Millvale Music Festival - May 12, 2018
We were contacted by the Millvale Music Festival to solve a communications problem.
They tried to use 30 Baofeng HTs for the staff at the 2017 Festival without success. The
Festival covered all of the downtown area from route 28 to Bauerstown. They needed a
repeater somewhere in the middle to help extend coverage. None of the staff are licensed
hams so using one of our repeaters was out of the question. We setup a portable GMRS
repeater using an antenna on a tripod, 70 feet of RG-8,
and a Kenwood TKR-820. The Kenwood has a built-in duplexer making the install easy. The
antenna was installed on the roof of the Police Department building. The repeater was
installed in the Fire Department's kitchen. They were able to communicate across the
entire downtown area and a little more. I could use it from across the river too.
In exchange for the use of the repeater, the Festival listed the NHARC as a sponsor
and gave us booth space. Using stuff from the Club's trailor, we setup a canopy, a table,
had a couple chairs. We setup an Icom IC-2200 two-meter radio and an Icom IC-7300 HF
rig. We did handout several Club brochures. We met several people with interest in
the booth. The booth was ready to go at 11AM and we tore it down around 4PM. We could
have stayed until 8PM but the down pour with gusting winds was a hint that we should
leave while we were still alive. We were next to the firehouse and two fire trucks
left during the storm for an unknown destination. Power went out for half of the
downtown area. It was a mess.
This was a good event for our Club. New people found out about our Club. We provided a
public service.
Our booth was setup between the Wine booth and the Beer truck. Both attracked
a lot of people and all of them saw our display.
Due to someone forgetting the Club's banner, we needed a sign for our booth. Eric
volunteered to bring the banner but we needed something to hold us over.
This sign was hand drawn by Amy and Melissa Sines. Check out
www.sinesdesign.com. Their booth was directly
across from ours. We appreciate their willingness to make our sign.
This is the repeater antenna. The antenna is a Hustler made for the 460MHz band. While it
is not located at the highest point in Millvale, it was high enough. The roof was easy
to get on. No ladders were harmed during this installation. At the top of a staircase,
if you turned right, you could open a door to the roof. Turning left would take you to
the firemans' lounge. We could have gone up to the top of the Fire Department building
but that would have been a real pain. We tested this installastion the weekend before
the festival so we knew the repeater would work at that location.
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