Month: April 2014

Beginning May 6, 2014 the WARC will be conducting another General upgrade class which will be held at the Whitman Police Station Conference Room starting at 6:00 PM.

The classes will be help each Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6:00 pm to 8:45 PM. Classes will run for three weeks and testing on May 27, 2014. A VE teat will be coming in from the Norwood Amateur Radio Club to conduct the testing. The only costs for the course will be $15.00 for the test and you MUST purchase the Gordon West General test book. The course is based upon the Gordon West book and CD’s.

Upgrade to General Class with NO Morse Code test required.
Live High Frequency equipment demonstrations.
Fixed and Mobile antenna construction and operations.
Learn how to put up ”hidden” antennas and work stations worldwide.
Discussions on which worldwide radios to purchase from $599.00 and up.
Learn high frequency net operating procedures.
Go from technician to general in just three weeks.

For more information call Charlie Amico W1CBR at (774) 203-6905 or e-mail at sfccamico@gmail.com  If you call Please call before 8:00 PM. To enroll in the course please call Charlie at the above number or e-mail also. In addition to Charlie you can also contact Bill Hart W1ACO at (781) 294-0602 or e-mail at pembaco@aol.com

Here is your chance to upgrade before the summer sets in and when you travel you will be able to set-up your HF station anywhere and make contacts you only dreamed about. We have a program laid out to will gain your interest and motivate you to go even further in ham radio as the possibilities are unlimited. There is no age requirement to take the course, you just need your FCC Call Letters.

Robert “Whitey” Doherty, K1VV writes:

If you like to collect rare and historically significant QSL cards this is an event you will like… W1AA/MSC will be for International Marconi Day on April 26th to represent the Marconi 1901 shore station on Nantucket.

W1AA/MSC will be mostly on CW because we will be running a temporary setup from my QTH with an IC-7000 (100 watts) and a 80 meter dipole for all bands. Using an ancient IBM ThinkPad lap top and CT for logging.

The list of participating stations is on the G land page, at http://g4usb.net/IMD/. I think there are 31 and maybe more, and there is an award.

See you on the 26th. Mark your calendar.

Whitey, K1VV

Tony Brock-Fisher, K1KP writes:

MIT Professor Chuck Counselman, W1HIS, will give a presentation on HF Propagation on May 7th, at 7 pm, at the Andover Safety Center in Andover, MA. Hosted by the Andover Emergency Management Group (AEMG) this talk is a general primer on HF propagation.

The talk will be oriented towards the ham who has a 100-W HF transceiver, no amp, and no tower, just a trapped multiband vertical on the ground or a wire 25 ft above ground, and who rarely (if ever) works CW or any of the so-called digital modes. The goal is to enable this ham to choose the best combination of time and frequency to work, say, parts of the USA 50, 150, 1500, and 3000 miles away, the Caribbean, and Europe, by SSB on HF.

The level of the presentation assumes that the intended audience has heard of ionospheric propagation but is fuzzy about how the maximum and minimum usable frequencies (MUF & LUF) vary with time of day, time of year, and solar activity; and what happens around the times of local sunrise and sunset.

The practical, how-to, mechanical aspects of HF ionospheric propagation will be emphasized while the theoretical aspects are minimized. Just enough of the science will be discussed to help the ham remember why and when things happen. Covered will be daytime D-region absorption; critical frequencies, such as foF2; NVIS; normal daytime E and F, and normal night-time F2 propagation; single and multiple F-hops. Little will be said about paths longer than about 5000 miles (8000 km).

Web sites will be listed where ready-made propagation predictions can be found, and where customized propagation predictions can be generated for the individual’s TX power, antenna, and mode (e.g., CW or SSB voice).

The Andover Safety Center is located at 32 North Main Street, Andover, MA 01810

Mark Richards, K1MGY writes on PART-L:

Bob Vogtli, KB1ZHX, worked with his daughter last year in a school science fair project. She wanted to launch a high altitude balloon and take photos. The project is called SpaceCAT. Bob did some research, found the Amateur Radio APRS connection, studied, got his Technician license, and we go from there…

http://spacecathab.weebly.com/index.html

Bob and his daughter are moving things to the next level with SpaceCat II. The plan is to launch next month, and I was invited to participate (my bride asks if there’s room in the balloon for me), so I’ve taken on the task of designing, building, testing, packaging, and flying a payload deployment component of the lift vehicle. In English, we’ll reliably disconnect from the balloon via a telemetry command, and the expensive electronics will gently float to Mother Earth where we can collect it in a controlled and somewhat planned fashion rather than climbing a 60 foot tree and risking mortality to recover some electronics.

[…] Bob is giving a presentation on this launch at the school as a component of our adaptation of STEM (ours has roots), and has invited me to join him.

What would be cool is to borrow for show and tell a tiny tracker APRS transmitter with a GPS attached. Then we can show the tracker location on a map, and hear the tracker on an HT portable. Even work a few stations to demo Amateur Radio. The object is to inspire and allow the imagination and creativity to take to wings (or, in this case, helium and nylon).