Clubs

The New England Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (NEST) will meet on-line and in-person on October 11, 2022 at 7 PM and feature “Cybersecurity for the Radio Amateur” by John Tarbox, WA1KLI. 

Cybersecurity is a hot topic with many companies being hacked and personal data being exposed. Hams can help protect themselves by taking simple precautions and being diligent. Particular concerns for hams are radios that they put on the internet for remote operation and Wi-Fi enabled devices. The unique needs of hams will be addressed. STARS members are encouraged to share their own approaches to ham cybersecurity in the meeting and to come prepared with questions about ham-specific cybersecurity.

John has been a ham since the 1960s and holds an Amateur Extra license. He has an MS in Computer Information Systems with a concentration in Cybersecurity from BU and has been Adjunct Faculty at York County Community College. John’s email address is WA1KLI@arrl.net.

The next [Algonquin Amateur Radio Club] meeting will be held in­ person on October 13 at 7:30 pm in the library of the 1st Lt. Charles W. Whitcomb Middle School, 25 Union Ave, Marlboro, MA. Enter from Agoritsas Drive next to police station and use Door #1 at rear of building.

The speaker for the October 2022 meeting will be Dennis, W1UE, on the topic “A Contesting Intro.” The presentation will cover :

• What is Contesting?
• What do you need to contest?
• How can you contest?
• Strategies for Contesting

The next BARS Zoom meeting on Wednesday, October 5 will feature Bob Phinney, K5TEC, President of Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (STARS). Join Bob Phinney, K5TEC, as he describes his STEM program at New England Sci-Tech in Natick.

Bob and his team just sponsored a highly successful ARISS Space Station contact at The BIG E multi-state fair in Springfield, MA on September 27. The event garnered much news and television coverage at the venue which attracts 1.5 million people during its 17-day run.

A dozen lucky students in Bob’s program got to ask questions of International Space Station pilot Bob Hines, KI5RQT, via a ground station in Belgium. Along with “Space Chat,” NESci-Tech is conducting a 12-month educational space science program that includes: 

• Amateur Radio License Course
• Model Rocketry workshops
• Air-Powered Rocketry
• Introduction to Basic Electronics
• Introduction to Arduinos Electronics
• Public Telescope Nights
• Morse Code Introduction
• Elementary Mathematics for Modeling Rocket Flight

Bob Phinney has a winning formula for engaging young people—and their parents—in an exciting program that has seen youths design payloads for high-altitude balloons and even NASA rockets! Come and hear how he does it.

BARS will announce the link to join the Zoom meeting before the meeting, but it will be posted to the BARS email list and should not be shared outside our Club. Are you on the email list? If not, please send an email to bars-subscribe@w1hh.org and then simply reply to the robot response from the server and you will be subscribed. Observing our Zoom meeting requires only a web browser and headphones/speakers. You do not need a webcam or microphone unless you want to speak or be seen. Before our meeting date, please go to https://zoom.us/test and see if it will function for you. If you have problems, we can try to assist – feel free to ask questions on the BARS email list. We are looking forward to “seeing” many of you on Wednesday 10/5 here at 1900 ET.

The Barnstable Amateur Radio Club will meet  in-person on October 3, 2022 at 7:00 PM at the Brewster Police Department Community Room, 631 Harwich Road (Rt 124), Brewster, MA 02631. In addition we will provide a Zoom link to the meeting. This month, Andy, KB1OIQ, will present “Linux in your Ham Shack.”

Northeastern University Wireless Club President Marty Sulloway, NN1C, writes on the NUWC mailing list:

Hi Folks!

The semester is really rolling.

This week we kick off our third workshop, and for the first time this semester, we’re having a technical speaker for our Thursday night meeting.

I’d like to share a bit about our club meeting this coming Thursday. The topic of the presentation will be an Introduction to SDR for Experimentation. David Goncalves, a former president of NU Wireless, will be the speaker. 

David Goncalves (NU BSEE ’04, W1EUJ) has been a ham and a wireless communications experimenter for 20 years – including work on satellites, radar, and software-defined and all-digital radio. During the day he is a Research Electrical Engineer working on a wide range of problems, from antenna development to autonomous vehicles, and wearable systems.

Software-defined radio (SDR) is the way forward in RF experimentation. Instead of physical circuits, expensive test equipment, and bench space, you can build and iterate with a single piece of equipment and open-source software. In this presentation, he’ll go through how SDRs work, the GNURadio SDR development environment, and run through an example of ‘hacking’ a remote control.

Last week over twenty-five students joined us for an introduction to schematic design using KiCAD. Our workshops are designed so you can participate in any of them without participating in a previous one. If you are interested in attending our PCB Design Workshop this Monday (9/26) at 7 pm in Dodge 470, please fill out the form here to sign up.

I hope to see you.

The Barnstable Amateur Radio Club (BARC) has been awarded a $25,000 grant from the ARRL Foundation to develop an amateur radio station at Camp Greenough to serve the Cape & Islands Boy Scouts of America.

