Month: February 2021

At its February 27, 2021 board meeting, the Framingham Amateur Radio Association voted to donate $500 to the Framingham Police Association, naming Sgt. Paul Patriarca, K1PMP, and family as beneficiary.  Patriarca’s Grafton home was tragically involved in a home fire; thankfully, no one was hurt.  

According to FARA president John Iwuc, KB1VXY, “Paul received his technician class license through FARA and periodically attends the Saturday morning Shack openings.”

Two club members agreed to donate $100 each to FARA to help defray this cost. 

“Pi” Pugh, K1RV, writes in K1USN “Happenings”, February 25, 2021:

Maybe you just received your Technician license, or perhaps you have had it for a while and burnt out on sparse FM Repeater contacts. Take a new look at the possibilities available to you beyond repeaters. Explore Tech HF and 6 Meter privileges for SSB, CW and Digital Modes (FT8/FT4/RTTY) to expand your operating modes and the distance covered in contacts. Explore other VHF/UHF uses, including SSB, Satellite Operation, FM Simplex, Digital Modes, Contesting, and more.

We are fortunate to have Anthony, K8ZT, back with us as we kick off the month of March.

This presentation will be of interest to everyone as well as for Technicians. There are many Hams who may have gotten licensed years ago and have just not found the time or guidance needed to assemble a station to get on the air. There are also many others who have perhaps gotten into a “rut” of just following the same pattern of operating over and over again without change.

Anthony has a great way of presenting his thoughts which should give us all a chance to hit the Refresh Button!

Here is one of Anthony’s recent presentations for the 2021 Virtual  Hamcation about operating in State QSO parties – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-QEsCw6Nj4

If you have previously received our K1USN Zoom invitations then you are already on that list and will receive your Zoom invitation on Sunday for the March 2nd session. If you would like to be added to that list or you know someone else who might like to join us, please contact me (k1rv@arrl.net) to be added to the K1USN Zoom invitation list. We do ask that you do not share the Zoom invite information which will help us to minimize the possibility of “Zoom Bombing” issues.

By the way, I know that I’ve mentioned Anthony’s website before, but every time I visit it I become even more impressed at the vast amount of resource material available – http://www.k8zt.com/

Check it out and I guarantee that you will be impressed!

Dom Mallozzi, N1DM, will present the “History of Radio in Maine back to World War I” on Tuesday, February 23, 2021 at 19:00 ET.

This talk is a discussion of historic radio sites in Maine from World War One through the 1960s. This discussion includes some radio sites that have long disappeared but had a major influence on radio, like the site of the first major commercial use of single sideband. As with any such history discussion, we will also cover a few technical details on the progress of technology over the years from long waves to satellites.

For Zoom conference information, email Bob Phinney, K5TEC, at bobphinney -at- nescitech -dot- org or call 508-720-4179.

Ron Senykoff, KG1T, President, Waltham Amateur Radio Association writes:

Please join the Waltham Amateur Radio Association  at 8 PM on February 24, 2021 in welcoming John Langner, WB2OSZ, for a presentation on Dire Wolf APRS Software.

John is one of the main developers of Dire Wolf.  In the early days of Amateur Packet Radio and APRS, it was necessary to use an expensive “Terminal Node Controller” (TNC) with specialized hardware. Those days are gone. You can now get better results, at lower cost, by connecting your radio to the “sound card” interface of a computer and using software in place of the traditional TNC.

Dire Wolf is a software “soundcard” AX.25 packet modem/TNC and APRS encoder/decoder. It can be used stand-alone to observe APRS traffic, as a tracker, digipeater, APRStt gateway, or Internet Gateway (IGate). 

Some links to look at before the meeting if interested in the tech:

• About Dire Wolf: https://packet-radio.net/direwolf/
• WB2OSZ’s Github: https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf
• Building an iGate: https://ww8tf.club/building-an-aprs-igate/

BEST 73 DE KG1T

Waltham Amateur Radio Association President Ron Senykoff, KG1T, has established a Google form signup page to allow non-WARA members to sign up for online meeting notifications “while giving us protection against ‘Zoom bombers.’” Please visit https://walthamara.org/meetings/ to find the sign up form.

The Nashoba Valley Amateur Radio Club’s February meeting is Thursday, February 17, 2021 at 7:30 PM. This meeting will be conducted via Zoom. Meeting details are below. Thanks to Jim Hein, N8VIM, and Medtronics for the Zoom conference. I apologize for such late notice.

The February meeting will feature Brint Ferguson, W3NOZ, who will speak on radar and stealth technologies.

Thanks and 73. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Bruce, K1BG

978-772-2773 or bruce.blain@charter.net 

Doc Kinne, KE1ML, writes in the Boston ARC Sparc February, 2021 newsletter:

The Boston ARC will be holding a general meeting on Thursday, February 18, at 7:30 p.m. on the Zoom teleconferencing platform. Morgan Johnstone, KB1ZFP, will be highlighting changes and possibilities for the BARC website. 

Dan Brown, W1DAN, writes in the Wellesley ARS Spark Gap:

I will email a Zoom meeting invite link before the meeting. Also, if you are not by your computer, you can call in to the meeting via telephone.

He will present on, “Introduction to working Satellites.

For Zoom  login information, please send an email to Don, W1DM (at) arrl.net.

The North Shore Radio Association will hold its next meeting on February 15, 2021 at 7 PM. 

Zoom conference information will be sent via the NSRA groups.io mailing list.  Contact Eric, KA1NCF, atka1ncf -at- nsradio -dot- org to be added to the groups.io list.

George Allison, K1IG, writes on the PART of Westford mailing list:

The two Bobs, [PART of Westford] member Bob Glorioso, W1IS, and Bob Rose, KC1DSQ, just can’t stop writing!  Not content to have an article in December CQ magazine, they now have an article in the January issue of CQ titled “Baluns Basics” that describes what baluns are, how they work, and how to make them. Settle in to your easy chair, because the article is six pages (!) long, with lots of pictures and graphics. As usual, it’s well-written and very readable.

I note with some amusement that right in the middle of their article is full-page ad for LDG baluns — so you have a choice: you can a) buy a balun without knowing what it does or how it works (boo!) or b) build your own with full knowledge of what’s happening inside (hooray!). The choice is clear!

I’ve heard that there may be more articles coming in the months ahead. Well done to the two Bobs for improving the state of ham radio art and science!