On April 25th from 10 AM to 2 PM, Ohio ARES will be holding their NVIS Antenna Day.
Stan, N8BHL is planning for all 88 counties to be on the air in this 4 hour antenna test.
Additional equipment required includes Hot dogs, Hamburgers, and side dishes.
So in other words, get your club members out there and do some socializing outside of club meetings, and on the air nets. You won't regret it.
Here's the full text from the December issue of the Ohio Section Journal:
FROM THE SECTION EMERGENCY COORDINATOR
By Stan Broadway, N8BHL
broadways@standi.com
OHIO ARES NVIS Antenna Day – April 25..
Get your antenna books out, get together with some friends and come up with a winner! The Ohio ARES NVIS Antenna day has been scheduled for April 25, 2015. Operating hours 10AM – 2PM. Frequency: around the Ohio ARES 40 meter frequency of 7.240 plus or minus, and around 3.850-3.870 plus or minus.
We have all been through several presentations of NVIS (Near vertical sky wave, or “Cloud burner”) antennas. Sure, the concept is cool and it ought to work. But it’s time to put away the antenna modelers, the calculators and theory and get down with some wire and some coax! Have you actually ~tried~ one of these? If there was a wide-scale disaster requiring you to communicate with nearby counties and Columbus (or other state capitals) do you have confidence you could actually make this work? The best way to find out is to try!
We’re taking the lead from Ashtabula, who has had several annual antenna days that were a great success. The idea here is to actually ~build~ different NVIS antennas and try them out against each other. Come up with different concepts: vertical, horizontal, semi-something, and try different elevations from ground level all the way up to the towering height of, say, 20 feet. See which antenna does the best at working nearby counties, Columbus, and neighboring locations as if we were in a large-scale disaster.
This isn’t really a contest, in the sense that we’re not looking so much at lots-o-q so’s as we are at comparing our various antennas. So it will be more beneficial to keep track of HONEST signal reports from the same station using our various antennas. We will want to have reports (including pictures?) of your various antennas and how they stood up to each other. From a simple grid or ranking of your best three or four performers, we can compare these across the state and come up with overall suggestions as the most desirable NVIS setup to have in your tool box. This information may come in very handy for your spring Field Day efforts! But we all know that Field Day, or any other similar contest, is NOT the time or place to be testing antennas- we are in it for QSO numbers and rates! So this is a great day to get some honest experimenting done!
And there’s MORE!..We are strongly suggesting additional equipment for your field tests: a good grill, some hamburgers and side dishes! This should be far enough into spring that it will be nice to be outside (even with a jacket on) and it’s an excellent time to have a picnic, get some fellowship in, and generally relax! So in your planning, include proximity to somewhere to eat! Use a park, someone’s property, or be creative! Remember we’re testing antennas, so next to a power plant might not be the best idea. The food and fellowship makes this great fun! And, we’re not limited strictly to “ARES People”. If your local radio club has some experts, draft ‘em! It’s all about the fellowship, the fun, and the feuding antennas!
More information will follow- but I would love to activate as many (or all!) Ohio counties as possible to make this a benchmark test!
