Jim Cluett, W1PID, in the red fleece is holding court teaching young, inquisitive minds about the magic of amateur radio. Johann Busch, W1JSB, is standing at the right. Photo by: Tim Carter, W3ATB
On Monday night, February 18, 2013, I had the pleasure to assist four other ham radio operators at Boy Scout Troop 68’s meeting in Laconia, NH. It was Show and Tell night, and the topic was amateur radio. Believe it or not, the Scout Troop has a very nice little ham shack equipped with a very swell HF radio.
Chris Reynolds, KB1VXD, has a son in the troop and invited other ham operators to come and talk about their experiences in amateur radio, what they like about it and what they might use.
I brought in my Yaesu VX-7R handheld radio and compared it to a smartphone that I had in my pocket. The scouts immediately identified the phone and seemed to be impressed with how small the handheld radio was compared to the phone.
This is my VX-7R small handheld transceiver. The yellow wire is a tiger tail. It’s a counterpoise. The 1/4-wave dual-band high-gain whip antenna is oriented correctly. It’s pointing to the sky. Copyright 2021 Tim Carter W3ATB
The highlight of the night was a demonstration of morse code by Jim Cluett, W1PID, and Johann Busch, W1JSB.
The young boys were very attentive, respectful and well-behaved, but I have a feeling much of what was said went over their heads. I say this because much of amateur radio is still over my head, and I’m not talking about the radio waves that constantly surround us!
Jim Cluett, W1PID, and Johann Busch, W1JSB collaborated on a very interesting demonstration of morse code. Jim split the group of boy scouts into two groups, and each group had to come up with their own secret message.
Johann (Hanz) first transmitted his group’s message to Jim who successfully transcribed it. There was no doubt Jim would do this as he’s been a ham operator for 50 years, has taught morse code to countless people, and Hanz was one of his former students.
Hanz was using his very slick home-brew compact radio that is contained in a clear, waterproof case.
This is a radio that transmits and receives morse code. Everything fits in the box, including the batteries. All you need to do is connect a thin antenna wire. Photo by: Tim Carter, W3ATB
He uses this radio to communicate with other hams across the world when he hikes or is otherwise away from his ham shack. I was so jazzed by this radio I decided to build one myself. Hanz helped me. In reality, he built about 95% of the radio.
It’s unbelievable. To create the morse code tones, you simply have to touch the round nut(s) you see in the lower right corner of the outside of the case.
Once Hanz’s message was deciphered, Jim had his boys came up with a message about skeletons and zombies. Jim used Hanz’s swell small radio and transmitted the di’s and dah’s to Hanz who expertly captured the sounds and magically made them into letters on paper for the boys to read.
Watch the video for yourself. It was a fun night for all in attendance!
On Tuesday, December 4th, thirty-five members of the Central New Hampshire Amateur Radio Club (CNHARC) toured the state-of-the-art 911 and Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid Communications centers in Laconia, NH. Both facilities are housed in nondescript buildings at the former state prison just north of Laconia.
The evening started off with a fact session about the 911 center presented by Dave Rivers, the Chief of Operations. His many years of service helped hone his wry sense of humor. You had to really be on your toes to catch all of the zingers that were interlaced with amazing statistics and anecdotes about incoming calls to the center.
The New Hampshire 911 Laconia facility Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) is one of only two 911 call centers in the state of New Hampshire. The primary PSAP is in the state capitol down in Concord, however, both centers are equipped to handle calls from any location in the state. If all the operators at one center are busy, incoming 911 calls are routed to the other center.
The 911 operator sitting in the center of the photo was coaching the caller in how to perform CPR.
The highly trained operators use standardized protocols to handle calls. There are over 30 different protocols that range from animal bites to traumatic injuries.
These step-by-step question protocols are built into the software that runs on the center’s computers. This methodology is time tested and allows the operators to focus on the most important aspects of each call.
While the tour was in progress, the on-duty operators were busy helping citizens in need. One operator was coaching a caller in how to perform CPR. Club members in the room immediately picked up on the seriousness of the call and the room quickly filled with anxiety over what might happen next. It was so quiet in the room, you could hear a flea burp.
Club member Chris Reynolds, KB1VXD, a dispatcher employed at the Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid Communications Center, was kind enough to arrange the tours. He worked in conjunction with Cliff Dickinson, N1RCQ to facilitate this meeting. Cliff is the club program co-ordinator.
Once we were finished with the tour of the 911 center, the group was split into two parts so we could visit the smaller Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid Communications Center.
This facility serves 35 agencies in the Lakes Region. If a fire, emergency, or EMT/ambulance call comes into the 911 center that would be handled by any of the fire departments that are part of the mutual aid group, they are transferred seamlessly to the trained dispatchers in the mutual fire aid communications center. The Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid Communications Center handles about 70 incoming calls in a regular 24-hour period, but in severe weather events, that call volume can jump to several hundred calls per day.
Both communications centers are highly computerized and have built-in redundancy. The employees that staff the centers are highly trained and are cool under pressure.
This is the computer center for the Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid Comm Center.
Both tours were extremely informative, and probably no club member regretted navigating through the pea-soup fog to attend this one-of-a-kind meeting.
With the 6-foot outdoor cabinet secure on the quad lift chair behind us I murmurred, “So tell me again why we didn’t install this outdoor repeater cabinet back in October on one of the nice 70-degree days?” Suspended 20 feet in the air I was racing up to the summit of Gunstock Mountain sitting beside two other members of the Central New Hampshire Amateur Radio Club.
“Anyone can do it then. We prefer to have challenging weather conditions that test our skills,” joshed Mark Persson, W1DDI.
Ed O’Hearn, N1EO, was sitting next to us encased in his full-body ski suit, arctic boots, full-face warmer, hat, and heavy gloves. “I’m all set in case this chair lift stalls with a snow-making cannon pointed at us,” quipped Ed.
