KB6FNS

Introduction

I grew up in an amateur radio house. My father was W6PO (ex- W6UOV). As a kid, one task would be to turn on the 'shop' for my dad before he got home, so all the tubes would be warmed up. (Probably the ham shack too) There is a big breaker box inside the door with a bunch of switches that turn everything on.
During moonbounce activity, we were not supposed to answer the phone until it rang more than once. The 'one ringer' signal was from another ham who was verifying that the pre-arranged schedule was on and he was ready.
I got my license after I graduated from College. My ex-husband was interested in the hobby and we got our licenses. Currently I am a General class and plan to become an extra so I can get a memorial club station with my dad's callsign.

Janice

Antenna Photo

My brother and I took the this picture of Dad's first moonbounce antenna. We had a creek behind our house, so we took a couple monster photography strobe lights ( I think we got them from Bill Foote) and my brother's camera and climbed down the hill behind the shop. On the count of three, I hit the strobe light button and my brother clicked the camera. We got some good shots and one of them was printed in my dad's moonbounce notes and also in the Amateur Radio Handbook.

(click on thumbnail for larger picture)

QSL Card

This is a sample of my QSL card I was using in the mid 1980s. I suppose I will still use it, but will need to put a new label over the address and name. I am back to Janice Sutherland and not in Santa Clara anymore.

Ten-Ten International

In the mid 80s I was pretty heavy into ten meters and the Ten-Ten International Club. I started by receiving the Bay Area Ten Ten Certificate and also the Forty Niner Bay Area award in 1988. I worked a few contests and collected certificates from other clubs. I let my membership lapse and just recently sent my dues in and am now back among the paid up members of 10-10. # 43594.
Now I need a place for my radio and an antenna.......

These pictures are bitmaps. Clicking on the thumbnail may not give you a larger pop-up of the certificate. Could also be it just takes a long time via phone line. ( i'm still on the old dial-up)

Tevis Cup 2004

I volunteered for the second time in two years to help with radio communications for the Tevis Cup on July 31, 2004. http://www.foothill.net/tevis. As last year, I was stationed with Kim Scheidel ( KE6RKX ) at the Dusty Corners checkpoint. This year we also had Mike Bach (WB6FFC) helping at the radio. Mike and I camped out Friday night, so we’d be ready early Saturday.
As last year, the instructions to Dusty Corners were very confusing. We could not find road 44 off of Mosquito Ridge Rd and finally took road 40 to see how that would work. Mike had a GPS connected to his laptop but only had the street atlas software. I brought my laptop with GPS and the topo software. My GPS was not receiving satellite information for some reason, so did us no good.
Finally, I took out my Garmin Rino 120 handheld that already had the Dusty Corners coordinates programmed into it. Using my handheld we successfully made it to the checkpoint , but we did so by actually driving along the Tevis Cup trail right where the horses would be coming down the next morning. We can now say we ran the Tevis in a suburban.
This year was the 50th year anniversary of the Tevis Cup 100 Miles One Day Western States Trail Ride. It was also the 30 year anniversary of the first time a person ran the Tevis Cup, which became the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run. In 1974 Gordon Ainsleigh was entered in the ride, but his horse became lame before the start. Gordon attempted and finished the Tevis Cup Run on foot in just under 24 hours. To commemorate this anniversary, 10 runners ran the 2004 Tevis Cup Ride along with the horses. See http://www.coolrunning.com.au/ultra/2003014.shtml for more about Gordon's first run.

Dusty Corners was the only stop besides the vet check stations that had water and nourishment for the runners. This check point is about 50 miles into the 100 mile ride. We had a big old ice chest full of water, gatorade and power bars. We had pretzels and Goo juice. The runners barely stopped to enjoy the goodies we had, thus we were left with lots of leftover liquids. We ended up giving a lot of it to the endurance riders.
Gordon's wife was waiting at our check point for at least 3 hours. She was getting very worried, other checkpoints were calling to see if Gordon and another runner had been seen. We were getting worried for them but Gordon did finally make it to Dusty Corners and boy was his wife happy to see him. Turns out they just had an extra long stop at Robinson Flat.
I found out on Sunday during the banquet that Tim Twietmeyer was one of the 10 runners on the trail. I remember Tim from when I was working at Hewlett-Packard, but I didn't know he was in the run.
After the sweepriders came through our checkpoint, we packed up and headed to the Foresthill stop to relieve any radio operators that needed it. Turns out there were quite a few operators there and we were not needed. So, Mike and I had a chance to see how a vet check stop works. Those huge IV fluid bags attached to dehydrated horses are huge. We watched the vets check the horses for lameness and watched the riders head onto the next checkpoint after the mandatory 1 hour rest period. The cutoff time for entry to the Foresthill stop was 8:30 pm, so we left at that time.
Sunday afternoon we went to the barbeque and awards banquet at the Auburn Fairgrounds. That is something not to be missed as well. Everyone who finished the ride under 24 hours received the prized Tevis belt buckle.
The contingent from the United Arab Emirites invited the winners of the Tevis Cup 2004 to ride in their endurance event - all expenses paid!

