The High Desert Amateur Radio Club
NM5HD

Oct 8 - Just an update on the special event operations so far. We have been operating now actually since Wednesday. The propagation has been and will probably continue to be pretty bad on all bands, 20 has given us the most check ins with some on 40 and none out of the city on 15. Batteries are holding up better then predicted but one has to remember that the duty cycle for SSB is about 20+% and that factors in to the battery useage. We finally had to change out two batteries yesterday (Saturday) and our sunlight for solar has been kind of bad but should improve as the weather Improves. Gaining access to the facility and the logistics of getting parking passes and entrance passes still plagues us and we are working on that with a day bv day situation. Remember if someone at the event gives you a hard time about parking, advise them we are not the visitors we are operating with the actual event and we are working the EMCOM operation as HDARC and are working for the city of Albuquerque. The rain seems to be no problem after talking to the crew this morning, the tent is holding at the wind and other them some dampness everything seems to be working well. I have made a rule that in no instance do I want to operate in any dangerous conditions. Wet situations that may start colds in a person is one that would we would shut down for. Each session supervisor has the ability to shut down the operation at his discretion for the safety of the operating personnel. We are trying to simulate emergency conditions but safety for the simulation is paramount for all the personnel operating. I want to express especially my appreciation to Duane Schnieder K5DLS, who has loaned us the use of his RV for the base station of the event and has been instrumental in arriving around 4 am every day to start the set up as soon as the gates are open. Larry Elkin KB9IFM who has his first day off today, for heading up the full day operations since we started on Wednesday, William Williams who has been available every day after his balloon crew operations have finished to operate, be a gopher and a general all round assistant for whatever is needed. Our operators listed on the operator schedule have done superb jobs in difficult conditions so far and show how great amateur operators are able to do under adverse band conditions and weather conditions. Kathey Meland WB6JAN for keeping the operating list up and getting us the people needed to operate. Also those other operators who have volunteered to work with us from the other clubs and around Albuquerque, HDARC is most appreciative. Kennie W5KLW and myself will be pulling our time out there starting today and through the end of the event.and look forward to working with the operators in the coming days and meeting those visitors who are signing up in our visitor book. A thanks to all for your support so far.

Oct 14 - Note from the President I would like to thank all the amateurs who operated from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 2006 at the balloon fiesta field for the special event station. I would additionally like to thank the amateur community for there check ins and assistance through some very bad propagation so that we could ensure we had a great 11 days of operation. One of our goals was to operate under emergency power conditions with out any assistance from commercial power for the entire period and we have done that with the help of Solar and mini generator by Honda, for charging of the batteries. We operated also with only ham sticks for the entire period as we were originally restricted by the event committee for any large antennas. It was a great operation and 34 amateurs assisted with 151 hours of operation as well as some visiting amateurs who had a chance to call "CQ" from the station. The QSL cards are already coming in and please be patient as we start tallying the call signs starting after the event ends and getting them in the mail..

Oct 15 - Well we accomplished what we had started by running 11 days of operations with 154 hours of operations on the Special Event Station during the 2006 Balloon Fiesta. Well done to all the HDARC members that not only participated in the operation of the station, but for the others who helped set up the facility and take it down again today. It was a smooth operation both times. We are holding a debriefing (FEMA now says Hotwash) on Wednesday evening at Larry Elkins WB9IFM house and he will send a time and map to there he is located in Rio Rancho. I want everyone involved to put their thinking caps on until the meeting on pros and cons with anything you can think of that went well what didn't go so well And what we didn't think of this year that we should have. I will put this all into a paper so we can look at problems and solutions for the article I will write for World Radio and CQ. I have heard nothing from ARRL QST. I would also like to have copies of any and all pictures that were taken at the event for picking those that will be used in the next few months in our news letters Etc... and will be in a composite file on a cd or dvd to pass out to anyone who wants it and will also be a history for the club in pictures. I will start putting the call signs from the logs in a data base so we can look up addresses etc.. and get ready to send out qsl cards. The qsl card will picture is still up in the air until I see what pictures came out. We have also ended up with some new members for HDARC and I welcome them. Our club meeting is the coming Saturday at 2:00 pm at the Presbyterian Health Center on High Resort and 528 in Rio Rancho. For those from out of town contact me for directions. This meeting will have a guest speaker from PNM to discuss grounding. I hope we can fill the room for the speaker. Also we will discuss the special event for those who were not able to participate. EMCOM will be one hour ahead as usual at 1:00 pm. Once again to all that helped make this special event operation work and run for 11 days, WELL DONE PEOPLE. What a great group of amateurs we have..

Oct 17 - Thanks to all of you that staffed the Balloon Special Event Station. A lot of long cold hours were put in by all. The interface time between Amature radio and the public was great. Again Thanks
Don Scott
N5UJT
Bernalillo County Emergency Manager