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Brainerd Area Amateur Radio Club |
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Fishing Has No Boundries Event August 1- 3, 2003 |
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(photo on the left) John
WØJGY, Joe NØUME, and Ken KAØJSW.
Photo compliments of Fishing Has No
Boundaries. http://www.brainerdlakesfhnb.org
(photo on the right) George KCØBH, Net Control for the event, looking on and talking from the shore. Photo by John WØJGY
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| "What a wonderful fishing
event, with so many happy participants," said Dave Johnson, co-chair
of the 1st annual Fishing Has No Boundaries, event held at The Confidence
Learning Center, on Lake Sylvan, August 1, 2, 3, 2003. He had reason
to be happy. "The fishing was great," said Bob Slaybough Camp
Confidence Manager, " and that's why all these folks came out
here." In fact, there were over 75 people taking part. They
included: 20 fishing guides; 30 registered participants; 11 attendants; 12
ham radio operators, and many area volunteers, like Tim Brastrap of the
DNR, (who directed much of the planning and organization for a year) he
cleaned fish for the evening fish fry. Lots of folks caught fish.
Our own Joe, NØUME, caught one of the first fish a 2.5 pound Northern
Pike. Also early in the day another Northern, 18-inches long, was
caught by Chris, KCØNGK, also on Sylvan Lake.
This was believed to be the largest BAARC club marine-mobile event. In all, 9 of the 12 ham operators were on boats for nearly 6-hours supported by two net control operators, and one land mobile operator. On boats in Gull Lake were Jim WØJDS, with Terry KIØFW, Alan AAØAS, Al WØRC with Art NØTNJ. On Sylvan Lake were Vicky KCØDCA with Joe NØUME and Steve WØTNT with Chris KCØNGK. The net control operators were: George KCØBH with Ken KAØJSW, and John WØJGY acting as the event "gopher" on portable and land mobile. The club's main VHF repeater was used for event coordination as it was located central to all of the lakes which covered an area about 20 miles in length and it enabled all of the marine operators to hear all of the transmissions directly. This became very important as there were many timely weather bulletins put out as there were several rain showers throughout the day for which boaters had to seek shelter for up to 30-minutes each. The event co-chair Dave Johnson told Ken, near the end of the day, "I don't know how we could have done this large an event without the services your ham operators provided". He was very grateful for the extra margin of safety ham radio provided not only for the weather information but in case there had been any sudden illnesses or injuries for which the hams would have provided assistance in coordinating first responders, ambulances, etc. Thankfully there were none. This was a great event in that many participants had never been on the water much less catching fish with a real professional guide to boot! You could tell by the smiles on their faces, club public events co-chair Ken said, and hear it in their voices as they talked about their day with their friends. The BAARC members who participated said it was one of the best club events they had been involved in for a longtime. Only 12-months 'till the next one. Thanks a million for all your help. 73's |
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Community Event Coordinator John Luce, WØJGY |
This page was last updated 12/19/2006 Ø