2024-05-13 ARES of Delaware County Monthly Meeting - Tour of Mobile Communications Trailer at Radnor Township Building
The weather forecast for tomorrow looks wonderful, with mostly sunny skies and a high temperature of around 72 degrees. Perfect for an outdoor tour of the Delaware County ARES trailer, which is located at Radnor Township Building, 301 Iven Avenue, Wayne 19087, starting around 7pm. This is the same location we had our combined CCDC/ARES/RCPO volunteer appreciation dinner in April 2023 for those that were able to attend.
Although this is an ARES meeting, I am extending this invitation to anyone else that would like attend, and you can just stop in and check out the trailer without staying for the entire meeting if you wish. Those on the Citizen Corps and Medical Reserve Corps leadership team, as well as the graduates of the Radnor Citizens Police Academy are all welcome to join us!
As typical for the monthly meeting, we'll plan to get started at about 7pm. We'll go over what we have in the trailer and how it is setup. I'll also demonstrate how to use the radios (ICOM IC-7300, ICOM IC-9700, ICOM ID-1 and Yaasu FT-857), laptops for digital communications, the TV for displaying the laptops or to use apps like RadarScope from the Apple TV, the solar generator with panels as well as antennas.
We will also discuss the NOAA SWPC predicted G4 solar storm, which was actually upgraded to the strongest level G5. Fortunately, there were no reported impacts to the power grid and most satellites seemed to weather the storm overall as well. HF radio communications, as expected, were unusable for the most part. The storm did manage to bring the aurora borealis as far south as Florida.
Also on the agenda will be a short discussion about ARRL Field Day, which is June 22nd and 23rd this year:
https://www.arrl.org/field-day
If you are traveling from anywhere in the county, take the blue route I-476 north to exit 13 for St. David's - Villanova. At the bottom of the ramp, the 2 right hand lanes go straight to King of Prussia Road and right to PA Rt. 30 East. You'll want to stay in the far left of the 2 left hand lanes to turn onto PA Rt 30 West towards St. David's and Wayne and stay in the left most lane. You'll pass a traffic light at the other on/off ramp to I-476 South, keep going.
The next traffic light will be at Radnor-Chester Road, you'll want to make a left hand turn here. As soon as you complete that turn, make a right-hand turn onto Sinkler Lane. You'll see a brown sign directing you to the Delaware County Sports Museum, which is also at the township building. Once you get to Iven Ave, make a left-hand turn at the stop sign. You'll pass Encke Park on your left and make a left into the entrance. Make another left onto Creek Drive, and a final left into the lower parking lot.
The exact location of the trailer is at the far corner of the lower parking lot, along the Ithan Creek and close to the Encke Park baseball field. It just behind the high-water rescue vehicle and the Radnor highway patrol mobile trailer.
If you have what3words, you can use the location:
https://what3words.com/grow.love.towns
Here is the information for the trailer on our website:
If you get lost, you can call the trailer CAT cell phone at 484-644-8108 for assistance or use the 446.775 Boothwyn repeater.