LWRA Ham Bytes – Week of 10/14/24

I certainly hope all faired well in the storm! I have had the opportunity to talk to several people on the radio, phone, SIGNAL, on the gas line, at Wal-Mart and finally the hot meal at the restaurant.  Most of you conveyed relatively minor damage and endured fairly short power outages. For those that may have had worse or extensive damage, please let us know if we can assist or help you with your services.

It was amazing to see the oddities in this storm and will definitely make a good meeting topic. Over 100 tornados f0-f3 with the now famous wedge in Lake Placid which was photographed, and made national news, from a Polk County Ham.

The amazing thing to me was the quality of information constantly provided via HAM radio. Russ N4RTD, Paul Toth great information updates on a variety of formats. This information was also in tandem in real time with the Tampa weather service. Norm WX4NEX and Cristine K4KJN on the WC4PEM also relaying information that was crucial information. Some of these folks exposed their personal equipment to keep us informed. Thanks, it is not adequate to express our appreciation and dedication to this storm.

The UHF repeater was down due to power failures. It has been checked along with the antenna in good shape. It is back on the air both analog and C4FM. The VHF machine was out for just a few minutes and is back fully operational. No damage sustained as far as we know.

Onto the good stuff!

Get ready for our OCTOBER QRP our infamous “HAM’n BEANS” event. Again, I need you help.  If you plan on bringing a desert, beans dish, drinks or support stuff like plates, bowls, cups, ice, forks knives and spoon send me what you are bringing to kn4itq@comcast.net   Thanks for your support. I will start confirming for those who have already reasoned with this request. (Several from last week I got ya!)  WE NEED SIDE DISHES OR DESERTS MORE THAN ANYTHING NOW!

REVISED HAM N BEAN’S LOCATION. OCTOBER 26TH WE WILL BE AT LAKE HARTRIDGE PARK IN WINTER HAVEN. THIS IS A CHANGE IN VENUE.

I have the list and will email you back if you duplicate your items with anyone else.

I did go to the site today and no significant damage noticed.

NET INFORMATION this will soon be on the webpage for easy pull-down access. Thanks to KT4WX

Don’t forget the nets:

One last thing.

Check out the WINLINK Monday with Gary today, you can find more information on www.polkares.org/WINLINK

73 and I hope to ‘see ya on the air.’

Mike
KB4FHP