Awards: Hudson River Radio Relay 2021

 

Bringing together so many amateur radio clubs focused on a single goal was actually a pretty special experience

Lets talk about the event and highlight some amazing achievements by our local amateur radio community who took part in the first annual Hudson River Radio Relay event, this year featuring Bannerman's Island.

HR3:2021 Top Op Award

Our goal as a collective group of 8 stations was to make 2,000 radio contacts in 4 hours.  

While we fell short of this goal and only managed to generate 526 contacts, this was still amazing since that works out to more than 2 contacts per minute!

This year, the N2O station which was operated by the Orange County Amateur Radio Club made the most contacts at 194 in total.

Brian N2BTD, John KD2PTX, James KD2VTM and Dane KD2SSS were the ones who did most of the heavy lifting that day. 

They will have a lot to do next year to beat the score and fend off all other participants. Nicely done N2O OCARC Team!  

From left to right, only a small part of team N2O
John KD2PTX, Bruce KD2PSP, Erica N2TUC, Dane KD2SSS, & Stephen KD2JJY

HR3:2021 Individual Top Op Awards

With the N2O team logging the most collective contacts, it was Brian N2BTD (87) who just narrowly beat out Lloyd K2JVX (83) as part of the N2B team organized by HVDN for the most contacts overall.  Third place goes to John KD2PTX with 59 total contacts.   

What seemed to be the trend for Brian, Lloyd and John was to keep things simple. All only focused on voice modes and spent the majority of the time on 20m, but both John and Brian jumped to other bands and added even more contacts which helped them do so much amazing work.

While Brian and John both operated from fixed position mobile stations talked more about in the upcoming N2O article, Lloyd was stationary on Bannerman's Island  also known as USIAP NY-047, POTA K-2079 and COTA K-00047 which will be talked about in a N2B specific article. 

Lloyd K2JVX operating as N2B from Bannerman's Island - USIAP NY047's 1st activation! 

HR3:2021  Grid Iron Gang Awards

A major focus of the Hudson River Radio Relay (HR3) event during the ARRL VHF Contest which overlapped our special event on June 12th was to see how many grids we could work as a group not only on VHF, but also on HF.

Steve K2GOG, the main organizer of the HR3, faced some disbelief that HF operators would share a grid locator, since that is normally something only done on VHF, satellite and some SOTA or POTA activations. As it turns out, this was not as big an issue as many had said it would be when making contacts on HF.

For the collective group of eight special event stations, a total of 134 grid squares were contacted in four hours and the N2O powerhouse team notched 77 grids.  

The HVDN N2B team reached 61 grids and a third place tie of 44 went to both the N2N station run by the Peekskill & Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association (PCARA)  and the N2S station jointly operated by the QSY Society and the Mt. Beacon Amateur Radio Club. A more detailed breakdown will follow.

Visualization of some of the grids worked per station
as part of the first Hudson River Radio Relay 

HR3:2021 Continental Distance Award

Possibly a surprise to those who were part of the Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club who worked very hard to reach a total of 19 contacts was the fact that they had one of the few contacts across North America to reach the furthest.   

All the way on the opposite side of the country in grid CN87 was KB7THX at 2,455 miles away and Al is who to thank for pulling in two of our special event stations in out on the west coast.

While the N2S station also happened to make contact with KB7THX twice and on 20m and 40m, it was the OMARC team who did it first according to our time stamped log and is why they are crowned the champion for the HR3:2021 Continental Distance Award thanks to this effort on 17m from Kingston Point Park in Ulster County.

They grew an antenna!  The N2H OMAR team getting ready.
Photo foreground of David KD2MQE and Sarah.  Background Jeff KJ2DOC.
Visit the OMARC Facebook page for more details.

HR3:2021 Global Distance Award

The overall global distance award proved to be hotly contested between the N2O, N2B and N2D stations each reaching more than 4,000 miles away.

Beaming towards the east from FN31 was a nice 4,318 mile contact by N2B on 20m CW to Elemer HA9RE in KN08 and on 20m SSB to Matt SP2IST in JO94 for 4,033 miles.  

Just to the south of N2B was the United States Military Academy at West Point station on Constitution Island (USIAP NY073) operating as N2D. They managed to reach Tibi HA7TM using 20m FT8 in JN97 for a total of  4,277 miles.

It seemed we needed to possibly get into a six digit grid square locator to try and see who was the winner since it appeared as less than 41 miles separated N2D and N2B, but it seems that an error in the log that was later found showed that N2O in FN21 magically worked a 10m band opening 4,943 miles away into Brazil in grid GG43 thanks to PU5JVA on the other end.