The funds will allow the club to:

• construct, operate and maintain an Amateur Radio Station at Camp Greenough
• expose scouts, guests and leaders to Amateur Radio
• demonstrate the public and emergency capabilities of Amateur Radio
• provide Merit Badge training
• provide Amateur Radio license training and licensing exams

“BARC provided the initial commitment of funds. The club then received commitments of assistance from Eversource, Comcast, FEW LLC (general contractor), and Avery Electric.  No funding was required from the Boy Scouts of America or Camp Greenough for the project,” says BARC President Norm Cantin, WA1NLG.

“We are very excited about this opportunity to build a station at the Camp. We are meeting with the scout leadership this weekend to work out the details and to start the project.”

The Boston Amateur Radio Club will hold its September General Meeting on the Zoom Teleconferencing Platform on Thursday, September 15. The Zoom room will open at 7:00 pm for a period of socializing, and the meeting proper will begin at 7:30.

Our speaker is Clint Bradford, K6LCS, presenting “How to Work Amateur Satellites with Your HT.” You do not need 100W of transmit power nor expensive antenna arrays to work the FM voice amateur satellites! Many hams already have the necessary equipment to “work the birds.” This presentation will walk you through ALL the steps needed to successfully work several ham satellites – including the International Space Station.

Clint K6LCS has been a ham since 1994, and found his niche in the hobby: working amateur satellites with minimal equipment and telling ALL about it! He has served a liaison between NASA, the ARISS team, and schools coordinating amateur radio contacts between the International Space Station and students (and also orchestrated a wildly successful ARISS contact). Audiences have never found his presentation slides “wordy” nor dull. Trivia questions are included throughout the session – audiences are never bored.

For reference materials, Clint has created a support Web site at work-sat.com.The Web site has become a one-stop source for ALL the citations and equipment recommendations and software suggestions made in the presentation.

Professionally, Clint was sales manager for ADI / Premier Communications / Pryme, worked for a Motorola commercial two-way dealer a couple of years, and for Ham Radio Outlet a couple more. He resides in Jurupa Valley, California, with his wife, Karen, and their rescued lab, Freja (FRAY-ya).

This will be a “perfect storm” meeting, as the club President, Vice President, and Secretary will all be unable to attend, so there will be no business portion of the meeting.

73,

Joe Chapman NV1W / Secretary, Boston Amateur Radio Club

From ARRL News:

08/31/2022 – The new ARRL Foundation Club Grant Program, funded by a generous grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), has awarded $270,000 to radio clubs that participated in the first round of applications.

The Club Grant Program, introduced earlier this year, includes $500,000 to be awarded to radio clubs with projects that will have the most impact on amateur radio, the community, and the future of radio technology. The grants will fund transformative projects that encourage the growth of active amateur radio operators and training opportunities, education programs for student groups and schools, and club revitalization. A second round of applications to award the program’s remaining funding will open on September 7, 2022.

Twenty-four clubs were notified on Monday, August 29, that they are receiving grants. The ARRL Foundation received 128 applications in the first round, with requests totaling $1.74 million. The selection committee noted that it was difficult work deciding from many high-quality grant proposals considering the finite available funds. Radio clubs that did not receive grants in the first round may revise and resubmit applications in the second round.

An informational webinar will serve as an orientation to the program, providing information on how to apply. The webinar will take place on September 7 at 7 PM Eastern Time. Please register in advance to attend. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar:

Webinar: ARRL Club Grant Program | Round Two Kickoff
When: September 7, 2022 at 7 PM Eastern Time
Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PezTqPKCTzuwy58FWWgJ3A

The ARRL Foundation, established in 1973 by ARRL  The National Association for Amateur Radio®, administers the Club Grant Program. ARRL has long recognized that it is in the best interests of amateur radio to encourage and support amateur radio clubs. Clubs historically have recruited, licensed, and trained new radio amateurs and have provided the community setting for them to continue their education and training.

The new Club Grant Program will help clubs more easily provide and expand their important services. More information about the program can be found on the ARRL Foundation website at www.arrl.org/club-grant-program.

Norm Cantin, WA1NLG, writes on the Barnstable ARC mailing list:

I just received some terrific news. [The Barnstable Amateur Radio Club] will be receiving a $25k grant from the ARRL to build an Amateur radio station at Camp Greenough for the Boy Scouts of America!  BARC is extremely pleased to have received this grant from the ARRL to use for such a worthy cause. 

I would like to thank all the folks who helped prepare the Grant submission and look for everyone’s support to execute our plan flawlessly.  Congratulations all!

The BARC Board of Directors will meet this weekend to review our plan in preparation to receive the Grant and reporting requirements from the ARRL.  We will provide an update at the September membership meeting on Monday.

73, Norm
WA1NLG

John Iwuc, KB1VXY, writes on the Framingham ARA mailing list:

We have our first hybrid meeting of the autumn season this Thursday [September 1, 2022] at 7:00 pm at the main Framingham library.  After a short business meeting we will have a presentation by Adrian Zeffert, AB2IX, on the “Test Bench.”

This is a hybrid meeting. You can view it on Zoom by registering below.  But we will also have a meeting room with AV set up at the main Framingham library in the first room on the right as you come in from the parking lot. 

Even if you plan to come live, please consider registering as it helps with the head count.

John KB1VXY