Tonight was the last radio net of 2022 and I wanted to share a few statistics with you from the year, and wish you all a Merry Christmas.
First, amateur radio offers a lot of opportunities and it was interesting to learn a little bit about amateur radio in space recently. As a diversion from emergency communications I decided to talk about about the cross band repeater on the International Space Station tonight. Here is a link to the training topic: https://nwcvnet.blogspot.com/
On to the statistics:
Along with the Newton EOC station used to call the net, 15 individual stations participated in the radio net by checking in at least once during 2022.
Over the course of the year there were 84 individual check ins to the monthly net, and since October when we began encouraging participation via Winlink there were 9 Winlink check ins coming from the city station at Newton and other individual stations.
We have one soon to be licensed member who listens when he can, increasing total participation to 16 individuals with 87 check ins - 3 of which were by text notifying me he was listening.
It is good to test our equipment regularly, and discuss topics that will help us be prepared to communicate in an emergency. It is also valuable to identify the challenges faced when trying to communicate over simplex. I feel like the cross band repeater channel has helped those with handheld radios here in Newton hear distant stations better, but we still have the topography challenge of Little Mountain hindering simplex communication to parts of Trenton and Cornish.
Maybe we can adjust our roll call procedure so that stations with aerial antennas who are not within the hole Newton sits in can help me call for, and relay check ins from those more distant stations. I will think on this a bit more in the coming weeks.
I look forward to our net meetings in coming year and I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season!
Greg Fabricius
N7GRF
N7GRF