The Orange County ARC team behind N2O seems like the team to beat next year! 

The N2D team led by N2WU on USIAP NY073 as its first official activation
along with other cadets looking on

Hudson Valley Heart Award

One of the major goals of the Hudson River Radio Relay event is to promote collaboration between our local community. In this case for 2021, the QSY Society and Mt. Beacon ARC worked together to make the N2S station at College Hill Park a success.  

For the future, it is our hope that other pairings of amateur radio clubs or other organizations like local schools, emergency response or other groups can work together to win the next Hudson Valley Heart Award in 2022. 

Here is a nice drone video taken by Sebastian KI2D who helped Scott W2NTV, Frank W2GIO, Adam AE2AN, Shirley N2SKP and so many others make N2S an example for our region.

HR3:2021 Squeaky Clean Award

The exchange for this special event was call sign,  first name and grid square. Many participating clubs have a lot to work on when it comes to accuracy and completeness when it comes to information exchange. 

Having these skills is important should amateur radio ever be needed for realistic emergency communications.  

Details such as a first name and location could be extremely useful for difficult situations, especially if a club callsign was used and its not clear who the operator on the other end was.  

Same goes for approximate location which is possibly even more valuable compared to exchanging ARRL sections as is done during the annual ARRL Field Day event coming up on June 26th and 27th 2021.

Of a total of 72 contacts, the N2N station operated by the Peekskill & Cortland Amateur Radio Association required almost no in depth analysis  based on very complete logs. Random fact checking also proved a high level of accuracy by the PCARA team.  

Team N2N showing how a well organized operating position
helped them possibly win the squeaky clean log award in 2021.
Indian Point Nuclear Power Station is in the distance.

HR3:2021 Digital Achievement Award

Our four hour long special event focused on promoting four different types of amateur radio technology.  

Analog voice and Morse code have been around for a very long time, but newer counterparts such as digital voice modes like DMR or digital data modes like FT8 are growing in popularity and relevance to the modern amateur radio enthusiast.

The Crystal Radio Club who operated as N2V for the event should not fool anyone with its name since all but one of its contacts came on FT8 and split between 6m, 20m and 40m bands.

For the future, we will look at any special event station that is part of HR3 with the highest percentage of  both any digital voice or digital data mode contacts made compared to the overall total they are able to log. Hopefully Paul K2PH and team can share the secrets of operating digital modes from the field so effectively. 

HR3:2021 Hudson Valley Tough Award

Surely, having to deal with loading all the gear on a boat and operate from an island plus having to bring it all up and down more than 70 wooden steps would make for an easy award for N2B, but the Putnam Emergency Amateur Radio League (PEARL)  seemingly had much tougher conditions to deal with as part of the N2U contingent located at Castle Rock Unique area as part of  POTA K-5161 and K-2079 plus COTA K-00825 in grid FN31.

According to Diana KD2AEG, there was nearly 5 foot tall grass that needed to be flattened out to make a clearing for the antenna and operating tent.

After making quasi crop circles with repurposed 4 foot military mast and a length of paracord, they needed to also do some emergency Power Pole repairs to power up the radios.

While they managed only four contacts and three of those coming via Morse code, much was learned and they are deserving of this year's Hudson Valley Tough Award.

Those scary clouds and tall grass were just a few more things which  did not prevent
PEARL's N2U station  from operating as part of Hudson River Radio Relay

HR3:2021 Awards Summary

• HR3:2021 Top Op Award - N2O - OCARC

• HR3:2021 Individual Top Op Award - N2O -N2BTD

• HR3:2021 Continental Distance Award - N2H - OMARC

• HR3:2021 Global Distance Award - N2O - OCARC

• HR3:2021 Grid Iron Gang Award - N2O - OCARC 

• HR3:2021 Hudson Valley Heart Award - N2S - QSY Society & MBARC

• HR3:2021 Squeaky Clean Award - N2N - PCARA

• HR3:2021 Digital Achievement Award - N2V - CRC

• HR3:2021 Hudson Valley Tough Award - N2U - PEARL

Since this is the first year of the Hudson River Radio Relay, we are going to allow each winner to create an award in the form of some sort of novelty that can be passed on to next year's winner, likely at some sort of official awards lunch for all those who participated in the 2022 event, for which we already have reserved the same special event callsigns.

Stay tuned for more details from each of our 2021 participants in an upcoming series of articles. The map below shows where all eight stations were located and direction of all contacts made.

Questions?

