Clubs

New England Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society Online Meeting: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 at 7:00 pm: “CubeSatSim: The AMSAT CubeSat Simulator” by Dr. Alan Johnston, KU2Y.

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

Voting for the June QST cover plaque award has begun, and ARRL members can cast their votes.  Among the articles this month is “A Portable Two-Element 40-Meter Wire Beam” by PART member Bob, W1IS, and Bob, KC1DSQ, who presented their design at the May PART meeting.

Don’t delay… cast your vote now!

The North Shore Radio Association will hold its next meeting on May 17, 2021 at 7 PM.  Bryan Gudzevich, WO1VES, will present on Fusion.

Zoom conference information will be sent via the NSRA groups.io mailing list.  Contact Eric, KA1NCF, at ka1ncf -at- nsradio -dot- org to be added to the groups.io list.

Gordon West, WB6NOA, will will be the guest speaker at the May 13, 2021 Algonquin Amateur Radio Club meeting at 7:30 PM online via Zoom.  Other club business topics include election results, updates on May’s Hazmat Day and 2021 school watch, and discussion of hardware upgrades on the club K3.  

Gordon West has been teaching radio and electronics for more than 40 years. His fun approach to the material helps make learning a pleasure and easy to recall for testing. He is a convention speaker, DXer, teacher and author. WB6NOA has received the Hamvention,“Man of the year for 2006″ and also, “Instructor of the Year” by the ARRL. He is a Fellow of the Radio Club of America.

Ham Radio and Software Defined Radio – An Overview, Some History, and a Demonstration
Charles Miller KC1JUO

May 19, 2021 at 7:30 PM

Location: ZOOM — Members: login to the Minuteman Repeater Association webpage for the link; Non-members: send an email to contact@mmra.org

———-

Charles will share a bit about how he sees Ham Radio and Software Defined Radio as not only being connected but also fundamentally similar and complementary.  He will present an overview which is essentially his journey and perspectives of the topic.  The hope is to share why he finally got licensed, why he thinks the hobby is so fantastic, talk about a few radio frequency bands and describe how they are being used.  Charles will wrap up the talk with a demonstration of using software and hardware to compose and view frequency bands discussed.

Charles has been licensed since 2017 with the call sign KC1JUO.  During his many decades of tinkering, he has built and broken much.  He is a Gordon Engineering Fellow with a Computer Science degree from Boston University and a Master of Information Systems from Northeastern University.   His current career focus is on Cyber Systems Engineering, receiving his CISSP certification in 2019.  Having spent most of his career as a Technical Consultant prior to 2005, he joined Raytheon in 2005.  Raytheon has a long history of Ham Radio relevant technology:  Percy L. Spencer (W1GBE) was a critical part of Raytheon’s history and has been an inspiration for Charles for both Ham Radio and the exploration of Software Defined Radio.

Our feature presentation [on May 15, 2021 at 11 AM] will be from Dom Mallozzi, N1DM. He will present FT8 and FT4 as digital modes. Dom has been a ham for 48 years starting out in RI as WN1RFT.  He is currently active on CW during some contests and still likes to build equipment and is active on DMR, FT4, FT8 and satellites. Also, he is the radio consultant for Natick Police and Fire Departments for the past 30 years.

He retired in 2019 from Raytheon as a Principal Electrical Engineer specializing in the design and maintenance of test equipment. He worked at Raytheon plants in Waltham, Andover, Sudbury, and Marlboro over his 38 years with Raytheon.

After our feature presentation we will socialize and enjoy a virtual Spring lunch together.

Phil Erickson, W1PJE, writes on the NVARC mailing list:

We’re pleased to announce that the May [20, 2021 Nashoba Valley Amateur Radio Club] meeting will feature Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA, speaking on the topic “Cycle 25 Update and Understanding Space Weather”.  NVARC is very fortunate to have K9LA, who is in demand nationally and is a regular at Dayton Hamvention’s forum talks.  He also made presentations in 2021 both at K3LR’s Virtual Contest University and 4Z1UG’s QSO Today Virtual Expo.

Summary: Carl K9LA will discuss the predictions for and the progress of Solar Cycle 25, including what to expect in terms of propagation throughout 2021 and as Cycle 25 ascends. He will also review simple antennas for 15m, 12m and 10m as Cycle 25 ramps up. He will then briefly review websites with space weather data and how to tie this important data to HF propagation conditions. Finally, he will highlight real-time propagation websites that allow us to assess what’s happening right now.

