeting, like my friends operation, was the next day. 

Over the next fifteen hours or so, I reached out to a host of hams to find out if they would NCS the net. Due to the holiday weekend and hesitancy to play the roll of NCS, I had no takers. Mmmmm?

I looked at my options and they were few. Some where,

> Cancel the PARN,
> Have my VP run the meeting and me skip the it all together, or
> Do a hybrid?

This is what I finally did...

> Contacted my VP and told him he was going to run the meeting for the first half hour.
> Arrived at the meeting venue earlier than normal and to set up an antenna and the station.
> Run the net from the meeting venue.
> Rejoin the ham club meeting.

On the way to the meeting I grabbed MrsMac and my small backpack that houses my,
> Xiego G90 Transceiver
> Vibroplex Par EndFedz Quad antenna,
> 12V, 9A, LifePO4 battery,
> 50-feet of coax,
> Coiled 550 cord, and
> An old adjustable crescent wrench that has seen better days. Used for launching the 550 cord.

Arrived at the meeting venue, parked near a 20-foot tree, set MrsMac up inside with a menu, and I ordered a beer for myself Then went back to my car & tree to set up my impromptu station. One of the members of the club came out to help me, which he did.

Using the 550 cord and wrench for the tree end, I set up a sloper antenna where the end in the tree was about 20-feet high and the balun end was about 6-feet high. Ran coax from the balun perpendicular to the antenna to minimize ground noise to the G90 and battery. Hooked everything up and was on the air 15-minutes after I started setting up.

Started calling CQ for early check-ins 10-minutes before the net was scheduled to begin and within minutes had folks checking in.

I Conducted the net, stowed all in my backpack, and was back inside 20-minutes into the meeting with a new beer in front of me ordered by my VP. 

Here I had spoken to hams around the state with no fuss... no muss. Amateur Radio Always Amazes Me.

73

[pkveazey]

Well, Johny, there is nothing wrong with how you managed to "GITTER DONE". Back when I had my old GMC "Jimmy" SUV, I installed an ICOM 718 in it and an LDG autotuner and one coax back to the outside tire rack. Then I connected 3 different Hamsticks to one mount. That thing worked great because I let the autotuner sort out what was the most resonant. I had an 80 meter, a 40 meter, and 10 meter antenna on that single mount. Since you were talking to Penn. only stations, that pretty much meant you were operating ground wave and antenna polarity definitely needed to match the other stations. Anyway, the whole point of all my BS about this is....... When the SHTF, you might want to set up a mobile station similar to mine and when you get caught short like this time, just fire it up while you're on the move.

[Nemo]

Amateur Radio Always Amazes Me.

73

As do you, to many of us.

Nemo

[Jackalope]

    That's a great solution, Johny!  It's important to be able to think out of the box.  You adapted and improvised!

[JohnyMac]

Thank you gents. Good idea PKv.