Skywarn Recognition Day Recap

After meeting for dinner at the Cracker Barrel on US 80 in Pooler on Friday night, Dan Scott - KF4MND, Guy McDonald - K4GTM, and I departed for Charleston in the rain. We arrived at the NWS Charleston office around 11 PM and were greeted by Bobby McBride – W4KSD. We met John and Rich, the two meteorologists on duty and got to take a look around the Operations area of the office. Although the weather wasn’t severe, it was interesting to watch John and Rich at work through the night.

Guy-K4GTM, Rich, John, Mac-KF4LMT, Dan-KF4MND

NWS Charleston Operations

John explains some of the operations to Dan.

We settled in to work at WX4CHS which consists of a Kenwood TM-251 (soon to be replaced with a more modern radio) and an Icom IC-746. Dan had made arrangements to use a nearby Echolink node on 147.505 and was soon making contacts back in Savannah including Jerry, W4SGA and Greg, N4VAD through the 146.700 repeater. 2 Meter contacts were also made on the Charleston repeaters and the SCHEARTS repeater network (accessible in Savannah via the 146.715 repeater). Dan also worked Ken – W4JKG, Steve – K4SDJ, and Mark – KD4PDX using Echolink. I went portable from the NWS Office and made a contact through via the SCHEARTS network 147.105 repeater. We were working the midnight rotation, so there wasn’t a lot of special event activity on HF; not all of the stations in the event were operating for the entire 24 hours. That said, we were able to make some contacts on 75 Meters and 40 Meters including other NWS Offices:

WX2OKX – Upton, NY
K4OHX – Nashville, TN
WX4MRX – Morristown, TN
WX4MHX – Newport/Moorehead, NC
WX4PTC – Peachtree City, GA
K5SHV – Shreveport, LA
WX5NWC – Norman, OK
K0DMX – Des Moines, IA
WX2BUF – Buffalo, NY

Dan-KF4MND, Bobby-W4KSD, and Guy-K4GTM

Dan and Guy on the air

Guy and Dan worked to lay some groundwork to link Savannah back to the NWS via RF link and/or VOIP while we were there. We left Charleston around 5 AM with the rain still falling (it never stopped through the night) and made it back to Savannah by 7:30 AM to have breakfast with the usual bunch at Sunny Side Up on DeRenne Ave. (plug for a good breakfast/lunch restaurant). I really enjoyed the event and look forward to doing it again next year; it was great fun to be on the NWS end of the QSO this year.

Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT