PCARA Update Volume 16, Issue 6 Peekskill/Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association Inc. June 2015 Repeat and renew work Mike, and for your PCARA will be participating in ARRL Field Day efforts, you get 2015 on the weekend of June 27-28 at Walter Panas to play the fox High School, 300 Croton Avenue in Cortlandt Manor, in PCARA's NY (pending approval by the Lakeland School District). next Foxhunt. This year we are going to try and avoid any possible The hunt was complications and conflicts with baseball teams by followed by a setting up in another area, possibly near the tennis get-together at courts. Final planning will take place at the June 7�� the meeting. Please note that we are going to need addi- Westchester tional personnel for the overnight hours, because stal- Diner for a wart Joe, WA2MCR has another commitment for the meal and weekend. Joe has awards cere- been a fixture at mony. Well Field Day over- done Mike! nights since PCARA [Full report on began having Field page 10 - Ed.] Be sure to Day activities. Bob N2CBH and Luigi N2CWV enjoy the Thanks Joe! If you keep an eye on your snail mail fine weather at Bergen ARA’s Hamfest, can help cover the Washington Township, NJ on May 30th. overnight shift, for a PCARA please let us know. Membership At the June 7, 2015 meeting there will be a pre- Renewal Notice. We depend on your dues to help pay sentation by PCARA member Warren, K2WD entitled for insurance, postage, and repeater upgrades. Please “DMR – A New Mode for Amateur Digital Radio”. reply promptly with your check to PCARA, PO Box 146, This is a primer on DMR – Digital Mobile Radio, one of Crompond, NY 10517. Thank you. several digital voice modes available to amateurs. If you PCARA is helping with parking for the Church of are interested in learning more about digital radio, this the Holy Spirit 50�� Anniversary Golden Jubilee on the is a must-see. evening of Friday June 5, 2015 at 1969 Crompond Talking about digital radio, we've gone and done it Road in Cortlandt Manor, NY. If you are interested in again! PCARA has ordered and been approved for helping, please let us know. another Yaesu Fusion DR-1X 144/430 MHz Dual Band Our next regularly scheduled meeting is on June 7, C4FM Digital Repeater. This unit is for the 146.670 2015 at 3:00 pm at NewYork-Presbyterian/Hudson MHz repeater and will join the one for the 449.925 Valley Hospital in Cortlandt Manor, NY. I look forward MHz machine. Both units should be here and opera- to seeing each of you there. tional within the next couple of months. The unique - 73 de Greg, KB2CQE thing about these repeaters is that they support simulta- neous analog and digital FM operation, allowing Contents members interested in digital operation an opportunity to experiment, while continuing to support current Repeat and renew - KB2CQE 1 analog communications as well. Adventures in DXing - N2KZ 2 The PCARA Foxhunt held on Saturday May 9, NY QSO Party 2014 5 2015 was won by Mike, N2EAB who ferreted out the A novel model - NM9J 6 fox — Karl N2KZ — who was hiding in the James Fox on the top 10 Street Parking Garage in downtown Peekskill. Great Hamvention® views 12 PCARA Update, June 2015, page 1 Adventures in DXing visited The Field Public Library on Nelson Avenue in Peekskill. It seemed like such a natural place for a fox - N2KZ to sit. Lots of big buildings blocked the path from the entrance to the library from seeing The Beach Shop- ping Center. This could be surmounted! I decided to To Be A Fox get higher up! It’s not easy being a fox. Fox hunters like to hunt. A multi-layered parking lot was available right The fox sits and waits to be caught! Alas, someone has across the street from the library. A fast browse of to be the fox. It might as well be me! This time... it Google Maps showed the roof was not accessible by was! car. Rats! Ahh! but another parking lot, just a few The first responsibility of foxhood is finding a blocks east, looked very enticing. The Google images good den. Since PCARA has been hunting fox for quite added to the a few years now, finding a good, not-previously-used idea. The top hiding spot is becoming harder and harder. There are floor of this only a few choice places within five miles of The Beach parking facil- Shopping Center where one can be accessed by car and ity was high in yet not be intrusive to daily life. the air and in Many of the places have become obvious. Parking