Yankee Clipper Contest Club DMR Net, December 18, 2019 and Each Wednesday, 8 PM-9 PM

NE1B writes on the YCCC Reflector:

Reminder: YCCC DMR Net

When: Wednesday, 18 December 2019, 8:00pm to 9:00pm, (GMT-05:00) America/New York

Where: DMR TG NETAC1

View Event

Organizer: ne1b.c6awb@gmail.com

Description: YCCCers!

Join us every Wednesday evening at 8pm ET for contesting talk on the DMR repeater network. There are several methods to access the Net:

  • By RF
    Access via 2 meter or 70 cm DMR repeater.  See the list of 91 repeaters near you at http://nedecn.org  The frequencies are in the left menu “DMR Repeaters>New England”.  Use the NETAC1 talk group.
  • By Dongle or Hot Spot
    You can use openSpot, JumboSpot, ZumSpot, MMDVM
  • By EchoLink
    Get the software app on your smartphone or laptop at: http://www.echolink.org/  Contact KM3T or NE1B to put your callsign on the Access List.  Echolink node is K1QVC-L  Connect and RX B4 TX.

73 and see you there!

NOAA/NASA Panel Concurs that Solar Cycle 25 will Peak in July 2025

From ARRL Web:

The NOAA/NASA-co-chaired international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel has released its latest forecast for to forecast Solar Cycle 25. The panel’s consensus calls for a peak in July 2025 (±8 months), with a smoothed sunspot number of 115. The panel agreed that Cycle 25 will be of average intensity and similar to Cycle 24. The panel additionally concurred that the solar minimum between Cycles 24 and 25 will occur in April 2020 (±6 months). If the solar minimum prediction is correct, this would make Solar Cycle 24 the seventh longest on record at 11.4 years. In its preliminary forecast released last April, the scientists on the panel forecast that Solar Cycle 25 would likely be weak, much like the current Cycle 24. [Full story]

ARRL Rookie Roundup, December 22, 2019

ARRL Rookie Roundup <http://www.arrl.org/rookie-roundup>  events are for everyone, and they especially encourage those that are newly licensed or newly active to get on the air in a contest format. It’s aimed at Amateurs licensed for three years or less. This six-hour event is held three times per year (April, August and December). Rookies can contact anybody, while “Old Timers” make contact with only Rookies. Mentoring is a big part of this event!

The CW event is December 22. This is a change from its normal weekend, moved so there’s not a conflict with the ARRL 10 Meter contest <http://www.arrl.org/10-meter> .

Next Kids Day is Saturday, January 4, 2020

John Murphy, KB1PHN with nephew DannieFrom ARRL Web:

The first Saturday in January is Kids Day — the time to get youngsters on the air to share in the joy and fun that Amateur Radio can provide. Kids Day gets under way on Saturday, January 4, at 1800 UTC and concludes at 2359 UTC.

Sponsored by the Boring (Oregon) Amateur Radio Club, this event has a simple exchange, suitable for younger operators: First name, age, location, and favorite color. After that, the contact can be as long or as short as each participant prefers. Kids Day is the perfect opportunity to open your shack door and invite kids over to see what Amateur Radio has to offer.

Details are on the ARRL website. 

Eastern Massachusetts Hospital Net – Saturday 12/7/19 at 1000 AM ET

Good Morning Everyone,

We hope you all had a pleasant Thanksgiving, are ready for the winter weather and holiday shopping.

Net Control for the December 7th Net will be the South Shore Health Amateur Radio Group. The Net will commence at 10am utilizing the following repeaters in the order listed followed by the simplex frequency test on 147.42. After the simplex test we will return to the Plymouth Repeater for comments, announcements, and Net closing.

Plymouth 146.685 tone 131.8
Marshfield 145.390 tone 67.0
Boston 145.230 tone encode 88.5 tone decode 100.0
W. Bridgewater 146.775 dcs 244
Simplex 147.42 no tone

Regards,

John O’
K1JRO

South Shore Health Amateur Radio Group – W1SSH
55 Fogg Road, Box 42
South Weymouth, MA 02190

Boston Amateur Radio Club to Participate in SKYWARN Recognition Day, December 7, 2019

W1BOS/MQE operation, Blue Hills, December 6, 2003From Boston ARC’s The SPARC, November, 2019:

On December 7, 2019, and for the 17th consecutive year, [the Boston Amateur Radio Club] will once again participate in SKYWARN Recognition Day.  SRD is a joint event supported by the ARRL and the National Weather Service where weather stations and weather buffs from across the country contact each other for fun and to promote the SKYWARN Program. Our station, WX1BHO, will be located at the summit of Great Blue Hill in Milton, MA. For several decades, hams have assisted the National Weather Service by providing real-time reports of severe weather and storm conditions. Although the NWS operates a network of 120 Doppler radars to track severe storms, at greater ranges weather radar has a difficult time sampling conditions close to the ground. The information radio operators located near a storm provide plays a key role in aiding forecasters.

Stations will exchange signal reports, location and a brief description of the current weather at their respective locations (“sunny,” “partly cloudy,” “windy,” etc.). BARC will be on the air from approximately 0900 to 1500 local time. The event itself is a great way in a low-key environment to make HF contacts and get your feet wet in the HF Spectrum. In past years we have endured all kinds of weather including warm and cold days, clear and cloudy days, and yes, even a blizzard.

Currently, we expect to be operating on 2, 20, and 40 meters. We may add other bands and modes including CW on 15 meters.

Access to the summit is gained by a 20-minute hike from the base of Great Blue Hill located on Route 138 next to the DCR Trailside Museum or (if you arrive early in the day) by car. Further information is available by contacting Mark Duff, KB1EKN, at emgmgt@comcast.net. Joe Chapman, NV1W, will be unable to hike up this year, but will coordinate those who wish to walk up. Contact him at nv1w@arrl.net.

Cape Cod ARES Exercise 65 – “Black Autumn” A Success With Various ARES Groups in Eastern Mass Participating

On Saturday November 9th, the Cape and Islands ARES district held its Exercise #65 Operation “Black Autumn”. This was an emergency communications exercise based on a scenario of a cascading power blackout encompassing all of the northeast and mid-Atlantic states. The exercise would be for EOCs and home stations using VHF/UHF, HF, and digital modes.

The exercise ran from 10am-noon. In the Cape and Islands district, the following EOCs were active. The County Multi Agency Coordination Center (MACC), Falmouth EOC, Harwich EOC, Dukes County EOC (Martha’s Vineyard), Joint Base Cape Cod EOC, Falmouth Hospital EOC. This included several home stations on Cape and Nantucket, including several that were on HF using 75m, 60m, and 40m. The VHF/UHF part of the operation was conducted on simplex with no repeaters being used. Digital NBEMS was successfully conducted on VHF in the Cape area along with the new PAC ARES digital system.

Many EOCs off Cape in MA also participated on HF, VHF or both. These included the Marlboro and Stow EOC and several home stations. South Shore Hospital, as well as, The National Weather Service station were also on the air. Statewide HF net control was conducted by several amateur operators using 75m and an experimental attempt at 60M.

Results were acceptable overall. HF propagation was reasonable on 75m, but a bit sporadic at times, with capabilities that extended well into the morning as we often see at times of solar minimum. The 60m experiment seemed to work effectively and will be attempted again in future operations. VHF simplex worked out well in most areas and emphasized the importance of being able to communicate without the help of repeaters.

Participation was excellent including the off Cape areas. Our thanks to all the stations that participated. They are too numerous to list everyone, but just a few of the participating stations include:

Ted Robinson K1QAR HF operations
Marc Stern WA1R HF operations
Bob Glorioso W1IS Stowe area
John O’Neil K1JRO South Shore Hospital
Charlie Bresnahan K1CB Falmouth Hospital
SEC Rob Macedo and W1SHS-Stu Solomon WX1BOX NWS station
N1EM Marlboro Eric Williams KV1J
Barry Hutchinson KB1TLR and Don Arthur K1DCA Cape area HF
Mike Wodynski, K2LEK Nantucket HF
Chuck Cotnoir KB1IHU Dukes County EMA Martha’s Vineyard
Frank O’Laughlin WQ1O Barnstable County Multi Agency Coordination Center (MACC)

Our thanks to everyone for taking time out of their busy schedules to help in the exercise.
The Cape and Islands ARES district will be having its Winter ARES filed exercise in late January or early February.

Respectfully submitted,

Frank O’Laughlin WQ1O
Cape Cod and Islands ARES DEC

New Trusted QSL Application Version Released

Michael Keane, K1MK, writes on ARRL-LoTW@groups.io:

A new version of the Trusted QSL (TQSL) application — version 2.5.1 — has been released.

Signed installers are available for download at <http://www.arrl.org/tqsl-download>

This version of Trusted QSL (TQSL) is a maintenance release which corrects defect found since TQSL v2.4.7 was released. 

[2.5.1]

Corrects a defect discovered in v2.5 in which the entity name would not display correctly when only one certificate was present

[2.5]

Corrects defects from v2.4.7:

TQSL no longer displays a spurious error message about expired root certificates when installing a .tq6 file. (This was a rare situation that would happen when a root was within 24 hours of expiring.)

When editing an existing station location, TQSL no longer forces default values for information fields. Previously, TQSL would fill in fields like county or state. Setting those when creating a new station location is appropriate, but editing an existing location should not cause default values to be applied.

Correct ADIF output emitted by the embedded ADIF editor so the proper mode/submode formation is generated.


Michael Keane, K1MK
IT Manager
ARRL, The National Association for Amateur Radio™
225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111-1494 USA
Telephone: (860) 594-0285
email: mkeane@arrl.org

K1USN QRV for Veterans Day, November 11, 2019

K1USN QSL cardThe K1USN Radio Club will once again be on the air November 11, 2019, to celebrate Veterans Day to show their appreciation for those who have served. They anticipate opening up around 8:30 AM on the HF bands using SSB and CW until late afternoon.  Local hams are invited to visit them at the Watson Museum & Research Library, 85 Quincy Avenue in Braintree. 
 

K1USN QSL cards will be available for all contacts with K1USN. Send # 10 SASE to K1RV or DX stations QSL via bureau.

QSL via K1RV
URL: http://www.k1usn.com
Contact: Pi, K1RV
Email: k1rv@arrl.net

“Please drop by if you want to operate or just to chat and have some coffee. Let me know if you want to be added to the growing list. We will make room for everyone. This is a fun event and a wonderful way to those who served,” writes K1USN Radio Club’s “Pi” Pugh, K1RV. 

15-meter QRP FT8 Activity Night, Westford Vicinity

Greg Troxel, N1DAM, writes on the PART of Westford mailing list:

Without any claim to authority, I’m declaring QRP 15m FT8 activity night tonight (October 21, 2019), from 2000 to 2100 local.

I have worked a bunch of stations, including DX, but am puzzled at the relationship of sent to received signal strengths — I receive usually 20 dB worse reports than I send.  So I am guessing that if a few of us are on, with a closed band, and all with the same TX power, perhaps I can understand better.  And perhaps others can shake out their equipment.

To participate, just either answer people calling CQ, or call CQ yourself, somewhere in the 15m FT8 frequency.  It’s probably useful to upload to PSK reporter; someday someone might write code to analyze a group of people participating in an activity night like this.

If you participate, please send me (tonight)

  call, city/town, state, antenna type, tx power

(please try to use 5W if you can, but tell me what you actually used), and I’ll send a summary to the mailing list tomorrow.

I realize some of you can’t operate on 15m, and surely we can do this again on 10m, 6m, 80m, or someplace else on some other night, perhaps next Monday, or perhaps someone else can organize.

73 de N1DAM

Harvard Wireless Club to Participate in the ARRL School Roundup, October 21-25, 2019

Harvard Wireless Club official shieldAllen Liu writes on the Harvard Wireless Club mailing list:

As we mentioned in our previous meeting, we’re going to be participating in the ARRL school club roundup next week. For all you new technicians, you can operate on the global frequencies with one of us General or Extra licensees present, so you can get on the air at our next meeting Tuesday October 22 at 7:30 PM. Contesting is very cool and in this one everyone around the country will want to talk to us as a school club.  We should also have the promised radios ready for you by then.  Let us know if you want to operate at a different time from the 21-25th as well.

Several Eastern MA Stations QRV for JOTA, October 18-20, 2019

Several Eastern MA individuals/groups have registered to operate in the Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) festivities October 18-20, 2019:

Mark Hofstra, KA1YQC, will conduct operations on behalf of the Mayflower Scout Council from Franklin for the full weekend.

The Spirit of Adventure Council will be represented using Ryan Bardsley’s call sign, KC1EIL, from Manchester-by-the-Sea from October 18-20.

Don Burke, KB1LXH, will activate KC1TAC on behalf of the Narragansett Council from Camp Norse in Kingston on Saturday, October 19, only.

We wish the best of luck to these groups (and others who might not have registered)!

Northeastern Wireless Club to Participate in ARRL School Roundup, October 21-25, 2019

 

 

“The Northeastern University Wireless Club will be participating in the ARRL School Club Roundup next week. Come by the club space anytime next week to see us make contacts with other amateur radio school organizations around the world! Even if you don’t have a license, you can still participate under the supervision of one of our licensed members.” -via NEU mailing list

Two Foxes in Westford, September 22, 2019

John Salmi, KB1MGI, writes on the foxhunting list at 10:10 AM on September 22, 2019:

I placed out two fox boxes this morning.

One is the 2 meter 146.565 DTMF tone 2 to activate. The second one is a 70 cm 432.300 DTMF tone 2 to activate.
 
Both foxes are hidden in Westford at the Mass Audubon [Nashoba Brook Wildlife Sanctuary] off Rt 225 near Powers Road. 
 
I don’t know how long the batteries will last; maybe a few days.
 

W1HFN Fox is Active in Littleton, September 21, 2019

Barry Fox, W1HFN, writes on the foxhunting list on September 21, 2019 at 12:47 PM:

Located in the conservation land off Hartwell Avenue in Littleton, MA.  Frequency of 146.565 with a 30-second voice every minute, runs continuously, no need for a tone.

You will not hear it in the parking area as I have modified the antenna (actually a 52 ohm resistor) and the signal is really weak until you get quite close, more of a challenge this way?

I forgot the log, so if you find it either take a picture or describe the location.

Happy hunting!

73,
Barry – W1HFN

FP/KV1J QRV from Miquelon, IOTA NA-032, September 24-October 8, 2019

From the Algonquin ARC list and ARRL DX  Bulletin 037:
 
ST. PIERRE AND MIQUELON, FP–Eric Wiliams, KV1J, will be QRV as FP/KV1J from Miquelon, IOTA NA-032, from Tuesday September 24 to Tuesday October 8.  Activity will be on 160 to 6 meters using primarily SSB, RTTY and FT8 with some CW.  This includes some activity on the analog satellites, as well as being an entry in the upcoming CQ World Wide RTTY DX contest.  QSL to home call.
 

Newton-Wellesley Area D-STAR Net Begins

Frank Ventura, N1FMV, writes on Wellesley ARS, Middlesex ARC lists:

[…] We have received permission to hold a once weekly net on a DSTAR reflector. We would like to invite anyone who has access to  DSTAR equipment to join us every Monday night at 8 PM Eastern on the REF038C reflector. This will be a very informal net and no specific time limit or topic shall be enforced. Thanks, for reading and hope to hear from all who are interested.

K1SIG, Unlimited Rover, in ARRL VHF Contest, September 14-16, 2019

Sean Waite, WA1TE writes on the YCCC mailing list:

Alright…no minute like last minute. Chris KG6CIH and I have finally decided what our route for the contest is going to be.

Saturday:
FN34wa – Bradford Information Center
FN33xi – Sunapee High Point
FN43fb – Quincy Mountain

Sunday:
FN42fg – Westborough Water Tower (we may pick another FN42 site, depends on
where we end up Saturday night)
FN41cu – Apple orchard/cell site
FN31tx – Soapstone Mountain
FN32ou – Hogback Mountain

Times for this will be fuzzy. Maybe 2 hours at each site, maybe longer on
Sunday sites as we have more time.

Our setup:
6m – IC-7000, 100W to moxon
2m – IC-910H, 100W to 7el
1.25m – FT818 w/ Ukranian Xvrtr w/ amp, 130ishW to 9el
70cm – IC-910H, 75(ish)W to 11el
33cm – FT818 w/ SG Lab xvrtr, 3W to 11el
23cm – FT818 w/ SG Lab xvrtr, 2W to 14el
13cm, FT818 w/ SG Lab xvrr, 2W to 21el
9cm, FT818 w/SG Lab xvrtr, 3W to 45el

Nothing on 6cm, I didn’t get that gear working yet. Maybe I’ll get it together. Depends on whether or not I decide sleep is important before roving.

3cm I have 10mW to a small horn if I can pull some stuff together tonight. 1.2cm I have 0.1mW to an even smaller horn that is totally untested and might actually work.

As per usual, some of this gear is used but new-to-us and we’re pretty sure it’ll work but also who knows. We’ll be running as Unlimited Rover.

Good luck in the contest and 73,
Sean Waite, WA1TE