Rich Zack, KK1RZ, will present “Comparing all Five Digital Modes Found on New England Repeaters” at the Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society hybrid meeting on April 15, 2025 in Natick and online.

Biography: Rick was first licensed as a ham in 1966.  His late father was a ham, as is his son, K1DRZ.  Rick also holds an FCC First Class commercial license.  His career includes an RF consulting business; Chief Engineer for WCVB-TV in Boston; Chief Engineer of Television for WBIN-TV; VP of System Engineering for a high-end microwave equipment manufacturer; Land-mobile dealer and commercial repeater system operator; and Consulting Engineer for the FCC on the TV Spectrum Repack Project.  He recently retired as an IT System Administrator for Gunstock Mountain Resort.  Rick holds a USCG commercial Captain’s License and his hobbies include snowmobiling, boating, downhill skiing, hiking, and many diverse aspects of amateur radio.  Rick is currently President of the Central New Hampshire Radio Club.

The Nashoba Valley Amateur Radio Club‘s March meeting is Thursday, March 20th at 7:30 PM at the Pepperell Community Center (in Pepperell). We start gathering at 7 PM to socialize before the meeting starts. NVARC has a special treat in store for you at the March meeting.  Dale Clement, AF1T, will be talking about antennas.  NVARC has had Dale speak before, but we have enough new members and new hams that we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have him speak again.  Dale demonstrates practically and visually how and why antennas work.  Trust me: He’s entertaining, and you will learn a lot.  Do not miss this meeting!

The Board of Directors would also like to discuss possible plans for the N1MNX repeater system with membership, April elections of officers, Field Day in June, etc.  So please plan on attending the meeting.

If you need directions to the club meeting, please click <http://binged.it/smoogg> here and put your own address in box “A”.

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

Bruce, K1BG
978-772-2773 or  <mailto:bruce.blain@charter.net> bruce.blain@charter.net

March 18, 2025: “How to Become a POTA Hunter” by Harold Kramer, WJ1B.

Description: Parks on the Air, POTA, is one of the fastest growing and most popular programs in Amateur Radio today. This presentation will provide an overview of the Parks on the Air program and will emphasize the tools, techniques, and practices for becoming an effective POTA Hunter. Hunters are stations that are not operating in a park, but rather, usually at their home stations. Hunters are essential to the POTA program because without Hunters, the Activators, stations located in a park, would have no one to work!  

Bio: Harold retired eight years ago as the Chief Operating Officer of the ARRL and Publisher of QST. He still writes Product Reviews and Classic Radio columns. He is currently a volunteer at the ARRL Lab and a member of the ARRL Board’s Historical Committee. He is an avid POTA Hunter with over 2,600 confirmed parks.  Harold was first licensed as KN1ZCK at age 14. He spent his entire career in the cable television and broadcast industries. Before joining the ARRL, Harold was the Chief Technology Officer of Connecticut Public Broadcasting. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The University of Connecticut.  Here is a link to Harold’s website:  http://www.wj1b.com

Peter Morrison, AC1KY, will be speaking on “Aircraft Tracking with SDR” at the Wellesley ARS Meeting on March 18, 2025 at 7:30 PM at the Wellesley Police Station at 485 Washington St. (Route 16), Wellesley, MA. (Please park on the street, not in the police station parking lot.)

Aircraft Tracking using SDR will describe the ADS-B aircraft beaconing system, its development, and the use of low-cost RTL-SDR receivers to display aircraft data. Today, all aircraft worldwide are required to transmit ADSB signals.

The ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast) is like radar in the sense that it also provides surveillance information to a controller. However, the way it works is a bit different, which will be explained later. An ADS-B system can
be further explained as below:

A (Automatic): The system requires no action from either the transmitter (aircraft/pilot) or the receiver (air traffic
controller)
D (Dependent): It is dependent on aircraft systems to provide the data
S (Surveillance): The information from the system is used to identify an aircraft
B (Broadcast): The data from the system is continuously transmitted by the transmitter or the aircraft to any station with
proper equipment to receive it.

From https://simpleflying.com/ads-b-complete-guide/

The March PART meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, beginning at 7:30 PM at the Cameron Senior Center, 20 Pleasant Street, Westford, MA, and via Webex video conference.  For those attending via video conference, a meeting link is below; just click on the green button to join in.  You can join the conference any time after 7:00 PM to check out your gear or just rag chew until the meeting starts. Bear in mind that internet connectivity from the senior center may be unreliable.

 

Our guest speaker for the meeting is Tom Schiller, N6BT, who will be connecting via video conference from Arizona. Tom is the founder of Force-12 Antennas (now part of JK Antennas), and his topic is “Will it work?”, which describes looking at antenna design and components to see if the antenna will be efficient and, therefore, effective for us. There is a look at the construction and components of the fairly new Big Kansas Coil, plus other YouTube tests and two tests using our drones on a Buddi-Pole. There are also some suggestions along the way on magnetic loops.

 

All attendees are encouraged to bring donations of non-perishable food for the Westford Food Pantry.

 

See you Tuesday!

 

73,

George, K1IG

President, PART of Westford

MMRA Membership Meeting: Wednesday, 19 March 2025 ~7:30 – 9:30 pm

“FT8—An Update,” Larry Banks, W1DYJ

This is a Hybrid meeting: New England Sci-Tech + ZOOM

Location: New England Sci-Tech, 16 Tech Circle, Natick, MA

Members: log into your account on MMRA.ORG to obtain the Zoom information. Non-members: email: contact@mmra.org to request the information.

Bio: Larry first gave this talk in 2019. Since then a lot has changed and FT8 is now very popular. This talk will review the 2019 talk which discusses how to use WSJT-X and FT8, and will add some insights that Larry has discovered with the nearly 6000 contacts he has logged on FT8. Licensed in 1961 as novice KN1VFX, Larry became W1DYJ in 1966. After acquiring three degrees in EE from MIT, Larry was hired in 1969 by Hewlett-Packard Medical’s Cardiac lab in Waltham, MA, working on Electrocardiographs and then Cardiac Ultrasound systems. He moved to HP Medical Education in 1993, responsible for technical and project management training. When HP split apart, he became Agilent Technology’s global program manager for their Learning Management System. “Retiring” in 2005, he consulted for Avago (now Broadcom) on eLearning technologies through 2012. He now spends his time chasing DX and contesting in Woburn, traveling with his wife Maren, and attending many jazz and classical concerts. He is the net manager and newsletter editor for the MMRA, publications editor for HamXposition, and a member of the YCCC.

Tuesday, March 11: “The Highs and Lows of Aeronautical Mobile Operation” by Kim O. Peck, WA1PBU

Description: This presentation will cover details of aeronautical mobile operation from light aircraft. The material covered will be useful to pilots who wish to explore aero mobile, as well as to non-pilot-hams who may be offered a plane ride and who would appreciate tips, experience, and advice.

Bio: Kim Peck is an electrical engineer, was first licensed as a ham in 1971, and obtained his pilot’s license in 1975.