a field organization of the National Association for Amateur Radio®
From ARRL Web:
The Foundation for Amateur Radio Inc. (FAR) has invited applications for the 2020 – 2021 academic year for the scholarships it administers. Applications must be submitted via the online form. Several questions ask for essay responses. The deadline for initial submissions is April 30, 2020. Applicants may amend their applications until May 7. [Full story]
The Whitman Amateur Radio Club‘s next meeting on February 5, 2020 will feature a special presentation by Fred Hopengarten, K1VR, ARRL New England Division Director. The meeting will start at 7:00 PM.
Mr. Hopengarten was first licensed in 1956 and has been an ARRL member continuously since. He is a Life Member, and makes annual financial donations to the League. Instead of enjoying his early life, he spent nine years to graduate from Colby, Boston College Law School, and Harvard Business School. He is a practicing lawyer. He wrote the ARRL book, “Antenna Zoning for the Radio Amateur.” He likes 160 CW, multi-op contesting, and travel.
WARC has invited members from two nearby radio clubs–the Genesis Amateur Radio Society and the Massasoit Amateur Radio Association–as their guests to attend this special presentation.
WARC holds a winter flea market, conducts licensing classes, and participates in a number of high-profile public service events. Meetings are held at the Whitman Knights of Columbus Hall on route 18 just south of the Abington line.
“Pi” Pugh, K1RV, writes on the K1USN mailing list:| FYBO Winter QRP Sprint | ||
| Status: | Active | |
| Mode: | CW, SSB, Digital | |
| Bands: | 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10m | |
| Classes: | Single Op (Home/Field) Multi-Single (Home/Field) Multi-Multi (Home/Field) |
|
| Max power: | 5 watts | |
| Exchange: | RS(T) + (state/province/country)+ name + power out + temperature(F) | |
| Work stations: | Once per band segment per mode | |
| QSO Points: | 1 point per QSO 100 points per QSO with NQ7RP per mode per band |
|
| Multipliers: | state/province/country once per band Field: x4 Alternative Power: x2 QRPp (<1W): x2 Temperature: 65F=x1, 50-64F=x2, 40-49F=x3, 30-39F=x4, 20-29F=x5,<20F=x6 |
|
| Score Calculation: | Total score = (total QSO points x spc mults x temp mult x alt pwr mult x field mult x QRPp mult) + NQ7RP QSO points | |
| E-mail logs to: | fybo[at]azscorpions[dot]org | |
| Upload log at: | http://www.qrpcontest.com/ | |
| Mail logs to: | Mike Baker, K7DD 8845 W. Diana Ave. Peoria, AZ 85345 USA |
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| Find rules at: | http://arizonascqrpions.apps- |
|
Logs due: Mar 5
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning for some fun on the air at K1USN! We expect to begin setup around 8:30 AM.
John O’Neill-K1JRO, ARES-DEC Healthcare Liaison, writes:
Hello Everyone,
Net Control for the February 1, 2020 Eastern MA Hospital Net will be K1JRO, John O’Neill. The net will commence at the usual time of 10:00 AM using the following repeaters in the order listed.
1. Sharon 146.865 tone 103.5
2. Marshfield Repeater 145.390 tone 67.0
3. W. Bridgewater 146.775 DCS 244
4. Sharon 146.865 tone 103.5 (For comments and NET closing)
NET Protocol: Please wait for Net Control to ask for Check-ins. When asked to check in please use the standard net check-in procedure which is: Here is.., un-key, wait 3 seconds to check for doubling, then give your or your facilities call sign, your first name, and your facility’s name.
We extend an invitation to any health care facility or EOC of any city or town that is served by one of the participating hospitals to join the Net. We also extend an invitation to any RACES or ARES member to check in during the NET.
We are always looking for groups or organizations to try their hand at Net Control duties. If you are interested in joining the group please let us know. We can be reached by sending an email to ssharg@outlook.com. The goal is to rotate Net Control practice and the experience among as many individuals and groups as possible.
South Shore Hospital Amateur Radio Group seeking licensed Amateur Radio Operators to join their group. For information on joining us please contact Amy Parker in Volunteer Services at AParker@southshorehealth.org
We thank the repeater trustees for their generosity in allowing us to conduct the monthly nets and the use of their systems in an actual event. The following list of repeaters is available for our use. Only a few systems are used each month with the selection of those used made by Net Control for that month. More systems are being added to the list on a regular basis.