This was our Dusty Corners setup. We had a marine battery to run the radio and a solar panel to charge the battery. Vertical antenna in the back.

Mike Bach, WB6FFC and Janice Sutherland, KB6FNS at Dusty Corners

This is one of the riders that decided to run his horse down the steep hill into Dusty Corners

One of the 10 runners commemorating the 30th anniversary of Gordon Ainsleigh's running of the Tevis  ( this may be Tim Twietmeyer)

Another of the runners on the 2004 Tevis. Kim Scheidel is in the Fire Department shirt

Rider 6 coming into Dusty Corners. 50 miles into the ride

GIS at American River College

During the preparation for last year's Tevis, I learned about the Sweep Riders of the Sierra. They use GPS handhelds as well as amateur radios to navigate and keep in contact with net control. The GPS helps when specific coordinates are needed to get emergency services to an area quickly. I thought that was cool, and thought someday I would like to be a member of the Sweep Riders. Somehow I found that American River College had classes in Geographic Information Systems. The first class I took was learning how to use GPS. The college has a certificate program that is one of the best known and respected in the US. Last semester I took the introduction to Geographic Information Systems. I will be starting class again on August 19th and am taking GEOG 350 Data Acquisition. It will be a slow go since I can only handle one class at a time since I work all day, but it has been fun so far.

Interested in GeoCaching? Here's an FAQ.

GIS Project

In our last class we experimented with synchronizing our GPS units with our digital cameras. We took a picture of our gps unit to show what time the unit thought it was. We took some pictures at different locations and then uploaded the photos and the waypoint information to our computers. Using a program called GPS-Photo link, we fed the data in and the program created web pages which displayed our now geo-referenced photos. This is a sample of the web pages created.

Hams Help Out With the Tsunami

Here's a link from the ARRL regarding Amateur Radio help for the Tsunami victims.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/12/29/100/?nc=1

We're not boring!!!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1310241/posts

Field Day and Amateur Radio by David Coursey

GIS Analysis of the Tevis Cup

For a class project in my geography class in data acquisition, I used the Tevis Cup Ride. You can view my paper at http://ic.arc.losrios.edu/~veiszep/12fall2004/Sutherland/G350_Sutherland_Project.htm

Also, this is what what I was able to plot on ArcMap towards the end of class. (This is a large bitmap, 2300KB, and will take a while to load via dial-up)

W6PO Memorial Club

I started the ball rolling on getting a memorial club for my dad using the W6PO callsign. Dave Meacham will be our trustee since he is an Extra class ham. After we get a new club call, we'll request the vanity call W6PO.

5/12/05: Well, our call sign has been assigned:  We are

KG6ZFA

What a god-awful call sign. Well we may be able to use it this year on field day. hah! Next step is to ask for W6PO.

W6AY Eimac Club Field Day 2005

This year we used the W6AY EIMAC Radio Club callsign for field day. We were at Reading Island near Cottonwood CA. Shasta County area.

Hams in attendance: Brian Westfall, Steve Mieth, Brian Palumbo, Mike Bach, and Janice Sutherland.

click on thumbnails to see larger picture.

Mike Bach and Brian Palumbo putting up the TA33 using the Hazer.

6 meter and 2 meter antennas going up.

Brian Westfall, Mike Bach and Brian Palumbo

Brian Westfall, W6OJM and Steve Mieth, W6YFK working 40 meters.

Janice Sutherland (KB6FNS) on 6 meters and Brain Palumbo (W6ESZ) on 20m.

