[Elecraft] Ham radio as a side dish

[Bill Frantz]

Many cavers are also hams. We use 2M HTs for communication on 
the surface when project caving in Sequoia and Kings Canyon 
national parks. The WA6BAI repeater lets us coordinate with 
people in Fresno from near the cave entrance. We can let the 
cook know how many people are planning to come for dinner.

Over half of the NCRC cave rescue instructors are hams. Ham 
radios have been very useful in some emergency situations. For 
example see the President's Letter in: <http://wvara.org/het/Archive/heterodyne-2014-08.pdf>

We have also used QRP 80M radios for cave to surface 
communications. The radio in the cave had two random wire laid 
on the floor of the passage actin as an antenna with a tuner. 
This setup let us coordinate a cave radio demo showing how to 
locate the surface location directly over the transmitter in the cave.

More information about cave radios is in the back issues of 
Speleonics <http://caves.org/section/commelect/drupal/speleonics>.

73 Bill AE6JV

On 5/25/18 at 9:29 PM, n6kr at elecraft.com (Wayne Burdick) wrote:

>Many of us combine our affinity for radio with other activities 
>we’re equally passionate about — perhaps more. An obvious 
>example (one that renders this post marginally non-OT) is 
>hiking / camping; for some of us, it’s a natural environment 
>for small radios and big ambitions.
>What are your ham-activated avocations? Do they come with 
>as-yet-unsolved problems in the field of radio ergonomics?
>Where is the boundary between communications media and the things you most enjoy talking about?
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