Vigo County ARES at the Red Cross Annual Family Fun & Safety Fair

On September 20th, Vigo County ARES participated in the Wabash Valley Red Cross Annual Family Fun and Safety Fair. We took the ARES mobile communications trailer out to the location and started setting up at 10:15 local time. In attendance for setup were N9YNF (the DEC for this area), K9ERE (Illiana Skywarn assistant coordinator), and myself WT9I (Vigo County ARES EC). A little while later W9OOT (Vigo County ARES AEC and Net Coordinator) and N9FMD (Vigo County ARES Pager Coordinator and liaison to the LEPC)showed up to help man and later take down the station. We had the whole system up and running in 30 minutes and made a few 20 meter contacts while on the scene, one to the South Eastern DX Club and another to the Washington State QSO Party - both on a 20 meter ham stick from the back of the trailer! It was a great day and it gave me a chance to meet with a few local representative from the Red Cross and Vigo County Emergency Management Agency. We even got a few non hams into the trailer to check out the setup. Even though it was not a blockbuster crowd, it gave us some time to talk about the upcoming SET on October 4th and to nail down some more ideas. All in all, it was a great time.

73 de WT9I