Those of you who were listening September 10th, on 40m SSB for the 911 special event station, KC2RA, transmitting from near the World Trade Center site, may have heard the recorded announcement my Father made:
 

“CQ CQ CQ This is KC2RA, the Kings County Repeater Association is honoring the memory of the 911 tragedy which occurred on 9/11/2001. This horrible attack on America should never be forgotten.  “WE WILL NEVER FORGET”… “

- Vincent Sr. WB2AAP/SK, 9/5/09.

 

The Kings County Repeater Association has been doing this annual memorial event around the yearly anniversary of 911 since 2002.  We do this to remember one of America’s worst tragedies, and to honor the memories of the lives that were lost on that day.  This year’s event was made even more solemn for our group being near the site, because many of us participating in this event had witnessed the tragedy firsthand.
 

 

Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan was deserted and very quiet 6:00 am in the morning when we arrived.  The Parks Department permit allowed us to set up on the blacktop area in the front of Castle Clinton National Monument.  We had arrived before the vendors, so that we could pick the prime spot directly in front of the Castle, one of the major tourist destinations in NYC.  This is where you can purchase tickets to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Nearby is the Staten Island Ferry terminal entrance, Museum of Jewish Heritage, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and the South Street Seaport Museum.  It was a very good central location with a lot of pedestrian traffic and food vendors, a great spot to set up the radios.
 

 

We brought the essential equipment needed for the event: tables; chairs; canopy tent; ice chest with water; generator; several lengths of coax; two 30 foot telescoping poles; 20m end feed dipole; Buddy pole set up for 40m; 2m & 70cm vertical magnetic mount; various radios.   The four of us Gary KB2BSL, Joe N2TEE, Jan W2KMA and I had the equipment set up and tested by 8:00 am.   The antenna set up was not easy because of the rules of the Parks Department.  We could not tie off antennas to park property, use tent stakes, or string up anything in to the trees.  We had to be inventive, the telescoping masts were weighted down by batteries, which could double as a power source.
 

 

We also set up an Amateur radio information table.  Documents, flyers, pens and club business cards were given out to every visitor that stopped by to talk to us.  ARRL material was donated to us by our section manager, Mike N2YBB.  Many HAMs from around the world stopped by when they spotted our League flag hanging on the canopy.
 

 

I was running an IC 756 Pro II my Dad, had given to me when I passed my General license.  It still had his recorded message from the 911 special events station he participated in with the club years ago.  The reassuring voice from my past set the serious mood I was in for the day.  I hooked the radio up to a 40m buddy pole on a tripod 10 feet off the ground.  In most cases this would do ok, but today the propagation on 40m was not very good, lots of QRM and the noise level was a S9.  I operated SSB and made only a few contacts.  Later that day, my friend Bob WA2VMO stopped by and tried CW, but did not do any better on 40m.  He was receiving some stations, but they did not hear our small signal.
 

 

Gary, had an IC-7200 w/LDG Tuner, used for SSB, CW and digital modes (PSK31, Feld-Hell) on the 20M end feed dipole.   The 20m dipole was strung between two 30 foot telescoping masts held in place with weights. This setup worked well, but again the QRM was high and the noise level was S9.  We made some voice contacts, one or two with Morse code and struck out with Feld-Hell.  Due to the high QRM, psk31 was our miracle mode and the bulk of our contacts were made using it.   Our micro PC server was used for the digital modes (DM780) and for logging the contacts we made.  We have learned from past events that paper logs, just don’t work well when translating someone else's hand writing, after the event.  
 

 

The other side of the table had mobile D-Star equipment, an IC-880H, small and compact.  Great radio, it was very easy to use.  It was connected to REF020B via the WG2MSK NI-Star repeater.
The antenna used was a JetStream 2m/70cm vertical connected to a diplexer and shared with an Alinco DR-135.   It was tuned to the clubs 2m repeater with Echolink access (node 643000).  Many HAMs participated using the Echolink node, most were using RF some even checked using their iPhones or Droids.

We decided not to use band-pass filters due to the approximate 2db insertion loss, and poor band conditions.  We had operated without filters in the past in close quarters with good success, but today was not the case.   The 40m station was not experiencing any QRM from our 20m setup, the reverse was not true.  It was ether due to the more extensive filters on the IC-756, or the location of the 40m Dipole being parallel with the 20m dipole.  I tried a moving the 40m to a different location, and making it perpendicular to the 20m dipole.  The results were not any better, so for the rest of the day we transmitted intermittingly, trying not to interfere with one another’s contacts.  
 

 

 
Throughout the day local amateur radio operators and visitors from other countries, who were in the area, stopped by to talk, and operated the radios with us.  We amateurs from Russia, who had read about the special event in QST, and asked if they could operate with us for the day!  We didn’t advertise Morse code, but were pleased to find that some of our guests were very good at using the bencher key.  Other visiting HAMs were kind enough to take pictures of the event and later emailed them to us.  We were grateful for this as we were too preoccupied to use our cameras.
 

 

 
It was a very long day for us on the air!  We talked to many old friends, made many new friends, and hopefully some new HAM's in the process!  Activating a station in a Downtown Manhattan park is very different then Brooklyn’s historic Owl's Head Park, where we previously held the event.  Both have a unique view of the City, but being Downtown, was a different experience.   There were food and souvenir venders, caricature artists and the thousands of visitors passing by, including a local NYC Turkey that lived in the park.

Many of the KCRA members are active ARES participants.  During this event we operated our equipment under simulated emergency conditions, utilized no commercial power and operated in an urban canyon surrounded by skyscrapers filled with millions of people.   In the midst of this we were able to maintain constant communication with other HAM operators around the globe via the HF/VHF/UHF bands.
 

73'de KB2PSI, Vinny