So the first Sunday of the month is Alpine Fault Net exercise day. The AFN exercise is a readiness exercise for amateurs to show they can establish communications without mains power. A simple checkin with a few details to the net controller is all that is required to participate, and given the time taken to accommodate the 59 participants this Sunday, the extent of the exercise is about right.
Sunday morning was bright, sunny and mild; certainly it wasn’t the Auckland Freezer Net, that was anticipated. Musick Point participants represented 4 of the 7 Auckland checkins – a great achievement. Even more impressively, all four ( ZL4ROB, ZL3CK, ZL1BK and ZL1DL ) set up field stations, for the exercise.
The AFN exercise is a simple but highly effective way of testing ones capability to put up communications in an infrastructure outage situation. And of course building and deploying portable antennas is not only fun, it’s part of Ham’s DNA. With the availability of very reasonably priced lithium cells, several club members have also built their own batteries for portable power use. There are more cells available – so no excuse!
MP had a good turn out for August’s exercise, but we look forward to others joining in for future turnouts. Lets keep MP as representing the highest percentage of participants for the Auckland region!
Checkout the Alpine Fault Network at https://afn.org.nz