Biography: Carl Luetzelschwab K9LA started his radio career as a short wave listener in the late 1950s. He received his Novice license (WN9AVT) in October 1961, and selected K9LA in 1977. Carl is a graduate of Purdue University and was an RF design engineer until his retirement in 2013. Carl enjoys propagation, DXing (he’s at the Top of the Honor Roll), contesting (he was NCJ Editor from 2002-2007), experimenting with antennas and restoring/using vintage equipment.

He and his wife Vicky AE9YL enjoy traveling, which has included DXpeditions to Syria (YK9A in 2001), to Market Reef (OJ0/AE9YL and OJ0/K9LA in 2002) and numerous trips to ZF (Vicky is ZF2YL and Carl is ZF2LA). Carl is currently the ARRL Central Division Vice Director. He has received the Bill Orr W6SAI Technical Writing Award, the YASME Foundation Excellence Award and the Indiana Radio Club Council Technical Excellence Award.

73

Phil W1PJE

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

Congratulations to PART of Westford member Bob, W1IS, who, along with Bob, KC1DSQ, have the lead article in the June 2021 issue of QST! Their article, “A Portable Two-Element 40-Meter Wire Beam,” describes an antenna that PART has used successfully in several Field Days.

ARRL members can cast their vote for the QST Cover Plaque award by visiting this site starting May 10.

New England Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society Online Meeting: Tuesday, May 4, 2021 at 7:00 pm – “Contesting” by Marty Sullaway, NN1C

Marty Sullaway is a 19-year-old radio aficionado living in Eastern Massachusetts. A lover of all things technical, his time in amateur radio has been spent designing and selling station automation hardware, teaching licensing classes, and pushing the limits in remote contesting. Marty has been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to pilot many larger contest stations, both as a single operator and as part of multi-operator teams. Marty will be a competitor at the World Radiosport Team Championship in Italy in 2022, and frequently operates from the Cayman Islands where he is a partner in maintaining a contest station there. Marty is a frequent digital content producer in amateur radio, acting as a frequent amateur radio club speaker, podcast guest, and has been published in The National Contest Journal as well as CQ Magazine, and various other media channels. Marty is currently a student at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is pursuing a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and works in mmWave radar systems and image processing. 

The next [Billerica Amateur Radio Society] Zoom Meeting will be Wednesday,  May 5, 2021 at 7:00 PM.

Our guest speaker will be Terry Stader, KA8SCP. Terry will give a presentation on the D-STAR digital mode which has been, and will be, a popular digital mode. I am sure Terry’s presentation will be interesting and informative, so please join us!

We will announce the link to join the Zoom meeting before the meeting, but it will be posted to the BARS email list .  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.

I am looking forward to “seeing” many of you on Wednesday 5/5 here at 1900.

Doug, N1WRN
President, Billerica Amateur Radio Society

The next Barnstable Amateur Radio Club meeting is April 20, 2021 at 7 PM on Zoom. 

Following the brief meeting, one of our newest members Don, KC1JPS, will speak about his experience resurrecting a 1990s GE Orion VHF public service radio to operate in the 2-meter amateur bands. The talk includes where they can found, how expensive they are, what is involved in programming them, adjusting them, etc.

For Zoom conference details, contact Rich Cady, N1IXF, at recady -at- att -dot- net.

Don Melanson, W1DM, writes:

Last night’s [April 15, 2021] Quannapowitt Radio Association Zoom meeting featuring the W1AW Video Tour turned into a surprise for a few of our members.  As the meeting was about to take place another ham operator signed into the meeting. His name is Skip Y. Sugimoto, JE2HCJ, from Japan.

It’s a funny story, according to Bob Reiser, AA1M, QRA club secretary. It seems when Bob was sorting his personal contacts for one of his upcoming ARRL awards he added Skip’s e-mail to our Zoom meeting invite without really knowing it. So Bob was quite surprised when Skip asked for the login.

Nothing was said to any of the members until Skip signed in. Skip started his day off by watching the video and then answered a few questions from some of the members. It was a very enjoyable evening by all the members and guests who attended. Skip was very impressed with the video and was welcomed by all.  Skip promised to keep in touch and possibly attend the next month’s meeting before he had to log out to go to work .

The QRA would like to thank the ARRL, Jeff Fox, K1GF, and W1AW Station Manager Joe Carcia, NJ1Q, for making the video. It makes a W1AW tour possible for those unable to physically visit.

The North Shore Radio Association will hold its next meeting on April 19, 2021 at 7 PM.  Steve Schwarm, W3EVE, will present on Public Service opportunities.

Zoom conference information will be sent via the NSRA groups.io mailing list.  Contact Eric, KA1NCF, at ka1ncf -at- nsradio -dot- org to be added to the groups.io list.