Hamnet Blackout – 2015

The Hamnet Blackout (24-25 October 2015) was a highlight of my Radio Ham year. Enough said!

We plotted, we planned, we schemed, and everything fell into place. Well done Andrew Gray for organising a wonderfully successful outing.

The Voortrekker Camp Ground – becoming a favourite site for Radio Hams due to its quiet, pleasant surroundings, was the venue. We arrived just after 8am and started opening up the hall, turning on the gas and water, and setting up some tables. There is no Eskom power at the site (ever – not just during load shedding!) so we were not able to “cheat” in any way.

We had a few interested peeps who came to watch us and help arrange things. I think next year might have quite a following – and perhaps even an extra division 2 team!

All setup and on the air at 12 noon. we had reasonable comms on 30m and 40m with 80m in the darker hours. We used a dipole for 20/40m on one radio and the other was connected to an off-center fed dipole brought by John (ZS2GB).

As for masts, sorry there is no nice way to say this, but “Mine was the biggest” 🙂

We arranged a generator from the 1st Walmer Scout Group and that pretty much was all we needed. When we turned off the generator we operated by (solar) lamps – thanks to Colin (ZR2CRS).

The big challenge was to be “Off the grid” for the full 24 hour period. With no ESKOM power available, you would think we could manage. Well, we could not cook “off-grid”. We braai’d on a grid 🙂

Coffee and food constantly available thanks to our team chef Jimmy de Scande – who also doubled as the team photographer. Thank you Jimmy!

When Jimmy says “Ons gaan no braai” you must know you are going to eat well. And boy did we eat some top class steak! Enough for hungry hams and their breakfast too!

We had 3-hourly contacts with most of the teams nationwide. A few that did not make it all the way, but as a whole I’d have to say it worked well. If we ever had a serious reason to do it I believe we are capable.

What the exercise showed me was that if we all play nicely we can all have a turn (yeah mom, I know you said that before!). So often we try to get through at the expense of other stations (and us QRP mobile SOTA stations usually get the boot). When we all play nicely we all win.

The morning was as glorious a day as the Saturday. Weather was not wonderful, but the company was top notch! A few more visitors popped in – proving that we were waking the dead – well ok, it is not that bad. I am sure there will be more people available for the next event.

As an aside to the main story – I made some new friends just prior to the exercise – the fine folks of ZS1FUN. Well they were there and we had a chat. That is where ZS2FUN was started.