June, 2012 Section News

ARRL EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS SECTION  

Section Manager (SM) - Phil Temples, K9HI 
Assistant Section Manager (ASM) – Jeremy Breef-Pilz, KB1REQ 
Affiliated Club Coordinator (ACC) - "Bo" Budinger, WA1QYM 
Official Observer Coordinator (OOC) - Ed Parish, K1EP 
Public Information Coordinator (PIC) - Bob Salow, WA1IDA 
Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) - Rob Macedo, KD1CY 
Section Traffic Manager (STM) – Marcia Forde, KW1U 
State Government Liaison (SGL) - Shawn O'Donnell, K3HI 
Technical Coordinator (TC) - Eric Falkof, K1NUN  


JUNE 2012 SECTION NEWS

It's Memorial Day, the unofficial start of the summer and many clubs
and groups in the section are well into their Field Day planning.  As
most of you know, Field Day is part cookout, camping trip, emergency
exercise, live classroom, low-intensity contest, and also, an excuse to
socialize with your fellow amateurs. Additionally, it's a great
opportunity to introduce our hobby-service to the general public. 

Do you have a public relations strategy in place to promote your Field
Day to the local media? What about handouts? Check. Signage and
directions to the site? Check. Visitor's signup sheet. Check. How about
an official greeter and a tour guide? Uh... oops. Nothing makes a worse
impression than having non-hams visit your Field Day site only to be
left to their own devices, and ignored by operators who are sequestered
away in tents and campers, their headphones tightly clamped over their
ears as they rattle off contacts.

If you haven't already done so, be sure to visit the Eastern
Massachusetts Field Day web page at <http://fd.ema.arrl.org>. The
brainchild of N1VUX, Bill has maintained this resource for thirteen
years. It's packed with lots of useful information, like event rules
and regulations, safety tips, a detailed site listing including
latitude and longitude coordinates, and other historical notes. 

As Bill notes, "Field Day lets you find out what equipment works in
the field, and who can bring it. You also practice operating with field
conditions and emergency power."

As in year's past, I will attempt to visit as many Field Day sites in
Eastern MA as I possibly can. I apologize in advance should I miss
stopping by your club's site.

I'd like to close on this note: Field Day is an excellent way to
encourage the new hams in your club to be more active and to grow into
the new leaders. Many a newcomer has had his or her first "taste" of
club leadership by taking on a Field Day assignment. Please consider
this when organizing and delegating responsibilities for the weekend.


The Falmouth ARA is working with teachers at the East Falmouth
Elementary School to conduct a contact with the International Space
Station and Capt. Sunita Williams on Oct. 22. The school had a recent
videoconference with the astronaut; she has family ties to East
Falmouth. Three to four hundred elementary school students were present
for the event. Jim McGuinness, the sponsoring teacher, estimates an even
bigger group of students for the ISS contact. "I've been in touch with
Gene Chapline, K5DFL, the ham volunteer with ARISS and received a
generous package of ARRL materials from Debra Johnson, K1DMJ," says
FARA President Richard Wiklund, K1MGH. Dick adds, "These have been
passed on to Jim McGuinness and we will be developing a curriculum for
the students in preparation for and after the ISS contact."

Congrats to Les Peters, N1SV, of Townsend, who was recently nominated
by New England Division Director K1KI to serve as a DXCC Card Checker.

Kudos to the Quannapowitt RA for helping to grow over a half-dozen new
hams as a result of its recent "Tech in a Day" session!

Don't forget to QNI the K1USN Slow Speed CW Net at 8:30AM Sunday
mornings on 3545 kHz. For more info, contact W1QWT at
<recallahan@comcast.net>.

WGBH employee W1DAN will conduct a technical tour of the FM and TV
stations for North Shore RA members on June 16 in Boston.

Rumor has it that the recent NEAR-Fest was saturated with members from
the Whitman ARC in attendance--in fact, 27 in all!

The Minuteman RA featured the DVD presentation on the 3Y0X Dxpedition
to St. Peter I. at its May 23 meeting in Northborough.

K1PTF presented on experimenting with interfacing Dragon speech
recognition into the ham shack at the May 17 meeting of the Nashoba
Valley ARC in Pepperell. 

Congrats to WB1HGA, who recently completed his ARRL "Worked All States"
Award using QRP. Ron says he worked many states in the "milliwatt"
range; all the contacts were made using 4 watts or less.

Science Magazine recently published this fascinating story entitled
"The Return of the Vacuum Tube" at <http://tinyurl.com/78d9j8m> <http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/05/return-vacuum-tube>.

KB1PBA reports that the four "hounds" found one of the two 2-meter
foxes hidden in Westford on May 12 were: KB1SWZ, KB1SSA, KB1OIQ, and
KB1USE. The fox transmitted with 60 milliwatts using MCW on a 2-minute
cycle. No one found the second fox, a 2W FM voice transmitter. 

The South Shore Hospital ARC provided communication support for the
Halifax Elementary School Road Race on May 6. Seven amateurs assisted.
SSH ARC will also assist with comms for the South Shore Hospital Road
Race at Wompatuck State Park in Hingham on June 16.

The Eastern MA ARES leadership met at the Clay Center on May 12.

N1IPP shares this wonderful link to the "Amateur Radio Kit Roundup" a
compendium of many Amateur Radio kits currently available, at
<http://tinyurl.com/cx4eofh>.

N1ZZN reminds us that Tuesdays and Thursdays are "220 Day" and "900
Day" respectively. These days are intended as a way to promote activity
on the repeaters on those bands in New England. Jeff adds, "The first
900 MHz handheld targeted to the ham community was released about 6
months ago, the Alnico DJ-G29T, and it is a dual band radio, 220 and
900, so perfect for these activity days."

PART of Westford is one of four Massachusetts clubs who will
participate in the Thirteen Colonies special event operation as K2H
from the end of June through the 4th of July holiday. According to PART
president Andy Stewart, KB1OIQ, "The QSO counts have been rising
exponentially over the last couple of years as this event becomes more
popular. Last year, the pileups were tremendous, and a great training
ground for learning to handle them." K1PUB is coordinating the event on
behalf of PART.

Congratulations to Emma Klinkhamer, KB1WBB, of Rehoboth, recipient of
the Southeastern MA ARA 2012 Scholarship.  Emma is a student at
Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School. More info at
<http://www.semara.org/node/281>. <http://semara.org/congratulations-emma-j-klinkhamer-kb1wbb/>.

The Taunton Amateur Communications Group simplex net meets on
Wednesdays at 8:30PM on 146.43 MHz. Visitors are welcome to check in.

This factoid comes via WA1IDA: Q Signals are not just for hams. In
fact, categories of codes are reserved for various services as follows:
QAA-QNZ, aeronautical service; QOA-QQZ, maritime services; QRA-QUZ, all
services; QZA-QZZ, other usage. Hams have unofficially assumed control
of the QN- block, and they use a few other unofficially assigned codes,
like QST. The FCC recommends these codes be for use only on cw, not
phone. The entire list and full meanings can be found at
<http://www.kloth.net/radio/qcodes.php>. Thanks, Boston ARC's "The
SPARC" May 2012.

Finally, from "Ham Overload: Outrageous-Amateur-Radio-Art-Car (or, "If
this is his _car_, I'd _hate_ to see his ham shack"):
<http://tinyurl.com/2dbrn9b>.

73, and have a safe and enjoyable Field Day!

K9HI

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ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section
Section Manager: Phillip Temples, K9HI
k9hi@arrl.org
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