Brian Westfall, Steve Mieth, Brian Palumbo, Mike Bach and Janice Sutherland

Tevis 2005

July 23, 2005 was the Tevis Ride. Again this year, I volunteered with radio communications. This year I was at the Last Chance checkpoint. This checkpoint is a gate and go vet check point. The vets check the respirations and fitness of the horse before it can leave. We had up to 10 vets continually checking horses to assure they were not in distress. We had a few pulled for lameness. One or two for respirations. One Colic. Otherwise after 50 miles,  most of the horses looked perky and ready to go the next leg up to Devils Thumb.  We heard early in the day around 9am that we already had an injured rider near Red Star I believe. She had broken her wrist and was walking back to the last checkpoint. Other than that, I didn't hear of any other medical issues.

W6PO Now a Club

Well, the FCC has started up with Vanity call licensing again. We now have the W6PO callsign for the W6PO Memorial Club.

Bob Sutherland- W6PO VHF/UHF Radio Club

interesting note: This post was made 2 years to the day that my dad passed away.

Tevis Ride 2006

The 2006 Tevis Ride was held Saturday. I again volunteered to provide radio communications at the Last Chance checkpoint.  It gave me a chance to watch the veterinarians evaluate the health of the horses before they continued on to the next checkpoint. The weather was great this year. Luckily it was not scheduled for last week when temperatures were as high as 115 degrees F. Of course the bees and the mosquitos were not appreciated.

We had two riders who fell this year. One was near Cougar Rock. One of the riders was able to continue on her horse and the other was taken by ambulance to Sutter Roseville Hospital.

Auburn Journal article about volunteers

"Everyone from the Western States Endurance Run board to the "behind-the-scenes" race managers are all volunteers. Dozens of captains and medical captains work at checkpoints and aid stations. Ham radio volunteers keep the lines of communication open. Sweep Riders of the Sierra (S.O.S.) work on horseback and safety patrols work on foot to administer first aid between medical stations. There are also enough physicians and nurses to staff a small hospital at medical stations. "

Tevis 2007

Well, we did radio communications again this year for the Tevis Cup. We were again stationed at Last Chance which is a Vet Check stop.  We ended up with 14 pulled horses by the end of the day. There was some hard luck at the start of the ride. A woman had to put her horse down the day before the ride because he ended up breaking his leg up near the shoulder. She was able to borrow another horse for the ride only to have that horse kick her in the groin, very near her major leg artery. She ended up going to the hospital around 8 am.  A couple sprained ankles and wrists were added later in the day by other riders. We had 151 horses make their way to Last Chance.  One held up at Dusty Corners and 13 ended up being pulled by the Vets at Last Chance mostly for lameness.

Again, we have some pictures from the ride.

This is the Radio van belonging to KE6RKX

This is our station at Last Chance

A Rider Arriving at Last Chance

Robot Mower

My boyfriend and I just tried out our new Robo Mower. I have a huge lawn out back that is a bear to mow, especially in the summer in 100 + degree weather. The back was just not getting enough attention.  We checked up on the Robo Mowers on the market and chose the RL850 robotic lawn mower  from

WWW.BAMABOTS.COM   ( on sale )

It took a while to be able to test it since we had to cut down a huge pine tree that had fallen over and messed up my sprinkler lines. A couple weeks to deal with the sprinklers and another couple to get the pine tree out of the yard.

We put up the perimeter wire last night and let the bot go!.... It got hung up on some big tufts of lawn and a few holes, but after we fill the holes and get rid of the grass mounds, this puppy can mow the lawn all by itself. It took about 2 hours to do the yard. My entire lot is .71 acres. The front lawn is more than enough work to mow. The bot can do the backyard.

TEVIS 2008 is Cancelled

Fires Force Cancellation Of 100-Mile Horse Race

PLACER COUNTY (CBS13/AP) ― Forest fires burning in the Sierra Nevada foothills have forced cancellation of another endurance race.

Organizers of the Western States Trail Ride, also known as the Tevis Cup, called off the 100-mile horse race because of the fires and the health effects of the thick smoke.

The race had been scheduled for July 19.

The American River Complex fire have burned 16,184 acres and is 25% contained.  About 890 firefighters are working the blaze.

Smoky conditions limited the use of aircraft Wednesday; however, helicopters did drop water and 10,000 gallons of retardant to help cool the fire

Fires also forced cancellation of the Western States Endurance Run last month.

TEVIS 2009

We made it through TEVIS 2009. Again I was stationed at Last Chance vet check. This year we had the in and out times communicated to headquarters by packet radio .  Finding a spot where the signal could get out was tough at first. We had some interference between our communication and the packet stations'. All in all, I think the packet system worked well.