SCHH ARC “This & That” — July 8, 2025

The Weekly Newsletter of the Sun City Hilton Head Amateur Radio Club (SCHH ARC)

Editor – Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW

More From ARRL Field Day: Results and Thoughts Moving Forward

Saturday, June 28th was a lot of fun for the seventeen members of our ARC who participated in ARRL Field Day at Lake Somerset.

Our club’s entry was submitted to the ARRL a couple days later.

Our results were fairly consistent with last year’s efforts with the exception that we had more bonus points last year. Our 2024 score was higher than our 2025 score primarily for that reason.

Here is a summary of our score and the contacts that were made on June 28th at the Lake. Thanks to Frank Pollino, K2OS for copying the ARRL Field Day Bulletin and to Chip Miller, KQ4JKI and Jack Frisch, K2ITZ for overseeing site safety.

Last year, our entry was for five HF transmitters operating simultaneously. This year, we dropped to four transmitters. We may want to bring back our 40 meter SSB station next year. We had 34 contacts on 40 meters CW this year in about an hour! The band was active and relatively quiet.

The club’s multiband dipole enabled the CW station to have contacts on 15, 20, and 40 meters.

Moving the CW station further west from the SSB stations did not seem to help interference issues between the CW station and the SSB stations. The multiband dipole’s 20 and 40 meter legs were probably not as close to 90 degrees in orientation with respect to the 15//20 meter in-line dipoles that were strung between trees in the picnic area.

We may look to move the CW station even further west next year. The canopy shown in the photo above provided shade from the sun, which facilitated operator comfort and enable CW operators to better view their computer screen and transceiver display. We will also seriously consider borrowing a vertical antenna that was offered to us this year by Ken Finke, KN8F.

Our June 28th event included a great visit from Sun City TV. Georgia Lash and videographer Bob were on site for about an hour! The coverage can be seen here.

ARRL Field Day 2026 will be held on June 27-28!

Field Days of the Past

Here’s a photo of a past Field Day on Maui from Bob Kennedy, N0DQD. Now that is how it’s done in Hawaii…a red 4-element beam antenna framed by a rainbow! Spectacular!!

Here is a 2020 Field Day log from Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW. These were the first QSOs made by Harve after he moved to SCHH and the first QSOs for KB3FW since about 2004. The times were probably in local time as opposed to UTC.

If you have any photos of past Field Days that you’d like to share, please send them to Harve at hnat463@gmail.com.

Next Up for the SCHH ARC: Lake Warren State Park POTA Activation!

Road Trip Coming Up in August!

The SCHH ARC’s next outdoor adventure will be at Lake Warren State Park, where we will do a multi-station Parks on the Air activation on Saturday, August 9th.

The park is located in Hampton Country and is about an hour’s drive from Sun City Hilton Head.

Jack Frisch, K2ITZ, has reserved a great pavilion for us. It is close to a parking area, which will make unloading and loading equipment and provisions relatively easy.

Our pavilion is circled on the map above (to the left/east of the “Overlook” that is noted on the map).

A neat video about an activation by two hams at the park can be found here. The pavilion in the video appears to be the pavilion that we will be using in August! Enjoy the video!

A Zoom Meeting will be conducted on Tuesday, July 22nd at 11 AM to plan the outing. Zoom info will be emailed to all members about a week before the meeting.

All club members are invited to participate in both the planning and the activation.

More information about this event will be in upcoming issues of “This & That”.

Looks Like the Future Holds More CW Operators in Poland!

Thanks to Dan Kreshak, KO4AQI for providing this news item about a STEM initiative in Poland.

Thirteen Colonies Concludes

The annual Thirteen Colonies special event ended at midnight Monday.

Once again, GB13COL was a difficult station to catch on the air. The elusive UK station had many hams around the world grumbling for sure. Such chatter doesn’t do anyone any good.

Others had problems getting K2E (Delaware), which has been a “usual suspect”, and K2G (Georgia), which is so close to us here in SCHH that due to the vagaries of propagation the saying “so close and yet so far” seems to kick in!

A “sweep” for this event requires a station to work stations in all 13 states that were colonies of England prior to America gaining its independence. Adding the 3 bonus stations is a full sweep.

If you have gotten a sweep or a full sweep, please let Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW know (hnat463@gmail.com).

