Colorado District 6 ARES

CO D6 covers, in theory, all of Park, Lake and Chaffee counties. In reality, there is a group in Lake and in Chaffee which pretty much operate on their own; at least, they've not expressed a desire to work with us at all.

The EC for district 6 is Padre Bova, WØWPD, an all-around good guy and my next-door neighbor. He has appointed two AECs: myself, and Ray Thompson, WØIVB (formerly KC7IVB), who lives in Como.


As to the geography of Park county... Anyone who has heard of the animated series (and movie) "South Park" can look to Park county for its namesake. "South Park" is the name of an enormous, high (almost 10,000 feet in some places) valley. Most of Park county resides in South Park.

Park county has this interesting geological feature; it's called Kenosha Pass. The Kenosha mountain range separates South Park from Bailey, Shawnee, Grant, etc. It is also the only direct route from South Park to Denver -- other roads will take you to I-70 (and on into Denver) or through Woodland Park, and into Colorado Springs, but highway 285 is the direct route into Denver.

That being said, those of us in Bailey have had rather the challenge with reliable communications over the pass. Our solution is to operate two "cells" of ARES members, one on each side of the pass, until such time as we can establish our repeater system to handle such traffic. The cells are linked vi 75m HF stations.

The Bailey cell's HF link is Padre; on the Fairplay side, Ray. I'm a rover (see the Unimog section for some more info on that).