Cincinnati Red Cross Communications Exercise – Saturday, October 2

The Cincinnati Area Chapter of the American Red Cross will be conducting a communications exercise on Saturday, October 2 from approx. 10am-2pm EDT. The nature of the exercise is a propagation survey and will include but it not necessarily limited to:

- the club’s repeaters
- 2m FM simplex
- 6m SSB and or FM simplex
- 47.42 MHz
- 800MHz “MobilComm” repeater
- 40m SSB

As a little background, W8VND is a “hilltop” station in the Finneytown area of Cincinnati — a dedicated communications facility. W8VVL is the onsite club station at the new Red Cross Cincinnati Area Chapter (2111 Dana Ave. / 45207).

There will be a couple of “phases” of the operation. The first is for the club station W8VND to attempt to make contact with anyone at all on repeaters distant from Cincinnati but that are in key areas in and beyond the Chapter’s Service area:

- 146.73- (PL 162.2 Hz) in Georgetown/OH
- 146.925- in Bainbridge/OH
- 146.955- in Flemingsburg/KY
- 147+ (PL 94.8 Hz) in West Union/OH
- 147.21+ (PL 100 Hz) in Hillsboro/OH

QCEN club members, ARES members, and any interested hams can assist by listening to this frequencies early in the drill and confirming that W8VND (and possibly W8VVL) can be heard.

The second phase will be a “listening” phase at W8VND and W8VVL. At least one of those stations will be monitoring the following frequencies throughout the drill:

- 147.24+ (PL 123 Hz) and 442.7+ (PL 123 Hz) linked repeaters
- 147.42 simplex
- 50.240 SSB (and possibly 52.54 FM)
- 7280 kHz SSB (plus or minus QRM/nets)

We are asking QCEN club members, ARES members, and anyone else interested to call W8VND or W8VVL between 10am-2pm with your callsign/location and affiliation. The nets will be somewhat informal and after we “log” you, there’s no expectation for you to stick around, unless you are going to try another band/mode. If you’d like to suggest something other than the plan above, you are welcome to call the following phone numbers, and one or both stations will “come with you” if we have the equipment/expertise to do it:

- W8VND (513) 542-7236
- W8VVL (513) 579-3936

Key areas that we hope to hear from:
- West Union / Seaman / Peebles / Manchester OH
- Fayetteville / Georgetown / Hamersville / Ripley OH
- Greenfield / Hillsboro / Leesburg / Lynchburg OH
- Lees Creek / New Vienna / Sabina / Wilmington OH
- Falmouth / Butler / Dry Ridge KY
- Sanders / Sparta / Warsaw KY
- Carrollton / Owenton KY
- Brooksville / Maysville KY
- Batesville / Osgood / Versailles IN
- Rising Sun / Vevay IN

Please log everything — even “failed” attempts to reach Red Cross, as this will help us analyze the usefulness of the activity and the capabilities of the stations. This includes your time, location, and band/mode that you reached (or failed to reach) Red Cross. Please send log information to N8TFD’s callbook address or n8tfd@one.net .

In an attempt to cover as much territory as possible, we are going to “pre-assign” some Red Cross volunteers to some general areas. These are subject to change, especially if we know in advance that we have some volunteers willing to give us a call, from some key areas. Here are the “assignments” so far:

- Red Cross Middletown/OH: K8SDX
- at W8VND: K8EAF, W8MRG, N8PEE (if available) (more welcome)
- at W8VVL: K8PAT, W8KZJ, WB8TDA (more welcome)
- Brooksville/Maysville: KA8HXR
- Batesville/Osgood/Versailles: N1CTO
- Peebles/Seaman/West Union: KD8HAO/KC8KXC
- Wilmington/New Vienna/Hillsboro: N8JMV
- Falmouth/Dry Ridge: W8WTD
- Owenton: AG4BC
- Georgetown/Mt. Orab: KA8DME/KD8OFT (if possible?)

For those assigned to a town(s) — location is not an exact science. In a real disaster we’d “relay” if necessary, so find the highest / most reasonable spot to set up (like Pendleton County HS for Falmouth) and work from there. Take pictures too!

There are plenty of other areas to be heard from. Ohio River towns are good, but tough to get RF out of — and if you recall the 1997 floods, sheltering and response activity are generally coordinated “uphill” from those towns.

Because RF knows no bounds, we welcome participation from places like Ohio District 3, and anywhere else that can possibly reach us directly, or via the club repeaters.

Thanks for your interest in this activity. If we hear from some stations interested in traffic handling, there may be some radiograms flying around, too.

Please contact me with any questions or comments about the objectives and/or the plan. Thanks for your time and patience with the lengthy message!

-73- de N8TFD/Steve
Communications Manager, Queen City Emergency Net / OH-4 DEC

n8tfd@one.net
(859) 393-6563 cell