06/28/2006 | W7DRC The Dixie Amateur Radio Club is an ARRL Affiliated club in southwestern Utah's Washington County. This area has long been known as "Utah's Dixie" (since the mid-1800's) because of the temperate climate here (much like the souther U.S. Dixie area)and the ability of early settlers of the area to raiseg cotton, short in supply during the Civil War years. The club has adopted the Dixie name in honor of those early pioneers.

Members of the Dixie Amateur Radio Club set up a station in a toy-hauler ATV trailer in the parking lot of the St. George City, Utah Police Department. Dispatch Center employee Ken Head, KD7FGP, arranged the location and also passed word to the Police Department management and employees about the special demonstration of Amateur Radio.

Club Board Member Casey Lofthouse, KD7HUS, arranged the use of the toy-hauler trailer which proved to be an excellent venue for the station. We operated 1A with a military surplus diesel generator located at the base of the hill below the hillside Police station. The generator has been provided each year courtesy of club member Russ Bateman, K7SG, to whom we are much appreciative. Much of the planning and implementation was coordinated/executed tirelessly by Club Board Member (and CW afficionado) Dan Farwell, W8EQA. Kudos Dan!

In addition to being in a public place and showing off the station to Police staff and management, the regional daily newspaper sent a reporter. A story ran on page two of the paper. The regional television station, KCSG-TV, sent a reporter who interviewed on camera Club Secretary Gary Zabriskie, N7ARE, for the story. A very well edited and complimentary story on Amateur Radio and the Field Day event across the country aired locally on the 9:00 PM Sunday night News broadcast.

Our rig was the Clubs Kenwood TS-930S through an MFJ antenna tuner. We used a wire antenna for HF and a collinear vertical for VHF. We utilized a desktop PC running WB3B software for logging and duplicate contact rejection. We also made several PSK31 contacts with the same PC, a mode that many of us in the club got our first look-see into and our interest was certainly piqued.

We had excellent propagation on 40mtr SSB on Saturday afternoon, racking up many contacts. Our operation was continuous throughout the entire activity/contest. 20 meters was slow in opening on Sunday morning but when it did it was at least a contact a minute for a two hour period or so.

I have not named all of the operators and club members who participated or otherwise helped out, and if I did I know I would inadvertently leave someone out. You folks all know who you are and what you did to help. And you are much appreciated by the Club Board and fellow hams.

We would have liked to have had more volunteers from within the club, but perhaps the 111 degrees F temperature outside on Saturday and 109 F on Sunday kept the numbers small.

All in all it was a successful demonstration of our capabilities to set up a station quickly in a location simulating our response to an actual emergency. Our area is frequented by wildfires (as it was DURING last years and THIS years Field Day event). We are also in a seismically active area. The primary purpose of this years setup was to show we could in a matter of an hour or two set up and have operating an efficient communications capability at a critical facility in the City (i.e. the Police headquarters).

We will have more information on our web site: http://www.dixieham.org

73,
Gary Zabriskie, Club Secretary
Dixie Amateur Radio Club -- N7ARE