a field organization of the National Association for Amateur Radio®
Thanks to input from: Chris Winczewski, K1TAT; the Cape Ann ARA; Eric Horwitz, KA1NCF; the North Shore RA; Brett Smith, AB1RL; PART of Westford; and the Falmouth Amateur Radio Association we’re pleased to present a comprehensive list of public service events in Eastern Massachusetts.
If your club is sponsoring a public service event and would like to be listed, please contact Phil Temples, K9HI, at <k9hi@arrl.org> for inclusion.
The Cape Ann Amateur Radio Association is conducting one of its highly successful Tech In A Day® review sessions at the Lanesville Community Center in Gloucester on March 30, 2019.
“Interested people can sign up by sending a message to techinaday@caara.net,” writes Stan Stone, W4HIX. The cost is $5, which includes materials and snacks. Testing is $15.
Stone indicates they have room for 25 students.
ARRL’s Lifelong Learning Department is excited to announce the launch of the recently revised Introduction to Emergency Communications (EC-001) course. As part of this new initiative, the course has been updated, beta-tested by a group of course mentors, and transferred into a new online learning platform.
With the closing of the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC) in mid- 2018, EC-001 lost its virtual home and was taken offline. At that point ARRL’s Emergency Preparedness staff started working with the new Lifelong Learning team to explore short and long-term alternatives for offering the course. After a period of careful evaluation and review, the decision was made to move the course from the previous Moodle platform to a more modern Learning Management System called Canvas, which will be used while the new Lifelong Learning Initiative program is being developed. The EC-001 course will eventually become part of this new, comprehensive online learning environment.
EC-001 is designed to provide basic knowledge and tools for any emergency communications volunteer. We hope this course will be the starting point for you in your service to your community as radio amateurs and inspire you to think outside the box and look at new and useful ways the radio amateur can lend a hand to the public that has given us the trust of our spectrum of skills. With the online format, students can access the course at any time from anywhere during a 9-week period, so you may work according to your own schedule.
“We’re very excited to be able to offer Introduction to Emergency Communications EC-001 once again” states Kris Bickell, ARRL Lifelong Learning Manager. “The Emergency Preparedness staff at ARRL has been incredibly helpful while we’ve worked together to get the course back up and running. And the input from previous EC-001 mentors has been an invaluable part of the testing phase. The timing is right to put the course back online.”
As in the past, students will be able to register and take the course entirely online. The Canvas platform is also mobile-responsive, meaning that students can view the course materials, interact with fellow students, and complete assignments from any mobile device.
Each course will run for nine (9) weeks, with a group of up to 30 students who will be supported by an experienced mentor. There will be no cost for the course, although students must meet certain pre-requisites to be eligible to participate, which are listed on the registration page.
To view the 2019 course schedule and to register: http://www.arrl.org/online-course-registration.
New England Sci-Tech is offering ongoing Amateur Extra study sessions for high school students, homeschool students, and adults who already have a General level license. This slower-paced course will get you ready to take the Amateur Extra license exam. You may jump into this course at any time, pay one course fee, and take nine weeks worth of classes. A different topic group is covered each week; all topics covered in nine-week intervals. Take the exam whenever you are ready.
The course runs most Thursday evenings, 6-9 PM from February 28, 2019 until May 30, 2019 as a combination “study group” and keynote presentations by experienced instructors. Study group meets 6:00-6:30, presentations run 6:30-8:15 approximately, and remainder of time is Q and A with instructors or more study group time. Regular homework reading and study is necessary to get the best results from this course. [Full description]
Hello to all…
The monthly ARES Net for March is Monday the 4th, at 8:30 PM on the MMRA Repeater system.
For frequencies that will be linked into the ARES Net on the MMRA Network, please see the following link from the MMRA web site detailing the repeaters that will be linked in through Hub 1: http://www.mmra.org/repeaters/repeater_index_by_linkstate.html
We look forward to your participation and remember, we are always looking for Net Controls to run the ARES Net. As part of our relationship with MARS and our own situational awareness gathering we will be asking for any known infrastructure issues that you are aware of. The information must either be personally observed, or obtained “over the air” via amateur radio. Items considered to be infrastructure include but are not limited to: electrical power, water, medical facilities, sanitation, communications, and transportation. Examples of failure would be: small or large area power failure, water main breaks, hospitals’ ER closed, sewage issues, TV/radio station off the air (including public safety), interstate highway or major road closed. No known issues are just as important as reporting failures.
Additionally we are interested in relay of any weather information from airport ATIS/ASOS stations that you can directly receive via radio. These stations broadcast continuously in the 120.000 – 138.000 MHz frequency range using amplitude modulation. Information from the ATIS should include airport, temperature, altimeter (barometer), wind, precipitation, and visibility.A list of stations with their frequencies and a map can be found at: <https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/weather/asos/?state=MA>. A brief introduction to ATIS can be found at: <https://www.vatsim.net/pilot-resource-centre/general-lessons/understanding-atis>. We will have several interesting announcements for the net that evening and we look forward to everyone’s participation.
