Last week, Rocky Mountain Ham Radio, Colorado Connection Repeaters and the Civil Air Patrol’s site at Baldy Mountain was severely damaged by winds of over 120MPH.  The building was rolled over on it’s side and the towers were toppled destroying nearly every antenna and feedline on the site.

This has dealt a crippling blow to the amateur radio community in Colorado.  Rocky Mountain Ham’s 447.850 system is off until further notice.  The Colorado Connection Repeaters are not currently linked to the western slope since an integral link is down.  We’re looking at options to link Castle Peak in Eagle with the system at Thorodin Mountain in Denver via IRLP, and are looking for a temporary host in the Eagle area that has internet and will host our link box.

The Civil Air Patrol is aware of the situation but is currently looking into restoral options.

Rocky Mountain Ham Radio will likely wait until spring and the site becomes accessible to mount a restoration party since the site is so extremely inhospitable in the winter.

Rocky Mountain Ham Radio was privileged to provide its Communications and Command Trailer to Douglas County ARES District 24 in support of its mission at the Turkey Day 5K race in Highlands Ranch, CO. This event is held annually to raise money for the National Guard Association. Nearly 2000 people and 20 vendors participated. D24′s Robert Wareham, N0ESQ, was Master of Ceremonies.

D24 had only a week to prepare for the mission, and Mission Coordinator Randy Reynard, W0RDR, had met the event organizers only 12 hours before the event. However, 14 D24 members endured the chilly temperatures and wind to provide communications for it.

RM Ham’s John Maxwell and Jeff Ryan placed the Trailer in position at Shea Stadium the day before Thanksgiving, and made it ready for D24′s 0630 briefing time on Thanksgiving day. D24 was in position for the race at 0800 and performed admirably with Daeron Cofer, KC0CNS, as net control.

This was Randy’s first experience using the Trailer for a mission. He commented that he hadn’t expected all the outstanding capabilities and comfort of the Trailer, but was very grateful for it. He said that, in the future, he hopes to have more time to get familiar with its capabilities before the mission. That will allow him to more effectively utilize all of the Trailer’s systems that he might need.

RMHR provides state-of-the art communications to promote and support amateur radio. Therefore, it was pleased to support D24 at the 2011 Turkey Day 5K Race. See a photo record of the event here.

ARISS Contact with Cherry Creek School District 10/30/2011

Students in the gifted and talented program, “Inside Out” from Cherry Creek School District in Centennial, Colorado participated in an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Thursday, October 27 via telebridge station IK1SLD in Italy. On-orbit Astronaut Mike Fossum, KF5AQG fielded eleven questions in detail before losing the radio connection. The contact was integrated into the science curriculum covering topics such as radio propagation and space. A story about the school contact has been posted to NASA’s Web site:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition29/exp29…

Special thanks to our member and our Director of Information Technology, Bob Sterner, KN0BOB was integral in making this contact happen.

Over 25 RM Ham members rallied on 10-15-2011 at the club storage lot to clean it up. Everyone, young and old, worked hard, ate great Bar-B-Q, enjoyed the fantastic weather, and (most of all) had fun! RM Ham’s executive staff worked hard to plan and prepare for this big project, but the members were, as usual, the key to ultimate success.

The storage lot has accommodated several groups for many years. Now that RM Ham has control over it, a lot of “stuff” had to go. We filled two large (40 yard) roll-off dumpsters! There’s still more junk. However, the trash pile is significantly reduced, making room for the projects planned in the future, and allowing for much easier management of the space.

The CleanUp Day album in the Gallery shows the action. Many thanks go to all of those who came out to help.

Special thanks go to Doug Sharp and Nancy Keyser. Thanks to Doug, RM Ham’s Chief Technical Officer, for providing his much-needed tractor and front-loader. The project could not have been completed without it. And sincere gratitude to Nancy for transporting the wonderful lunch. We especially appreciated her joining us for lunch.

RM Ham continues to grow in its dedication to supporting and promoting ham radio and to serving the public. This project demonstrates, yet again, the dedication of its members and its tremendous ability to perform its mission.

2011, June VHF Contest, the RMHAM Team operating under the W0KVA Callsign came in 4th in the US Multioperator category and had a great time doing it.  The text of the QST article is available here.

A big congratulations are in order for such a great showing.  This year was truly a tremendous propagation year and we’re already looking forward to 2012!