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Hall ARES Helps Local Hams |
 Hall County ARES has been busy answering the call to help local hams in the community with their tower and antenna concerns. On 24 July 2010 we went to the aid of Stan McDonald KI4H. Over the years trees have slowly overtaken his tower and antenna which had limited his ability to turn his beam.
It was a hot and sweaty day but five hours of hard work got all of the trees out of the tower and antennas path. Once the trees were dealt with there was some repair work done on broken and loose guy wires to make the tower safe for climbing.
Once the tower was deemed safe, Michael AA4BA the Hall ARES E.C. and resident tower monkey went up to the top of this 90 foot stick to work on the antenna. We were unable to finish all of the necessary tasks that day but Stan was able to launch a line with his tennis ball gun and finish the last task a couple of days later due to all of the tree limbs being out of the way.
We really enjoyed getting to know Stan and his re-commitment to help Hall ARES. He has a very nice field deploy-able radio setup and is now putting it into a trailer for a bug-out rig. This rig will be made available to Hall ARES for drills and communications disasters. We enjoy helping out the ham community because usually no good deed goes unturned.
 On 7 August, 2010 Hall ARES was called into action again. We were informed that a local ham, Ary Citvaris WA4ZQF, was in need of some tower help. Two years ago, in preparing to retire to Florida, he had donated all of his radios to a local ham radio organization with the caveat that they would also remove his tower. They gladly picked up all of his shack equipment but two years later had yet to come get his tower down.
The tower was quickly becoming a liability as there were some broken guy wires, tree encroachment and it needed to come down sooner rather than later. Early in the AM before the heat got out of control; AA4BA, KJ4EZQ, KJ4PCR, and KJ4HAV swooped into action. With AA4BA working high and the others providing ground support progress was made quickly.
First, the large quad band beam came down followed by the rotator, mast and VHF/UHF antenna. Once the bulk of the weight and wind-load was off, the tower became much more manageable. Each section of tower came down in short order until we reached the final section. This came off the pad, all wires & cables were removed and the entire project cleaned up. Virtually no evidence of a tower remained and has the property ready for marketing for it eventual new owner.
When we can, Hall ARES is willing to help local hams with any of their needs. While we cannot do everything every time, we will do what we can for individuals, clubs and other organizations. We appreciate our active group of operators that continually step up to the plate for any kind of need that is presented.
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DC to DC Voltage Regulation |
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Sometimes we fall in the trap of assuming our batteries put out a constant voltage until they run out of stored energy. Common nomenclature seems to say our automobiles, radios and other common DC electronic devices operate at 12 volts. Actually the correct optimum industry standard is 13.8 volts.
When looking at the voltage outputs of a common automotive battery, we can see quite a wide range of output. With a fresh charge, the standard "12 volt" battery can often give us as much as 15 volts. At the bottom end of the charge you might find your battery is supplying as little as 9 volts.
Modern ham radios whether mobile or base radios that operate on DC electricity actually have a fairly narrow acceptable power range. More than 15 volts or less than 10volts can quite possibly damage your radio.
Many radios often have automatic shut off when the input voltage drops below a specific value. If you are operating an emergency station and your radio drops out during some critical traffic due to low voltage on your battery the event you are supporting suffers. Most radios go into auto shut down in the 10 to 11 volt range.
For this reason many hams choose to use a DC to DC voltage regulator. Often these devices are known as buck and boost regulators. There are a myriad of these devices commercially available and you can always homebrew one if you’re into cobbling up electronic circuits.
 One of the most popular DC to DC voltage regulators on the ham radio market is the N8XJK Boost Regulator. www.tgelectronics.org This is a full featured DC regulator that ensures your radio gets the proper voltage from your radio. This unit takes 9 to 12 volts in and rectifies it to 12 to 15 volts out based on user settings. It provides 25 amps continuous power. This device is known to not induce any noise into the system. The price for this device is 185.00.
This company also markets the N8XJK Super Booster which provides up to 40 amps continuous output. The rest of the specifications are similar to the standard Boost Regulator. The price for this unit is 225.00.
 One of the best values I have found in these type devices is the Power Stream SR-700. www.powerstream.com. The SR-700 has takes an input from 9 to 14 volts and rectifies it to a constant 13.8 volts output. It delivers a constant 20 amps and a peak of up to 50 amps out for up to 20 seconds. This unit is readily available for 145.00. Some hams have reported induced noise issues with this unit but it has worked flawlessly for me.
If your station has battery based emergency power, you should consider some sort of voltage regulation. This will protect your equipment and keep you transmitting longer during an emergency. Hall A.R.E.S. recommends all of its operators to maintain some sort of battery backup for their radios.
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HURREX Emergency Drill – 2010 |
All Hall County ARES operators:
Please read the below message from our Section Manager. We will be asking anyone that is capable to check into the state nets and we will call a couple of local nets to check assets. Our nets will be tomorrow at 1300 hours on the LARC repeater and then we will also discuss this drill during our regular Wednesday night net.
Michael V. Crowder AA4BA
Emergency Coordinator Hall County ARES
GEMA has initiated an exercise (HURREX 2010) with “Tropical Storm ‘Sofie’” ESE of Savannah, which we will assume develops into a full hurricane as the drill progresses. Our Section Traffic Manager, Charles K4GK has asked ARES participation as follows: “The Statewide Hurricane GEMA (FEMA) drill be next week, June 28, 29, and 30.
In support of these operations The Georgia Statewide ARES Net will again be active on 3975 kHz. Plans are to call the Net into session Tuesday, June 29. The net is scheduled for operations at 9:00 A.M., 12:00 Noon, and again at 3:00 P.M. The Net may also be active at other times and frequencies if conditions and emergency drill operations warrant. The purpose of this operation is to show our capabilities to communicate over long distances during any time of need. All stations are encouraged to check into the Statewide Net.
This is the tenth (10th) year that Georgia ARES Statewide Net has participated in the Statewide (FEMA) Hurrex Drill held each year in June.”
Like an actual event, I encourage you to watch on the web sites (GAARES.ORG and ARRL-GA.ORG) as well as monitoring the Georgia ARES frequency 3.975 including the 7PM Georgia SSB net for updates. We don’t know in advance what will happen as this drill hurricane develops.
This will be a good preview on the plans already developed for “Hurricane Jay” which will be the focus of our annual S.E.T. in October. More will be coming on that soon so that all can prepare for it in advance. We are happy that these both are only drills, but must realize that this summer events may not be so happy. Be Prepared!
Gene, W4AYK, SM Georgia
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Hall ARES Highest 2009 Set Score in Nation |
 On pages 70 and 71 of the July 2010 QST, you will find the Simulated Emergency Test scores for 2009 posted. Hall County ARES has the highest recorded score in the State, Southeast and the Nation. We want to thank all of our operators that helped with the 2009 SET and encourage everyone to be ready to help with the 2010 SET.
This years drill is bound to be a lot of fun and a learning experience as well. Our goal is to outperform ourselves and post an even higher score in 2010. Coming off the heels of the 2010 Pandemic Flu Drill and working at Field Day, we should all be even more prepared to put on a good show. We always find room for improvement in our techniques and training at every field exercise so please be ready to come out and participate.
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 There has been a correction to the Ham Cram that is scheduled for June 19th 2010. We put the incorrect location for the class. The actual location is at the Hall County EOC located on Crescent Dr. The Actual address for the GPS users is 270 Crescent Dr. Gainesville, Ga 30501.
Sorry for any problems this may have caused
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