What’s Coming Up

Tuesday, July 22, 2025 –– Zoom Meeting to discuss plans for August 9th’s Parks on the Air Activation at Lake Warren State Park. Zoom info will be sent to all members.

Saturday, August 9, 2025 — KE4HAM Parks on the Air Activation at Lake Warren State Park. See preliminary news about this event in this issue of This & That. Additional info will be included in This & That in the coming weeks.

Thursday, September 4, 2025 — September Membership Meeting, Lakehouse, 7 PM. More details as the date gets closer.

SCHH ARC Nets

Net News

What constitutes a “check in” to our nets? As far as our net reports go, a check-in is a station who makes a transmission to the net control station and the net. We may, at times, accept a station as a “check-in” that appears on the EchoLink check-ins but cannot follow-up with a transmission because of ensuing EchoLink issues.

Please check-in and let others know how you are doing and what you are doing in ham radio and in other areas.

The club is attempting to get the 147.06 machine back into legal operation. Bob Officer, WA6WAY and Ron Frick, AI4HH are spearheading these efforts. For now, the .060 machine should be considered “off limits” for anything other than monitoring.

Weekly SCHH ARC Nets

Sunday’s Net (8 PM) operates on 147.550 MHz simplex on the last two Sundays of the calendar month. The Sunday net will be on the KE4HAM repeater (147.135 + with a tone of 91.5 on both the input and the output) on all other Sundays of the calendar month. Check-in can be done even if you don’t have a radio up and running via EchoLink by using the link KE4HAM-L when the net is on SIMPLEX and KE4HAM-R when the net is on the SCHH Okatie Repeater.

Wednesday‘s Net (8 PM) will operate until further notice on the KE4HAM Okatie Repeater (147.135 + with a tone of 91.5 on both input and output). The net can be accessed via EchoLink using the link KE4HAM-R.

Next 10m SSB Net: Tuesday, August 5th @ 8 PM Local Time on 28.450 MHz SSB.

Net Control Stations and EchoLink Coordinator

Thanks to our regular 2m Net Controls: Frank Pollino, K2OS; Rick Garan, WA8NLX; and Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW.

Thanks to Frank, K2OS for also being the net control station of our monthly 10m SSB net.

Thanks to Bob Officer, WA6WAY, for being an alternate Net Control Station and overseer of our KE4HAM repeater.

Can you help our nets be even greater? Volunteering to be a Net Control Station would be a big HELP. Please let Harve, KB3FW know if you want to give it a try (hnat463@gmail.com).

Thanks to Ron Frick, AI4HH, for working diligently to keep EchoLink up and running for our nets.

Net Control Schedule:

— Wednesday, July 9th @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (KE4HAM Okatie Repeater).

— Sunday, July 13th @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (KE4HAM Okatie Repeater).

— Wednesday, July 16th @ 8 PM: Harve Hnatiuk, KB3FW (KE4HAM Okatie Repeater).

— Sunday, July 20th @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (Simplex).

— Wednesday, July 23rd @ 8 PM: Rick Garan, WA8NLX (Okatie Repeater).

— Sunday, July 27th @ 8 PM: Frank Pollino, K2OS (Simplex).

SCHH ARC Net Reports:

Thanks to ALL who checked in to our SCHH ARC nets last week.

Last week’s check-ins and traffic:

— Tuesday, July 1st 10m SSB Net: KE4HAM/K2OS, KB3FW, AD5EN, KQ4JKI, KN4VWQ, KN8F, WA8NLX. QNI=7, QTC=0.

— Wednesday, July 2nd 2m Repeater Net: KE4HAM/K2OS, AA4KK, KB3FW, WA6WAY, KJ4BSM, WB1DXN, K2ITZ, AI4HH. QNI=8, QTC=0.

— Sunday, July 6th 2m Repeater Net: KE4HAM/WA8NLX, AI4HH, K2ITZ, KJ4BSM, AA4KK, WB1DXN, KQ4JKI, KB3FW, WA6WAY, K2OS. QNI=10, QTC=0.

Note: QNI = Number of Check-ins to the net, including Net Control; QTC = Traffic handled (Radiograms).

Other Operating

Daily —  Monitor the KE4HAM Repeater: 147.135 MHz + with a tone of 91.5. You may get some good DX spots from time to time and other members may be there if you want to connect/chat. If you are listening to the repeater, feel free to announce your call and that you are “monitoring”!