Steve Bossert K2GOG

Co-Founder, HVDN

Organizer, Hudson River Radio Relay

steve.bossert@gmail.com 

Putting the HV on the map with HR3 and HVDN

HR3:2021 Quick Engagement Results

Yesterday was the first annual Hudson River Radio Relay event. This year our fundraising theme was to support Bannerman's Castle Trust via GoFundMe and we managed to raise $1,418 in total with over $300 of that coming in the hours leading up to, during and just after the four hour event which took place from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern US time on June 12th

While we await the final logs from all eight of our participating special event stations to get compiled and posted to the HudsonRiverRadioRelay.com website, an initial estimate from casual discussion with most all the participating locations sounds like we should end up around 500 to 600 total contacts as a collective group.

There are so many positive things that will get mentioned about this event that will get published in the coming days along with lots of pictures and videos, but here is a quick snap shot just based on who visited each special event web page as well as the QRZ.com page for each of our eight callsigns.   

Both metrics were measured from between May 13th and June 13th at 10:00 AM EST.

It was expected the N2B station would possibly gain the most attention as a never before activated USIAP island NY047, but the N2O station rivaled our flagship location mainly due to its various USIAP, COTA, POTA and SOTA designations along with an amazing number of enthusiastic members that promoted what they were doing.

Our three stations that were not aided by affiliation of the different "on the air" categories like islands, parks or summits such as N2H, N2S and N2V seem to have also been very popular too over the last 30 days of measurements and deserve a lot of credit also.

The three lowest elevation stations, some only a few feet above the river such as N2U, N2D and N2N are hidden gems that deserve much more attention considering how hard they worked and are all actually very rare locations that we need to help promote even more for next year. 

Between these three stations, there was a brand new USIAP NY-073 on a US Army facility plus POTA K-2079, K-4582, K-5161, COTA K-00825 and the former home of the founder of Paramount Pictures.

What's Next?

Now that we have an official website visit metric posted just after the event, please go and learn more about each club and location they operated at during this special event by visiting HudsonRiverRadioRelay.com 

More detailed articles from each station highlighting each sponsoring club and a list of total event contacts plus the winner of our Xiegu G90 package raffle will be coming soon, so please follow the HVDN blog for more details between now and ARRL Field Day which is just under two weeks away.

RDF in the HV with OMARC and HVDN

As the article title suggests, the recent radio direction finding (RDF) event in the Hudson Valley (HV) thanks to both the Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club (OMARC) and Hudson Valley Digital Network (HVDN) was a fun time to be socially distanced and educational simultaneously.

Here is a summary of the first "Fox Hunt" to take place in northern Dutchess County since COVID-19 disrupted normalcy while using directional antennae to find a hidden transmitter.

Did we find Alf at Ferncliff Forrest?

Funny things happen when amateur radio operators invade local nature preserves when waving around strange looking antenna contraptions.

The goal of this joint radio direction finding event between two great organizations and its membership was to hide a remotely controlled transmitter box known as a "Fox" and participants were going to try to find it/catch it somewhere in the well maintained Ferncliff Forest Game Preserve located in Rhinebeck, NY. 

Ahead of the hunt which took place on November 21st, many hunters constructed a directional antenna known as a Yagi which was optimized for finding the location of transmitters thanks to Joe WB2HOL, formerly of the Hudson Valley and charter member of the Putnam Emergency & Amateur Radio League (PEARL) club before relocating to warmer weather in North Carolina.  

Made from inexpensive materials such as PVC pipe and discarded tape measures, each hunter was able to find the peak and null of the hidden transmitter to help find which direction to travel and be the first to find the transmitter hidden which was inside a common case found at Harbor Freight Tools. 

While conducting some pre-event education in the parking lot and during the hunt, a number of families who were out enjoying the day commented about our antennae and some children thought we were looking for aliens when they heard the signal coming from each hunters radio. 

1st Hunt Near Success Story

Steve K2GOG was the organizer of the event and was tasked with hiding the fox after a basic  demonstration of antenna and radio direction finding theory for those who would go and try and find the transmitter.

Beyond the easy to build Yagi antenna designed for the amateur radio 2m wavelength band at a frequency of 146.565 MHz, Steve showed off other options he has used such as a handheld TDOA from Rainbow Kits (Time Delay of Arrival) and UHF half Egg Beater, of Steve K2GOG own design and inspiration for the HVDN HASviolet antenna V1 on 900 MHz.

Lloyd K2JVX brought his Arrow DF loop antenna which amazed other attendees at how small it was. Rob W2RWS was eager to try his Arrow II antenna and its 70cm capability for tuning to the harmonic of the transmitter found on 439.965 MHz. All these mentioned types of antennae are easy to build or purchase and each offers unique benefits and challenges when used for RDF.

