This weekend, the big event was ARROW’s special event station at the Saline Depot Museum. The website notes,
The Saline Railroad Depot, with its freight house, telegraph, and passenger facilities, served as a crucial link in the economic transformation that took place between Saline’s rural hinterlands and the outside world.
Without the access the Depot afforded, Saline probably would have gone the way of thousands of small midwestern towns. The story of our Depot is not only the story of village growth, it is the story of Saline’s integration into the larger economy of the country.
Although all the original surrounding buildings have been removed, the Depot still stands on its original site. During its heyday, the complex consisted of a depot building, storage barn, wool barn, livestock pens, loading facilities, water storage tank and outdoor bathroom. The museum has a caboose on display next to the depot.
Up to six scheduled steam trains a day moved 20 to 30 miles per hour. At stops, trainmen sometimes took the time to pick strawberries or flowers along the tracks. Nothing but the best for the dining car!
For the special event station, we set up on 20m and 40m. The bands were incredibly bad, however, and we failed to make a single contact on 20m. We did manage–with considerable difficulty–to make 15 contacts on 40m. One thing I noted was that the noise level was incredibly high. All day long the noise was around S7 on the Icom 746PRO.
We also set up a packet radio station so that we could take radiograms and then send them via packet to WB8TKL. This was the first time that I actually operated packet radio, and to be honest, it was kind of underwhelming. The baud rate on 2m is limited to 1200 baud, and since we had to use a digipeater, the over all data rate was even less. Having said that, it was effective. We were able to transfer the messages to Jay, who then moved them onto the NTS nets.
I think the traffic handling was a very cool thing. I made up a sign that said, “SEND A TELEGRAM BY HAM RADIO…ASK ME HOW” And several people did. From that point of view, it was great PR, and it taught me some things about handling traffic.
We not only operated from our trailer, but we also helped them get their telegraph set on the air. Al K8WXQ, who is also a member of the Morse Telegraph Club rigged up a device to drive their telegraph sounder, and was playing American Morse all during the event. He also brought an old bug and demonstrated sending techniques.
Aside from the bands being so lousy, it was a good event. We performed some public service, got some good PR, and passed out some club literature.
One gentleman in particular stands out in my mind. He came up to the trailer and jokingly asked if I could send a message to the military base in Guam. I was pretty sure that we could do it, so I picked up the radiogram pad and said, “Sure. Who’s it going to”?
He was a bit taken aback, and said, “Oh, I wasn’t really serious, but could you really do it”? When I said yes, he said that he’d had an uncle who served in WWII or the Korean War and was stationed there for a while. They’d received a radiogram from him many years ago, and it had stuck in his mind.
We then got to talking about amateur radio, and when he seemed interested, I mentioned our Tech classes in the fall, and that there was no longer a Morse code requirement. His eyes lit up a little then, so I gave him one of our info sheets. He probably won’t sign up for the class, but you never know. At any rate, he has our contact info should he or someone else want to get involved.
Now, we have to find some other venues and do this again. The Ypsilanti Heritage Festival and Dexter Daze seem to be two good candidates. We may be too late to get in this year, but there’s always next year.
Leave a Reply