Festival of Lights 2019 - information for participating hams
Welcome!
Thank you for offering to help with the Festival of Lights Parade this year. If your plans have changed and you can no longer make it, please visit the web site and remove your name from the list. As an alternative, you can reply to this email.
Attached to this email is a PDF file with detailed information. The first two pages are instructions, the next 16 pages are more detailed information. Please print the entire document, review it, and bring it with you to the parade – no copies will be available at the parade.
There are several changes this year, so please read carefully First, parking is available next to Staging and you will find a parking pass in the attached PDF document. Please place the pass on your dash otherwise you risk being towed! Also, the city has said they will be putting up barricades starting at 4PM so if you plan on parking near Staging, you should plan on being earlier than 4PM. Also note that once parked, you won’t be able to leave until after the parade is over, probably close to 7:30 or 8 PM. After 4PM, you are on your own for parking, with University Ave being a good option. Los Altos High School is also a good alternative but is about a 15 minute walk to staging.
Second, there are new frequencies for this year. We have a new repeater system in Los Altos that we will be using for the regular Parade Net. The Shadow Net frequencies remain the same. The backup frequencies will be the regular frequencies we used in the past. While our repeater system has been rock solid, there is a possibility that we will need to switch to the backup frequencies. Because of this, it is important to program your radio before arriving at the event.
Third, we will again assign everybody their own PL tones for use in locating “open mics”. How does this work with the repeater, you might wonder? We will be turning off PL checking on the input side of the repeater for the length of the parade and turning it back on afterwards. When programming your radio, be sure to include your unique PL tone listed in the attached document. You need to do this for all frequencies – the parade net repeater and the backup frequencies (and not for the repeaters used as the Resource Net). If your radio doesn’t support PL tones, or you are assigned a tone that your radio doesn’t support (there are a few radios that don’t support all possible PL tones), please email me sooner than later so we can make adjustments.
Fourth, a request for you: as you pull out your manual to configure your HT’s frequency and tone settings for the parade, can you make a copy of those pages and bring them to the parade? We want to construct a book showing how to program the variety of radios that are out there. We are interested in how to set a frequency, how to set the tone/PL code, and how to save this to a memory location. This will help us at future Festival of Lights Parades. And yes, when we assemble the information, we will be more than happy to share it with anybody who is interested.
Again, thank you for helping with the Parade. Your time is greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Art Whipple, WA3AW