December 8, 2011 | Amateur Radio & Scanning
We held the 13th Annual Skywarn Recognition Day at the Des Moines National Weather Service office this past weekend and it went rather well. We had stations on 10-20 meters, 40 meters, 80 meters, and VHF/UHF (Echolink, D-STAR, and the MISA linked repeater system).
There was a steady stream of visitors all weekend. For most of Friday night, each station had both an operator and a logger, plus people waiting for radios to open up. It was busy, but everyone that wanted to work the radios got their chance. Tours of the NWS office were also given.
Big thanks to the staff at NWS Des Moines, who are hospitable to us year-round. The central Iowa amateur radio community is lucky to have such a collaborative relationship with the NWS. Shane Searcy N0ZXJ, who is the IT officer for NWS Des Moines, spends most of his Friday during the event getting us ready for that night, even this year when he was in the middle of a big upgrade to Windows 7.
We don’t have an official count of how many stations we worked, but we had a healthy list of QSO’s by the end of the event, including a DX station that Dennis O’Brien KA0DOS worked that was from Japan. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see our QSO numbers increase from last year, even though we suspended overnight operating for the first time this year.
If you want to learn more information about the Mid-Iowa Skywarn Association, which is the Skywarn organization for NWS Des Moines, you can visit the website at http://www.midiowaskywarn.com.
Tags: Amateur Radio & Scanning, ARRL/ARES, contesting, Des Moines Iowa, HF, Iowa, IRLP/EchoLink, National Weather Service, repeaters, Storm spotting/Skywarn, video, weather
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