Our next meeting will be on Thursday April 6th at 7 PM EDT.
The agenda will be posted soon.
02/3/2023 – Mesh Training
If you missed the Mesh Networking Basics training session on February 2nd, it was recorded. Links to the recordings and the presentation material can be found on our Training page.
12/12/2022 – NEDECN’s DMR Network, Bill NE1B, and Rick K1RJZ Help to Rescue Lost Hiker!
I want to stress the importance of monitoring your DMR repeater channels. Tonight I was monitoring the NH Statewide channel when I got an unusual request for help. The ham asked me to call his wife. Seemed he was out hiking with his dog and with the oncoming snow and darkness, discovered his cellphone battery had gone dead. He could not text or get pinged. He did have a Retevis 3S walkie which worked well into the Gunstock Mtn DMR repeater. I made the call to his wife and she was glad to hear that I was in contact with him. Unfortunately, he did not know exactly where he was and believed he would have to walk through brush for an hour or more to get to a road.
His wife called in the local PD who began a search along with their FD. Ham radio was the only communication from about 4:30 to 6:30 PM. I believe the PD got a ping trace from his earlier location around 3:30 PM. Anyway, I called up Rick, K1RJZ, who was closer to the search area and he was familiar with the area snow mobile trails and roads. He then directly interfaced with the PD and the ham on NH Statewide talk group.
Interestingly when the PD and FD began their search pattern, they activated their sirens from different roads to see if he heard any of them. He did not! Our 2 meter DMR communication continued until he walked out to a road and could advise where he was. The search and checkout ended successfully at 6:30 PM and I got calls of thanks from both his wife and himself.
Some lessons learned tonight:
Radio batteries last longer on DMR radios than on analog mode.
Even his wife had trouble on her cell phone coverage at home
Monitor your local State DMR channel for helping others nearby
You may want to program 146.52 FM next to your State channel for signal strength DFing if and when out of repeater range. Some hams still monitor 52!
But stay on the primary channel until you know more hams are nearby to DF
Hike with DMR. Our network sites cover many areas of New England that do not have any cell service
Hike with a flashlight
I was glad to hear this had a happy ending!
73,
Bill, NE1B
12/3/2022 – Check out the nice ARRL New England Division news article on MVARA!
The club currently has one director opening. If you are interested in helping the club and becoming a director, please reach out Jay – K1EHZ. For more information regarding the role of a director, please read the club By-laws on the Club Info page.