The pickup trucks, left to right, of W3ATB, W1DDI, and N1EO.
The three of us met in the empty parking lot of the Gunstock Ski Resort at 7:45 am on a steel-gray Sunday morning. It was just five days shy of the winter solstice that would mark the first official day of winter.
But thirty minutes later, at the top of Gunstock Mountain where the club’s 440 MHz, 2-meter and 6-meter repeaters reside, you’d swear winter had arrived months ago. It was windy, cold and the summit greeted us with snow and ice, albeit man-made.
Our task for the morning was to install an outdoor radio-equipment cabinet under the ski resort’s Safety Building that sits directly on Mt. Gunstock’s summit. The rugged and weathered exterior of the building does an excellent job of concealing what’s inside.
This nondescript building at the summit of Gunstock Mountain is an oasis of warmth and intoxicating aromas.
If you’re one of the lucky people that gets to cross over the threshold of this wood-frame building, you quickly discover it’s a warm and cozy lair where the ski patrol volunteers hang out waiting to be called out on the slopes to assist a skier.
The magical four-person ski-lift chairs wisked the cabinet, tools and supplies, and us up the mountain. By the time we got to the top, I was already shivering even though I had dressed for the weather.
While dawn was breaking an hour earlier, I was walking out the door of my house debating if I should be wearing my firefighter bunker pants that keep you warm in sub-zero temperatures. I chose poorly, and those pants were eight miles away as the bird flies on a hook in my mud room. Oh well, I’ll know next time.
Here’s the metal cabinet after being lugged across the snow and ice to the underside of the Safety Building.
Once at the top of the mountain, we slid the cabinet off the frozen vinyl seats of the ski lift and lugged it across the groomed snow to the front of the building. It was time to decide on a safe strategy on how best to get the cabinet under the building where it would soon be installed.
We wasted no time getting to work using Mark’s paper template that allowed us to drill precise holes in the top of the cabinet that would accept massive lag bolts. Sharp drill bits soon were boring holes in the top of the cabinet.
“Do you smell that? It smells like a donut shop is just around the corner,” professed Mark. I was obviously upwind of Mark, and the only sensory impulses my brain was receiving were the alarm bells telling me that the temperature of my fingers was starting to approach 32 F.
“Oh my gosh, I DO smell that,” I exclaimed as a gust of wind thrust the aroma of freshly baked cinammon rolls up my partially frozen nostrils. It was amazing my olfactory system was actually working in the tundra-like conditions.
The repeater cabinet is lag bolted to the underside of the floor joists. Next step is to install the conduit for the electrical receptacle.
By this time, we were well on our way to having the cabinet installed. It was a slick engineering feat that Mark and Ed had come up with. The Saftey Building hangs out over the southwest tip of the summit producing about 7 feet of head space at the far end of the building.
Bolting the cabinet to the underside of the floor joists protects it from any overland water and keeps it safe from pesky mice that seek out the warmth of cabinets filled with warm tasty wires and cables connected to humming electronics equipment. Relocating the 440 MHZ and 2-meter repeaters to the exterior of the building allows us to have access to the electronic gear 24/7/365. Let me re-state that – let’s say any day a blizzard isn’t howling up at the top of the peak.
Working under the building provided us with a considerable amount of protection from the biting wind, but every now and then a rogue blast of wind would lash us.
Ed and Mark were the pros, and have extensive experience with repeaters, duplexers, controllers, power supplies and link radio equipment that will occupy the sturdy metal cabinet. My job was simply to hold things and give an occasional assist as one would expect from any apprentice. Understand that prior to this frosty morning, I had never before seen a repeater nor been near one.
Just as we were finishing suspending the cabinet from the Safety Building’s floor joists, Rick Zach, K1RJZ, popped his head under the building saying good morning. Rick had come up with a plastic tub filled with tools and supplies to check on the electronics of the repeaters that were currently being bathed in the warmth and cinammon-roll atmosphere just above our heads.
The 2-meter repeater is at the top of the photo. The 6-meter repeater case is open with all the electronics visible.
I went inside for ten minutes to warm my nearly frostbitten fingers, and Rick gave me a quick tour of the current repeaters. It was pretty fascinating to see the array of electronic equipment that’s responsible for re-transmitting radio signals from countless operators who work this summit for both pleasure, and for more important public-safety events.
The work party concluded with Mark and Ed installing the waterproof flexible conduit from the cabinet over to the edge of the building where the existing power extends to the indoor repeaters. Jim Craver, N1XBD, who works at the Gunstock Ski Resort helped finish the job by splicing in our junction box into the existing conduit.
The job ended inside the toasty Safety Building with Mark, Ed and Rick inspecting the existing equipment, checking readings and insuring all was well with the repeaters. It was all greek to me, so I did the smart thing and just kept my mouth shut.
The ski-lift operators allowed us to jump on the empty chairs that rotated around the giant bull wheel, and we were wisked back down to the parking lot. The view across Lake Winnipesaukee was gorgeous even though the sky was starting to fill with the first real snowflakes of winter. I was in my truck by 11:30 am headed back home to a roaring fire in my office and a relaxing Sunday afternoon.
Suffice it to say the expedition up to the summit was well worth it for me. There’s no better way to bond with fellow club members than to do it under the most adverse weather conditions Mother Nature can conjure up.
If you want to be fully immersed in the Central New Hampshire Amateur Radio Club experience, I highly recommend scheduling a trip to the top of Gunstock Mountain on a frigid December day!
From left to right standing: Mark Persson W1DDI, Ed O’Hearn N1EO, Tim Carter W3ATB. Rick Zach K1RJZ kneeling.
