February AlmaNet radio check-in
February 12, 2022 marked our 7th monthly radio check-in, and how we’ve grown! When we first started this monthly event we had three participants, which just included licensed ham radio operators.
In August of 2021, the Alma Park Neighbors bought eight Family Radio Service (FRS) walkie-talkies. We distributed the FRS radios around the neighborhood so that people without a radio license could communicate and participate in check-ins. That month we had three ham radio operators and four FRS users check in to AlmaNet.
In February, one of our members decided to try something a little bit different. To do his check-in he hiked to the top of Bogdanovich Recreation Center. The peak of this lovely park has panoramic views of Downtown Los Angeles all the way out to Santa Barbara Island.
From the peak, he was able to communicate with five ham radio operators, and five FRS users. Being able to hear so many FRS users from such a long distance a pleasant surprise because FRS radios have very limited range in a city setting. Since the peak is so high, direct line of sight enabled very clear conversations.
We had an expert ham radio operator join us this month. He noticed that the FRS frequency we have selected for our check-in is also the local General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) repeater. This is likely causing some reception issues. He recommended using channel 6 instead. In the future we may switch to that channel for our check-ins, but for now we will stick to channel 19 with a PL code of 10.
