Category Archives: General Interest

Field Day, General Interest, Monthly Meetings

Field Day 2015

Field Day is just around the corner and the York Radio Club monthly meeting on June 19 will be devoted almost entirely to its preparation. If you’re planning to attend Field Day, please make every effort to be at this meeting. We will be putting the finishing touches on our plan, goals, rules, operating schedule, equipment usage and logging software.
The June 19th meeting will be held at the usual location which is the 2nd  floor meeting room of the Community Bank of Elmhurst, 330 West Butterfield Road, Elmhurst, IL.  60126.  The meeting starts at 8:00pm and VE testing for all FCC license elements will be held one hour prior, or at 7:00pm.
Similar to the prior year, here are a few  aspects for this year’s 2015 June 27-28 Field Day plan:

+ We’ll be at the Fire Department Training Facility, 910 N. Addison, Elmhurst. This site give’s us excellent antenna height for the various antennas we will deploy. Our site is mapped to the ARRL’s Field Day locator, linked here: http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator

+ Our CW operators  will have direct keying from the logging software, improving accuracy and reducing fatigue.

+ We’ll have a detailed operating plan and schedule designed to keep all three stations as productive as possible.

+ We’ll have SSB, CW, PSK and RTTY and operate on the following bands: 80M, 40M, 20M, 15M, 10M, 6M, 2M.
+ We expect some city officials to pay us a visit to learn about ham radio and our emergency preparedness, including potentially the Chief of Police from the Elmhurst Police Department.
If you know anyone interested in learning about our hobby, invite them to our Field Day. Hope to see you at the monthly meeting and at Field Day.
73,
General Interest, Ham Radio News

Chicago Area Net Directory (“CAND”)

Chicago Area Net Directory

The following statements were taken from the pdf Net Directory document located on www.therainreport.com…

Are you new to the Chicago ham radio scene?
Are you interested in becoming active with a repeater organization in the Chicago 6-collar county or North West Indiana?
Are you looking for something to listen to on VHF/UHF in the evening hours?
For answers to these questions and more you need not go any further than CAND, the Chicago Area Net Directory, compiled by Ben Straw/KC9UNS.  When Ben began assembling this directory in 2011, his motivation was to provide a comprehensive document for volunteer examiners and radio clubs that can be handed out to new and aspiring hams. Ben recognizes that unless new hams actually begin talking to someone on the air soon, they’re apt to lose
interest and find another hobby/service.
Unlike net directories of the past, CAND will be revised when necessary and live, using Google Spreadsheet. Friends of Ben will be monitoring the 6 and 2-meter bands along with the 220 & 440 MHz bands for additions and changes to this compendium. For the latest CAND online go to: http://tinyurl.com/chicago-ham-nets
Many thanks go out to those who have assisted Ben in this laborious project.  Special thanks to the RAIN Report’s Hap Holly/KC9RP for helping to verify net info for the north and Northwest suburbs from his Des Plaines home and SK Dennis Duffner W9FBM for helping him start the project; Ben resides in Hammond IN.
Additions and changes to the Chicago Area Net Directory are welcome either to Ben (kc9uns (at) gmail.com) or to Hap (hap (at) therainreport.com).