Repeaters
Attleboro 147.195 tone 127.3 (Sturdy Memorial Hospital)
Belmont 145.430 tone 146.2
Boston 145.230 tone encode 88.5 tone decode 100.0
Bridgewater 147.180 tone 67.0
Danvers 145.47 tone 136.5
Dartmouth 147.000 tone 67.0
Fall River 146.805. tone 67.0
Falmouth 147.375 tone 110.9
Mansfield EMA 446.925 tone 100.0
Mansfield 147.015 tone 67.0
Marshfield 145.390 tone 67.0
Norwood 147.210 tone 100.00
Plymouth 146.685 tone 131.8
Salem 146.88 tone 118.8
Sharon 146.865 tone 103.5
Weymouth 147.345 tone 110.9 (South Shore Hospital)
W. Bridgewater 146.775 dcs 244
Wrentham 147.09 tone 146.2
We look forward to hearing from you all on the Net.
Respectfully,
John O’Neill K1JRO
President, South Shore Health Amateur Radio Group
ARES – DEC Healthcare Liaison
The Framingham Amateur Radio Association will hold its monthly meeting on Thursday, February 6, 2020. Adrian, AB2IX, will be presenting on 3-D printing. Come for this very interesting and timely talk.
FARA meets the first Thursday of the month (except in July and August), 7:30 pm at the Framingham Police Station, 1 William Welch Way (corner of William Welch Way and Union Ave) in the first floor training room. Enter through the front door on Union Ave. and the room is to the left. All area hams and those not yet licensed but interested in amateur radio are welcome to attend.
The January, 2020, Section Newsletter is now available at https://ema.arrl.org/january-2020-section-news/.
The Barnstable Amateur Radio Club will hold its monthly meeting on Monday, February 3, 2020 at 7:00 PM in the Dennis Police Department conference room in Dennis, MA. Entrance to the meeting area is to your right after entering through the main entrance.
BARC meets on the first Monday of each month unless otherwise noted.
All radio amateurs and people interested in Amateur Radio are welcome to attend. BARC members will receive a written call to meeting with more detail and a meeting agenda.
Bob DeMattia, K1IW, writes:
I am pleased to announce that the Northeast HamXposition (formerly Boxboro!) is MOVING!
The 2020 Northeast HamXposition will be held July 24th, 25th, and 26th at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel & Trade Center, conveniently located in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
The new venue offers us much-needed additional capacity for forums, a larger flea market, and ample parking right in the hotel’s main lot. For those staying at the convention hotel, your room rate includes a complimentary breakfast buffet. We will announce very soon when the hotel is accepting reservations.
For those that like to take a step away from the convention, the Marlborough location has tons to offer, including dozens of restaurants in the immediate vicinity, as well as the new APEX Entertainment Center on Route 20 adjacent to the hotel.
The Northeast HamXposition convention committee members are looking forward to our new home and hope you are too. Stay tuned for additional developments!
73,
Bob DeMattia, K1IW
Chairman
Northeast HamXposition 2020/The ARRL New England Convention
Andy Wallace, KA1GTT, writes on w1hh.org:
Everyone, please mark your calendars for the next [Billerica Amateur Radio Society] meeting: Wednesday, February 5, 2020. Our speaker that evening will be Mike Raisbeck, K1TWF, who was just elected as First Vice President of the American Radio Relay League.
Meetings begin promptly at 7:00 PM, first Wednesday of the month. Our meeting location in Chelmsford is at:
Chelmsford Bible Church
128 Gorham St. (Route 3A)
Chelmsford, MA 01824
Please park in back and enter by the rear door. A map can be accessed by the “Club Meetings” notice on the right side of the website.
The Billerica ARS encourages members to get on the air! (GOTA). There are many exciting operating events over the coming cold months to enjoy. Let us know what you’re interested in.
Bring a friend (or aspiring ham) and join us!
Note: The weekly BARS Wednesday night net will not meet on this evening because of the club meeting. Members are encouraged to get on Billerica (147.12) on their way to/from the meeting instead.
The Falmouth Amateur Radio Association will hold its next meeting on January 30, 2020, at 7:30 PM at the Falmouth Fire Department, 399 Main Street, Falmouth, MA 02540 (map). All are welcome.
FARA was founded in 1931. FARA, Inc. is a 501 C(3) non-profit, Massachusetts corporation, an ARRL affiliated organization and an ARRL Special Services Club.