the clear. lots, especially adjacent to schools and parks, are sea- Except for a soned favorites. When I am hunting fox, I develop large bluff to mental filters when scanning a map and ponder where the east, you the fox might be. It eliminates a lot of territory! could almost Finding a really good fox den is challenging, see The Beach Multi-story parking garage at James requiring long consideration. Several weeks before our Shopping Street and Park Street, Peekskill. Spring 2015 hunt, I thought I had it all figured out. Center from This time, I relied on Google Maps to do all the initial that perch! Bingo! footwork as I auditioned potential den sites via the So, away we went. My daughters and I hopped Internet. Google Map’s ‘street view’ makes all the differ- into our mini-van in search of adventure and a good ence! It is the next best thing to being there! perch. We tried to build in extra time should we need I found a spot that brought con- to retreat back to my original spot by the Yorktown siderable delight just north of Routes park entrance. Traffic was light and our packed mini- 35/202 in Yorktown. Again, another van arrived with plenty of time to spare. A quick trans- parking lot, but this time it was a mission check with Malcolm (who was at the Beach forested access point to a town park. starting point) and the fox was ready to go! It had an added plus: A quiet nearby I picked what I thought was a literally out-of-the- street was actually named Fox Hall way spot on the very, very top of the parking lot about Street! This was the choice until just six flights up. The fox waited high atop St. James and hours before the hunt. Park Streets right across the street from Optimum The previous evening and the Cable and very close to where the familiar New York following morning I prepared all the DMV office resides. It was an overcast day, just a bit materials for the hunt. I constructed a cigarette lighter cord for my Yaesu FT-1900 so I could use it in my mini- van. (I couldn’t use the famous Is there a fox in Fox Hall Street? N2KZ-mobile. It was just too obvi- ous!) I had my VLF referenced clock, my backup HT, my mag-mount antenna and even a collapsible mast and a short Yagi should my signal strength to The Beach be too weak. I was all set! Later in the morning, just before the hunt, I started to re-think the plan. Should I use another public parking lot down Lexington Avenue? We have been down this road, literally, a few times before. There had to be something better! Back to Google maps in search The fox minivan arrives at the top of the parking facility of more inspiration! in downtown Peekskill, with Sarah and Laura preparing Over the winter, my daughter Laura and I had to assist with operations. [N2KZ pic.] PCARA Update, June 2015, page 2 windy and chilly, with the feeling of an impending broadcaster or two. All I can say is: You have to join us shower in the air. Traffic on Route 6 could easily be for the next hunt! You don’t know what you are miss- seen in the distance. ing! The winner of the next challenging hunt could be The hunt itself was all planned out. There would you! be ten transmissions between the 3:00 pm start and 4:30 pm when the hunt would close. In retrospect, I Goodbye Old Friend should have listened to my daughter Sarah! Ever more On May 18, 2015, the sneaky than her father, she wisely suggested that we FCC accepted a letter from intermingle with all the other cars one level down from Townsquare Media Group the very top. With foolish bravado, I replied: “If they requesting the cancellation of the broadcast license for finally find us way up here, they’ve earned it!” Brewster’s WPUT 1510 kHz. According to the FCC’s AM Sarah was right! The hunt went on for nearly an Query web site: “Deleted facilities cannot be reactivated. hour and I thought we were invincible. These are the Interested parties must file an application for construc- thoughts of a fool! In complete frustration, Mike, tion permit during the appropriate AM application filing N2EAB, came up to the top of the parking lot at about window.” In essence, it’s over. WPUT is history. 3:55 pm just to get a good reading on where we might 1510 AM in Brewster was originally known as be. Surprise! He ran right into us! I should have known WBRW and prospered during the height of popularity better! Mike always finds us! He made a quick retreat for local radio well into the 1970s.