Yesterday evening, March 14, a line of severe thunderstorms rolled through Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Several of these thunderstorms produced very large hail, up to 1.75" (44mm).  Two towns about 15 miles northwest of me were hit with a tornado, but the worst was 20 miles northeast of me where an EF3 tornado ripped through a trailer park in the small resort town of Lakeview, Ohio.  I was up on the amateur radio nets for my local county's weather reporting, as well as to the regional director station in Dayton, Ohio, some 40 miles south of me.  I have a weather application on my desktop computer that allows me to obtain radar pictures that are less than 2 minutes old, as well as immediate bulletins from our local National Weather Service office.  My job is to alert the listeners in the area of potential dangerous weather.  Since this is amateur radio, it's not necessarily heard by everyone who needs to hear, either because they don't know about it, or they don't have a radio scanner programmed with the frequency.  Their weather radios help to alert, but they don't give specific information about the exact location of the weather in a timely manner.  I have spotters (NOT storm chasers) around the county who report to me on one frequency, and I report to the Dayton station on another frequency.  My radios are capable of sending and receiving on different bands, so there's no mutual interference.  With all of the warnings, at least three people died in that trailer park last night, and recovery efforts are still underway with search and rescue.  The local communities have been overwhelming in their desire to help, and the high school where they dropped off supplies has been quickly to the point where they have no more room. 

My complaint?  The radio link between Dayton and me was terrible, I couldn't understand much of what they were telling us counties, and they were having difficulty understanding us.  I don't know how much of the problem is with my group's equipment and how much is with Dayton's location.  They're about 700 feet of elevation below our repeater location, plus there's a rather tall building that is immediately in front of their location and it probably deflects a lot of the signal, and the terrain takes care of the rest of it.  Our antenna is some 380 feet above the ground in addition to the 700 feet elevation difference.  I think it's similar to shining a flashlight at a distant object, but just in front of the light source, you have a rather large object that creates a "shadow".  Radio energy works quite similar to light energy, so it at least sounds plausible.  In the past, we've found that their antenna was pointed in the wrong direction, and they've corrected it, but there's been no real improvement over the past few years.  I've suggested they relocate their site, or put in a remote site that can "see" both ends of the link. That has fallen on deaf ears.  Perhaps now that a tragedy has struck, they'll rethink that.  Five years ago, Dayton was hit by an EF4 tornado, so you'd think they'd recognize the danger is still there.  Rant over - de KC6NLX
 

Last edited by joekc6nlx (3/15/2024 10:16 pm)