I would like to thank everyone who has supported what is now going to be officially called the Ulster & Northern Dutchess Readiness Net moving forward following our October 5th 2021 over the air session.
We still get to keep the UNDR acronym and the reason for changing the word "radio" out for "readiness" helps us provide a more flexible resource and mission.
As we continue to determine if what we are doing will be a benefit to ARES, RACES or CERT capacities at some point in the future as covered in past articles and live discussion every Tuesday at 8:00 PM local Hudson Valley Time (0000 UTC)
One note sent in a few days after our last UNDR Net is the image that solved a problem for Brad KC2VVJ. Thank you Bob K2LD for sharing your below image via our webform and helping Brad out. Details on the issue can be read here.
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| Bob K2LD decoded this image with ROBOT36 using PD50 mode while stopped in his car. Read more details here |
October: Hudson Valley Fox Hunt Season
Fall is the perfect season for walking around with antennae and radio equipment to find cleverly hidden transmitters, which are some times referred to as "foxes".
There are many practical applications for radio direction finding and members of the UNDR Net team have put together a curriculum to help teach related skills that are useful to this sort of activity detailed below. From a CERT perspective, understanding land navigation and direction finding are important things to know.
With a total of 12 participants, now spanning across 3 state borders across no fewer than 6 different counties, the UNDR Net continues to show that great content attracts more interest compared to how many standard ARES/RACES net serve those specific purposes.
Continuing on with perfecting SSTVM over FM via the WA2MJM 146.805 MHz wide area repeater, we have increased our ability to decode fantastic images using the PD50 mode. This slow scan television mode only takes less than one minute to send an image with 320x256 pixel resolution.
Past articles show some practical applications for SSTV to communicate or inform on situational awareness and this week we have a little more free form fun.
Ken KD2TQS started off by sharing a photo of this rather nice butterfly, with photo accreditation going to some Ken is friends with.
The species of butterfly is battus philenor and is more commonly known as the blue swallowtail. Sharing an image like this, or a type of snake, could be interesting in a no-cellular network access scenario where sharing a photo of wildlife could be very important.
The next image by Brad KC2VVJ, while it appears a little choppy was part due to interference on the repeater, but the commemorative patch is clearly legible for most of the image which proves resilience in sending an image in less than optimal conditions.
The last official image of the evening sent by Steve K2GOG was used as a quiz to identify someone who might "already be your friend" or perhaps "was your friend" on an early form of social media known as MySpace. Sharing a photo for perhaps some type of lost persons scenario is important.
No fewer than six participants decoded the image just fine with perfect clarity and all would have been able to pick this person out in a crowd, had this been a current photo of Tom Andersen.
Discussion during a directed net goes by quick and the UNDR Net for October 5th concluded at 2122 local time. An "unofficial" round of images followed which included Tom N2FZC sharing his first sending results using EncoderSSTV and the image quality was reported well across multiple people.
Joining us for the first time from Winchester, CT was Dan KC1RRK who decoded most all the attached images and then shared a simple "QSL" image shown above with no photo in the middle of the text. Brad KC2VVJ responded back with the below image to acknowledge receipt of Dan's image.
Radio Direction Finding Plans
Here are the plans for the jointly organized RDF day planned for October 30th along with the Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club, who will handling hospitality via a nice lunch to thanks its members and for those that are pre-registered for the event.
More details will be shared each week and as part of our curriculum. If you are interested in attending our October event at Ferncliff Forest, please take the below survey.
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