Updates will be posted via email and on the Eastern Massachusetts ARES Web Site at <https://ema.arrl.org/ares>. Thanks for your continued support of ARES!
Rob Macedo, KD1CY
Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
Newton teen Marty Sullaway, NN1C, was featured in the March 1, 2019 Amateur Radio Newsline broadcast in a segment entitled, “YOUNG CONTESTERS OF TEAM EXUBERANCE LIVE UP TO THEIR NAME.” He’s interviewed by the anchor about a group of youths working together as a multi-operator contest team for CQ WPX later this month.
Marty was also mentioned for the lead-in to the next story announcing nominations for the 2019 
Young Ham Of The Year Award:
NEIL/ANCHOR: A team of young hams is being assembled for the CQ Worldwide WPX contest March 30th and 31st. Co-leader Marty Sullaway, NN1C tells how it all started.
MARTY: The idea for this project came from Violetta, KM4ATT. Violetta was the one who approached Tim Duffy, K3LR, the owner of the K3LR superstation, to make this a go. She was inspired by her operations from PJ2T as part of the Dave Kalter Youth DX project, and wanted to continue her operating career.
NEIL: Planning is a major undertaking, but the team is fulfilling that role as well.
MARTY: Part of multi operator contesting is working together as a team to build the contest plan, as well as figuring out all the logistics for the actual contest operation. So as a youth team, we are internally handling all the logistics regarding flights, hotels, meals, contest scheduling, operator scheduing, station information and handbooks; and really making this a comprehensive effort. We are taking this extremely seriously, and we hope our diligent planning will pay off, all of this being handled by fantastic youth. So we’re really looking forward to that.
NEIL: Marty also talked to me about the goals of this event.
MARTY: We really view this as an excellent opportunity to get youth involved in amateur radio contesting, youth that already know how to contest get more experience, work together as a team, have fun (because we do this to have fun, right?), and gain skill. So this is an activity in skill building, team building, networking, having a lot of fun on the radio contesting… Hopefully this is the start of some bigger work to engage youth in contests in North America.
NEIL: To provide funding for some of the young hams to get to the K3LR superstation, a GoFundMe page has been set up. You can find it at TeamExuberance.org.
** IN SEARCH OF NOMINATIONS FOR THIS YEAR’S YHOTY AWARD
NEIL: Youthful exuberance is, in fact, one of the core criteria we look for in candidates for Young Ham of the Year. We just heard from Marty Sullaway NN1C who was Amateur Radio Newsline’s Young Ham of the Year for 2017. Last year’s winner was Bryant Rascoll, KG5HVO, of Montgomery, Alabama. We have opened up the nomination period once again and are in search of candidates who, like Marty and Bryant, have offered the amateur community the best of their talents. All information is available on our website, arnewsline.org, under the YHOTY tab. You’ll be able to download a nomination form which is due back to us before midnight on May 31st.
“Pi” Pugh, K1RV, writes on the K1USN Radio Club mailing list:
The Framingham Amateur Radio Association will feature Rob Macedo, KD1CY, who will present on the Amateur Radio Emergency Service at FARA’s March 7 meeting. Rob is the Eastern Massachusetts Section Emergency Coordinator and ARES SKYWARN Coordinator. Directions to the meeting can be found at the club’s website.
The Billerica Amateur Radio Society will feature presentations by Eastern Massachusetts ARRL Section Manager Tom Walsh, K1TW, and ARRL New England Vice Director, Mike Reisbeck, K1TWF, at its monthly meeting in Chelmsford on March 6, 2019 at 7 PM. Mike will discuss the ARRL Board of Directors meeting; Tom will describe the proposed hands-free cell bill now in the Massachusetts Legislature. Additional information and directions can be found on the club’s web site.
The FCC has announced that the Universal Licensing System (ULS), which processes Amateur Radio license applications, will be offline for scheduled maintenance from 0300 UTC until 1300 UTC on Saturday, March 2 (starting late on Friday, March 1, in continental US time zones).
The FCC said all applications submitted on Friday, March 1, and Monday, March 4, will be processed on Tuesday, March 5.
The outage will affect ULS Application Search, License Search, License Manager, Tower Construction Notification System, E-106 System, Antenna Structure Registration, ASR Application Search, ASR Registration Search, Application GeoSearch, 800 MHz, and Ownership Information Search.
Thanks, ARRLWeb
The official 2018 World Radiosport Team Championship documentary is now available for viewing online at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwf-2f0cbjk&t=807s>. It is narrated in German and contains English captions. You’ll want to download this and show at a future club meeting.
“Many thanks to DM6WAN and his team for producing this beautiful piece of documentation of an unforgettable event,” writes WRTC 2018 President Chrisian Janen, DL1MGB.