The hidden transmitter was based around the combination of a Byonics Piccon V2 and a Lanch HG-UV98 radio. This arrangement provided the primary ability to remotely control the transmitter by sending a DTMF tone to sequence the transmitter which sent out a combined set of random tones followed by a cryptic Morse code message on 146.565 MHz that the hunters used to find the fox. 

The secondary ability was to also transmit an APRS beacon on 446.500 MHz which allowed GPS, temperature and voltage to be sent back to Steve K2GOG should the fox become abducted by someone or malfunction in some way.

Lloyd K2JVX was the first to find the transmitter hidden towards the rear of the pond.  Rob W2RWS was close behind and both hunters almost found the fox before it stopped responding to command codes, which meant a rescue operation was needed.

Bob KD2QAK used a different method to find the fox by taking signal readings at known locations and plotted the direction of the signal on a map. He drew lines to see where they intersected and clearly defined the general area where he thought the signal was coming from.

This first hunt was very successful as it taught everyone that multiple techniques and equipment could be used to find the general location of a fox, but the strong 1 watt signal actually made it hard to find the fox as each hunter got pretty close to it, even within the last 15 feet. Other equipment designed for closer detection was needed.

Attention about attenuation

While a 1 watt signal radiated from a simple Radioshack telescoping antenna sounds like it would be easy to find, its strength made it hard for all hunters, so a demonstration using a dummy load as the antenna was done to show how to better tune to the null of the fox or how to attenuate the received signal through the use of methods like the "body fade" method using a standard rubber duck or better design or selection of antenna or receivers.

Certain radios like the Kenwood TH-D74 and Icom IC-R20 seemed to work the best due to advanced attenuation and  RF gain features. Much more inexpensive radios like the Yaesu FT-70DR, Yaesu FT-4XR did not due as well since the receivers in them were easily overloaded by strong local signals. 

Guy KD2TLF found success by tuning away 10 or more kHz away from the actual signal to attenuate the signal in his Yaesu FT-4XR while both Bob and Zina focused on using the harmonic and null to get closer to the fox with the FT-70DR. 

We also learned as a group that the dummy load Steve used radiated its signal horizontally compared to the RadioShack antenna which was vertically polarized. This knowledge may come in handy for the future to confuse future hunters.

Walk in the woods: 2nd hunt results

As Lloyd found the first fox, he was elected to hide the transmitter for the next round. After an unexpected malfunction with an external blinking safety light on the fox, the hunt was declared open season and the hunters took off to see where Lloyd hid the fox.

Steve K2GOG decided it may be an unfair advantage to use some of his more advanced tools like the TDOA array or even his specialty field strength meter, so he started the hunt using nothing more than the standard rubber duck with his Kenwood TH-D74 and relied upon the body fade method of signal detection.  

He got his bearing by holding the radio close to his front and rotated around until the signal decreased towards his rear.  Walking another 15-20 away, he took another bearing and did this every so often to see if he was headed in the right direction.

Not too much later, he came across Ken KD2TQS (Official event photographer) who had followed Lloyd into the woods to hide the fox.  Steve knew he was getting close and pressed onward.  

Soon after Steve got to a location that the transmitter must be close to, he found Lloyd sitting on a nearby log having a snack.   Just after a few minutes later while trying to get closer to the fox, Rob W2RWS and Guy KD2TLF showed up from a different direction trying hard to find the fox.

Because Lloyd was tricky in where he hid the fox next to a thick tree that was tilting over at about a 30 degree angle and some rocks that are known to contain iron ore, it took the 3 hunters more than 20 minutes to find the fox which was covered with leaves and its antenna just barely poking out.

Steve followed by Rob and Guy finally found the fox and we decided to call it a day after roughly 3 hours and 10,000 steps in Ferncliff Forest. 

Final words

After the group met back up with Bill KD2UEN and Zina KD2UEO back at the parking lot, some prizes were awarded to commemorate the event.  An offset attenuator kit courtesy of KC9ON was awarded to Rob, a dual band rubber duck was given to Lloyd and a set of orange and black zipties were given to all other participants.

Much was learned during this on foot fox hunt and the day was enjoyed by all who came out to brave the nice weather and clean air away from home.

We are going to be planning future events like this and weather permitting, the next fox hunt will likely take place during the Winter Field Day event that OMARC has done the past few years.

Please visit the 146.805 MHz repeater broadcasting from high atop Overlook Mountain in Hurley NY to talk to those mentioned in this article and to learn about Winter Field Day 2021 or other OMARC activities. 

OMARC/HVDN Fox Hunters pictured right to left are Guy KD2TLF, Zina KD2UEO, Bill KD2UEN, Rob W2RWS, Lloyd K2JVX and Steve K2GOG