http://www.wx5law.com Information and updates from the Lawton Independent Repeater Alliance en-us Copyright 2010 LIRA. Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:09:24 -0500 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:09:24 -0500 http://www.wx5law.com/rss webmaster@wx5law.com webmaster@wx5law http://wx5law.com/index.php?page=news&id=72 Matt Walker Justin Rudicel and I rode out to Altus, sat just north of town and watched a storm build that would later be called the Hammon, OK tornado. We both decided to pass this storm up as there could have been stuff firing soon just to our west that we could go after. The storm north was heading NE and we were 30 miles away. We could have caught up with it but, we both have to be at work in the morning. It wasn't a total waste of a chase though. We made sure the streaming video worked and we got to test it out in low cell signal areas and it seems it passed the test. In short... Had we known this storm was going to be "the one" I'm sure we both would have pulled an all nighter as this storm had a great looking tornado. This however is storm chasing and you don't catch them all... Goodnight all! Matt Walker K5WXL Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:44:15 -0500 http://wx5law.com/rss/news_72 http://wx5law.com/index.php?page=news&id=71 Bennie Row The National Weather Service in Norman has rescheduled their annual spotter talk for Lawton and Comanche County. The new date is set for April 1st at the Great Plains Technology Center, Room 100 at 6:30pm. The speaker for this event will be Rick Smith. It is strongly encouraged that all people participating in severe WX operations within LIRA attend this seminar. As a side note, law enforcement personnel qualify for a credit of 2 hours education from CLEET for attending as an added bonus. See ya there! Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:28:39 -0500 http://wx5law.com/rss/news_71 http://wx5law.com/index.php?page=news&id=70 Bill Reichardt Operational again The WX5ASA group at Altus has the 444.650 repeater and APRS digi back on the air. The recent ice storm made a complete wreck of the equipment on Walsh Mountain and put a serious hole in the communications for Southwest Oklahoma storm spotting. The Altus Hams have a done a great job getting everything operational before any spring storms come to visit. Thanks, guys, great job. Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:28:10 -0500 http://wx5law.com/rss/news_70 http://wx5law.com/index.php?page=news&id=69 Bill Reichardt Computer this time After all the work that Chuck and Paul did to get the IRLP node back on the air, the computer developed a problem. After installing a new radio, Matt did some testing and determined that a port was at fault in the computer. Since it is a Linux system we have to go back to our resident Linux tech for a solution. Please have patience, the system will go back on the air. Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:17:53 -0500 http://wx5law.com/rss/news_69 http://wx5law.com/index.php?page=news&id=68 Bennie Row 443.300MHz Repeater and APRS Digi Active Our Navajo Mountain site north of Headrick, OK lost power for approximately 2 1/2 weeks due the the crippling Southwest Oklahoma ice storm on January 28th. I am happy to inform everyone that the power to the site was restored sometime around noon today. All of our equipment appears to be operational without any other problems. The 443.300MHz repeater has been linked back into the system. Everyone be advised that the ice storm did significant damage to just about every antenna structure standing on Walsh Mountain at Granite, OK as well. This in turn has taken the main UHF repeater down that belongs to our neighbors to the west, the Altus Skywarn Association. I spoke with a representative of ASA this afternoon and I was informed that their local everyday radio traffic may be carried over to our 443.300MHz repeater. I would like to encourage everyone to welcome these fine folks as they might be heard on our link system daily until they remedy the problems on Walsh Mountain. Also, I volunteered our Navajo Mountain repeater as a standby precaution to ASA if needed for their local severe weather operations if it is needed before their repairs have been completed. Depending on whether it is even needed and/or on how widespread the event is, we may have to drop the link to that repeater to be able to sustain two net operations simultaneously. Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:34:58 -0500 http://wx5law.com/rss/news_68