Brian McCaffrey, W1BP, writes on the PART of Westford mailing list:
Thank you to everyone that helped make our Winter Field Day a success. Alan’s sign-in log indicates 12 attendees.
On Friday, George and Alan helped get Bob’s 80m OCF antenna and tent up. On Saturday, Niece, Alan and George helped get the station running. Bob, W1FDR spent at least 4 hours at the mic getting phone QSOs over the two days. Andy and John worked CW in the evening. Alan and John did an awesome job serving as WSC attendants to fulfill our obligation to have a WSC member on-site at all times.
The log shows 158 QSOs. With 4,500 bonus points for outdoor, away from home, and generator power, our total claimed score is 7,508. Looking at the 2019 1O results, that would have been a top-10% result in the 1O category. We’ll see how we do when the actual scores are published for 2020.
We collected lessons learned at the event which we will share at the February membership meeting. If you have any comments or suggestions, please share them with me and I’ll brief them at the meeting.
We’re on to WFD 2021!
73,
Brian
W1BP
The Algonquin Amateur Radio Club will meet on Thursday, February 6, 2020–a week earlier than normal–due to the flea market occurring the following week on February 15.
The club’s flea market will be discussed. Also, there may be a speaker (to be determined).
AARC meetings are held at 7:30 PM in the library of the 1st Lt. Charles W. Whitcomb Middle School in Marlborough, 25 Union Avenue. Use Door #1 at rear of building.
Frank-O’laughlin-WQ1O, Cape Cod ARES District Emergency Coordinator writes:
Cape Cod and Islands ARES conducted its annual winter field exercise on Saturday Jan 25th. We had 3 field teams, several EOCs, Falmouth Hospital, and many other stations We used 2m VHF, 6m, UHF, and 40/75m HF. It was a good outing with several new members participating.
Rob Macedo-KD1CY, Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator, writes:
This was a great exercise executed by Cape Cod ARES yesterday, Saturday 1/25/20. A number of off Cape stations also participated. Some reports on the exercise have also been received and a sampling is listed below:
K1WCC-Henry Brown – Cape Cod ARES Assistant DEC Exercise Report
Marlborough EMA and ARES Drill Report from KV1J-Eric Williams
KD1CY-Rob Macedo ARES SEC Home Station Report
WQ1O-Frank also posted a Facebook post of the Cape Cod ARES exercise in action with pictures and that can be seen here:
Cape Cod ARES 1/25/2020 Exercise Facebook Post
Many thanks to those in Cape Cod and Eastern Massachusetts ARES who made this exercise a success!
Respectfully Submitted,
Robert Macedo (KD1CY)
ARES SKYWARN Coordinator
Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)
Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)
Work Phone #: 508-346-2929 (8 AM-5 PM)
Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com
http://ares.ema.arrl.org
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From the New England Sci-Tech leadership team news, January 26, 2020:
Members of the Natick High School Robotics Team took a crash course at New England Sci-Tech [on January 20, 2020] and we now have eight new youth licensed Technicians! Team members pose with their captain, Nolan, KC1IEO.
The Waltham Amateur Radio Association will hold its monthly meeting at 7 PM on January 29, 2020 at the New York Life building, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA.
Directions: From beautiful downtown Waltham, stay on Main St. where it forks right onto Route 117. Jones Rd. is the 2nd left after the bridge over Route 128/95. New York Life is a six story office building at the end of Jones Rd. Turn right immediately before the building into the main parking lot. If nobody is at the door to let you in, knock on the conference room window to the right of the door, or call us on 449.075 MHz. (Google Map)
Talk-in is available on the Waltham 449.075 or 146.640 MHz repeaters.
From the ARRL VE Newsletter, January 2020:
The new Amateur Extra class license examination question pool, effective from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2024, has been released and is available at the National Conference of Volunteer Coordinators (NCVEC) website.
The 2020 – 2024 Extra class pool incorporates significant changes compared to the current 2016 – 2020 question pool, which expires on June 30. The number of questions in the pool was reduced from 712 to 622. The result was 239 modified questions, 49 new questions, and 139 questions removed due to changes in what was felt to be an abundance of outdated questions, while areas of new technology and subjects were added.
In addition, an effort was made to balance the difficulty level, removing or replacing some questions deemed too easy or too difficult compared to the rest of the pool. The 2020 pool has 10 diagrams, which have been renumbered because the new Question Pool has two fewer than the 2016 Question Pool.
