Monarch Fire Protection District Admin Bldg
Olive Blvd and River Bend Dr.
Chesterfield 63017

Present at the fire house :
kc0vpl Rob Robinson
k0dra Doug Allen
k0qs Harry Ferris
kd0ciw Paul Sherman

SITREP:
Deputy Chief Les Crews showed me around on Friday morning, offering 3 
choice areas, from which I selected a room next to bathrooms and with an 
external door on the east side of the station giving us good coverage to 
the north, east and south with fairly short-masted portable antennas. 
The chief also showed me where the connection is in the command center 
for the ham antenna permanently mounted on the roof. He asked me to test 
that out during our SET.

On Saturday morning, Oct. 15, Deputy Chief Spiegel met me at the front 
entrance and I showed him our set up place. He opened the door to the 
room, and found a door stop for us, as well as the back door to the 
kitchen in case the other door got locked.

Doug and I set up my two antennas, a dual band j-pole and a 2M ground 
plane. The j-pole I pout on top of an 8-foot mast in a bucket of sand 
bags in the bushes on a traffic island just outside of our operations 
room. The 2M ground plane went on top of my SUV parked right outside the 
door.

Harry and Paul arrived a little later, and Paul set up a 2M radio 
connected to a 2M mag mount on a home-made ground plane supported by a 
7-foot (or so) mast secured to the hedge. Harry used an HT wihich worked 
very well with the repeaters.

Most of our traffic until 12:30 was on the ground plane using a 2M radio 
(FT-2500), with occasional use of the j-pole on a dual band radio 
(FT-8900) when there was traffic on another repeater as well as the 
.850.

Harry used an antenna analyzer and his HT with an adapter to connect to 
the fire station's permanently installed 2M ham antenna on the roof of 
the station. The adapter was needed because the antenna outlet located 
in the command center is a type-N connector. The purpose was to test out 
the antenna, which I had promised the Deputy Chief we would do for him.

About 12:15 Harry had to leave, and I started packing up my gear. Paul 
began taking over on his radio monitoring, sending our first message and 
responding to traffic. Doug and I left just before 1:00 pM.

Attached are the photos from my cell phone. Harry was smart enough to 
bring a real camera. I sure he will send those photos to us.

Rob
kc0vpl