Due to the Memorial Day holiday, the May meeting for the Henry County Amateur Radio Club has been changed to Tuesday, May 29th. Instead of convening at the Library as normal, we will be meeting at the W9OB club station,which is located at the QTH of K9UOK, at 7p. Please make a note of this change and we’ll hope to see you then.
The April meeting of the Henry County Amateur Radio Club will convene on Monday, April 23rd. The meeting will be held at 7pm at the New Castle-Henry Public Library in Meeting Room A. The meeting is open to the public. We hope you can join us as we review our practice field day event, and plan for the ARRL Field Day in June.
The HCARC will be hosting our annual Practice Field Day Event tomorrow, Saturday April 21st. We will meet at the Sanders Shelter House in Memorial Park in New Castle at 11am. We will set up one or two stations and practice operating for a few hours in preparation for the June 2012 Field Day event. If anyone has any questions, please contact Ben, KC9QEW or Andrew, KC9RVO. We hope you can make it out and join us for some fun on the air.
The HCARC will be hosting a hidden transmitter hunt this Saturday, March 24th. Andrew, KC9RVO, will act as the “fox” during the event which begins at 11am. We will meet in the parking lot behind Bob Evans in New Castle around 10:30 to see how many participants will partake in the hunts. You do not have to be a licensed amateur to participate as others need help with equipment and navigating. We hope to see you on Saturday!!
This month’s meeting of the Henry County Amateur Radio Club will be held on Monday, February 27th at 7p. The meeting is held at the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in Meeting Room ‘A’ and is open to the public. We will have a special presentation from Brian Boyer, WE9G, from Madison County Skywarn. We hope you can join us on Monday evening.
This month’s meeting of the Henry County Amateur Radio Club will be held on Monday, January 23rd at 7p. The meeting is held at the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in Meeting Room ‘A’ and is open to the public. We hope to see you there!
On December 3rd, members of the Henry County Amateur Radio Club and Henry County Skywarn traveled to Indianapolis for a tour of the National Weather Service office and the WISH-TV Channel 8 Studios.
We arrived at the NWS office about 1p and was greeted by Mark, who proceeded to give us a tour, and teach us how the local area, aviation, and flood forecasts are put together for public use. We also talked about “ground truth”, and we learned the radar beam is an average of 3,000ft in the air when it reaches Henry County, making Skywarn reports very important to the NWS when it comes to severe weather. Mark then took us outside and talked about the instrumentation as well as the Doppler radar. Thanks to Mark and the rest of the NWS staff who graciously allowed us to tour and ask several questions while we were there.
After the NWS tour, we headed towards downtown Indianapolis and the WISH-TV studios located on North Meridian Street. We met up with meteorologist Ken Brewer, and he took us into the studio and showed us to the Forecast 8 Tracking Center. While in the studio, we got to meet the new meteorologist who will be starting on-air in the next couple weeks. The studio is much smaller than you would imagine, and the control and audio rooms for the studio is sight to see. Ken then took us into the Newsroom, then up to the Master Control Center where we learned that 30+ stations are run from inside the building on North Meridian Street. It was quite a learning experience to know how things operate there and what it takes to put a newscast on the air. Thank you to Ken Brewer for his hospitality and taking the time to give us a tour during his busy day.
Pictured below at the WISH-TV studios (left to right): WISH-TV Meteorologist Ken Brewer, Shawn Brown, Gene Ingram, Ben Burris, and Andrew Clark.
Overall, we had a wonderful experience on our field trip to the NWS and WISH-TV studios. We learned a lot during the day and got to meet some outstanding individuals. Also, we must extend a very special thanks to Ben Burris, who organized the activities for the day.
The December meeting of the Henry County Amateur Radio Club will be held on December 26th. Please note the time and location change for this month’s meeting as we will hold our annual holiday gathering. We will meet at the Pizza King on South Memorial Drive at 6pm. Once we are finished with dinner, we will travel over to the club station for more fun and fellowship. Please contact Shawn, KC9QHA, if you plan on attending.
Back on October 15th, the Henry County Amateur Radio Club hosted an event for local boy scouts in conjunction with the 2011 JOTA (Jamboree-on-the-Air), where local scouts could learn more about the hobby of amateur radio. Member Eldon Pitts, KA9JNY, wrote the attached article in regards to our event which appeared in The Middletown News on Thursday, October 27th. A very big thanks to Eldon for the great write-up!