The ARRL Board of Directors has elected Mike Raisbeck, K1TWF, of Chelmsford, Massachusetts as First Vice President during its recent meeting January 17-18, 2020 in Connecticut.
According to the League’s web site, “[Mike] was first licensed in 1961 as KN1TWF, becoming K1TWF in 1962, and has held that call ever since. His home club is the Billerica Amateur Radio Club [sic], where he has held various posts. On the air activities include DXing, contesting, and recently, caring for a DMR repeater in the attic. He is a Volunteer Examiner and a Volunteer Counsel.
“Of particular interest to Mike are the social and organizational aspects of the Amateur Radio. For over 20 years he has been serving on the Board for the ARRL New England Division Convention, and he is currently president of that organization, which runs an annual convention and funds a number of scholarships to young hams every year. ”
Raisbeck’s election to his new post leaves the office of New England Vice Director–a position in which he previously served–vacant for the present.
You can read more about K1TWF on the League’s web page at: http://www.arrl.org/first-vice-president.
The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Program is seeking formal and informal US education institutions and organizations, individually or working together, to host an Amateur Radio contact with a crew member on board the ISS. ARISS will open a proposal window February 1, 2020 for ham radio contacts that would be held between January 2021 and June 2021. Crew scheduling and ISS orbits will determine the exact contact dates. To maximize these radio contact opportunities, ARISS is looking for organizations whose proposal features a way to draw large numbers of participants and integrate the contact into a well-developed education plan. The window for accepting proposals closes March 31, 2020.
Proposal information and documents are at www.ariss.org.
The Opportunity
Crew members aboard the International Space Station will support scheduled Amateur Radio contacts for students and their communities. These radio contacts are voice-only, approximately 10 minutes in length and allow students to interact with the astronauts in a question-and-answer session. ARISS radio contacts and plans in submitted proposals can afford education audiences the opportunity to learn firsthand from astronauts about space research conducted on the ISS and what it is like to live and work in space, and to learn about ham satellite communication, wireless technology, and radio science. Because of the nature of spaceflight and complexity of scheduling on-board ISS activities, education organizations must demonstrate flexibility to accommodate changes in dates and times of a radio contact. Local ham radio groups volunteer to provide educational radio activities and the equipment and operational support to enable communication between the ISS crew and students using Amateur Radio.
More Information
For proposal information and more details, i.e., expectations, proposal guidelines and proposal form, go to www.ariss.org. Please direct any questions to ariss.us.education@gmail.com .
About ARISS:
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the International Space Station (ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the American Radio Relay League (ARRL, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the ISS National Lab, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students in classrooms or large public forums. Before, during and after these radio contacts, students, educators, parents, and communities learn about amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org.
Have you ever wondered what an antenna actually does? Why all those big pokey things on top of many tall buildings look the way they do? How we’ve engineered the ability to radiate electromagnetic waves across continents and oceans? If so, join us this Friday to hear about:
Antennas for Amateur Radio: Everything is a Dipole
(except when it’s a loop)
Friday, January 24th at 5:00 PM at MIT in room 4-270
Kiersten Kerby-Patel, University of Massachusetts at Boston
Hosted by the MIT Radio Society
Part of the IAP Radio Lecture Series <http://w1mx.mit.edu/iap/2020/
DINNER (Pizza) will be provided
Northeast HamXposition 2019 General Chair Mike Raisbeck, K1TWF, writes to convention vendors and exhibitors on January 23, 2020:
To all our vendors, past, present, and (we hope) future:
Northeast HamXposition at Boxboro, the New England ARRL Division Convention, is now four months behind us. The 2019 show went well. The gate remained steady. Attendance at the banquets, forums, and flea market was solid, and there were many smiling faces. We have a formula that works well.
So now it’s time for us to raise the bar. Some big changes are coming to the Northeast HamXposition.
The biggest is a change of date and venue. Going forward, the Northeast HamXposition will be held at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel & Trade Center, 181 Boston Post Rd., Marlborough, MA, on the 4th full weekend of July. This year, the dates are July 24, 25, and 26. Reserve that weekend – we have it nailed down for the next 5 years at least.
Why change? There are several reasons:
We’re scrambling to update our forms and procedures. I’ll be sending out another message shortly, as soon as these are all in order.
Please reserve the date, July 24-26. We would love to see you there!
73,
Mike Raisbeck, K1TWF
Northeast HamXposition vendor chair
k1twf@hamxposition.org
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