a field organization of the National Association for Amateur Radio®
Radio clubs
The Whitman Amateur Radio Club will hold its Winterfest on January 18, 2020 from 9 AM until 1 PM at the Knights of Columbus Hall, Route 18, in Whitman. A VE testing session will be conducted at the event. Admission is $5; tables cost $15. Raffle prizes will be drawn at noon. Talk-in will be provided on the Whitman ARC repeater: 147.225Mhz+ PL67. For vendor information, call: 781-523-5010 or visit http://www.wa1npo.org/WF/WinterfestFlyer2020.pdf.
Bill Kretschmer, N2KNL writes on the Pilgrim ARC Facebook page:A number of Eastern Massachusetts clubs are holding holiday dinners and informal parties in lieu of their December meetings.
The Waltham Amateur Radio Association will hold a festive holiday dinner at Sichuan’s Garden in Waltham on December 18.
The Middlesex ARC/Zola Center ARC will also converge on Sichuan’s Garden on December 10 for their annual holiday get-together.
On December 7, Wellesley Amateur Radio Society will gather with members of the New England Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (STARS) for a holiday gathering. They plan to invite members of the Natick High Robotics Team, the Olin Collegiate Amateur Radio Club and the Framingham Amateur Radio Association.
PART of Westford will hold its annual holiday dinner and gift swap on December 17 at the Yangtze River Restaurant in Littleton.
The Pentucket Radio Association has announced it will hold its annual Christmas Dinner on December 19 at the China Buffet in Methuen.
Algonquin Amateur Radio Association members will meet on December 12 for their annual club banquet at Linquine’s restaurant in Marlborough.
The Cape Ann Amateur Radio Association holds its Christmas Party at the club house in Gloucester on December 14 . According to CAARA’s W1WMM, “We need a group effort to help clean the main meeting room and tables before and after the party . We also need a group effort in the kitchen to heat and serve the meal.”
KB1NYT writes on the bcra-club list on December 1, 2019 at 8:12 PM:
Tomorrow night’s meeting is cancelled due to the weather.
The Bristol County Repeater Association and Fall River Amateur Radio Club will hold its monthly meeting on Monday, December 2, 2019 from 7 to 9 PM at the Stop and Shop, 816 Grand Army Highway, Somerset, MA in the Community Room (2nd floor).
(Enter on the Fall River side near the Dunkin Donuts in the store. The stairs and elevator will be on the right. Go left on second floor.)
Andy Wallace, KA1GTT, writes on w1hh.org:
I am very happy to announce [the next December 4, 2019 Billerica Amateur Radio Society] meeting will showcase Terry Stader, KA8SCP, who will talk about Emergency Communications in Eastern Massachusetts. Many of you follow this topic and even volunteer for emergency comm drills. Past presentations about EmComm have been great attractions and I hope the turnout for Terry’s talk will gather a crowd.
Terry is the MEMA Region 1 RACES Officer, as well as an EMA ARES District Emergency Coordinator for Region 1 RACES. Does that sound like alphabet soup to you? Then come and learn what each organization does!
[Full story]
From the New England Sci-Tech Facebook page:
Members of Olin College‘s new amateur radio club visited New England Sci-Tech on Tuesday night, joining members of the Framingham Amateur Radio Association, Wellesley Amateur Radio Society and host group, Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (STARS), in a casual meet and greet. STARS members Nolan Palmer, KC1IEO, and Mindy Hull, KM1NDY, assisted the Olin students in testing their antennas out in the parking lot. We look forward to collaborating with all these fine clubs!
Henry Brown, K1WCC, writes on the Falmouth ARA Facebook page:
Our local State Rep. Dave Vieira, KB1QND, will be present at Saturday’s [November 23, 2019 Falmouth Amateur Radio Association] meeting to explain the new hands-free driving law about to be signed by Gov. Baker. It’s important that we understand this law as it’s currently written.
[See also: MA Distracted Driving Bill, Call to Action]
The Genesis Amateur Radio Society will hold its next meeting on Monday, November 25, 2019 at 7 PM in the Plymouth Airport Community Room, 246 South Meadow Road, in Plymouth.
The club thanks the Plymouth Municipal Airport for their many years of support for allowing the use of their facilities for monthly meetings and annual Field Day events.
Bruce Bain, K1BG, writes:
The Nashoba Valley Amateur Radio Club’s November meeting will be […] Thursday, November 21st, at 7:30 PM at the Pepperell Community Center in Pepperell.
This month program will feature our annual “QSL sort” for the W1 QSL bureau. It’s personally my favorite meeting of the year. Grab some of your cards early, converse with other local hams, have some refreshments, and of course, sort a few cards! If you haven’t done this before and it sounds like a lot of work, you’ll find that this is actually the club’s most rewarding event. Pizza and soda follow when the sorting is finished.
Need directions? Click 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 bruce.blain@charter.net
From 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.
Greg Troxel, N1DAM, writes on the PART of Westford mailing list:
At the PART [of Westford] meeting on Tuesday (November 19), Paul Topolski, W1SEX will be speaking on test equipment and measurements for amateur radio, focusing on the utility of an oscilloscope beyond just measuring signals in a circuit. Paul will be bringing a lot of equipment to demonstrate.
Paul will probably be video recording his presentation (but not the social time before/after or the other meeting parts). I am guessing this is fine with everyone, but if not let me know. (I am mentioning it because it’s unusual at PART meetings, at least recently.)
After Paul’s talk, we’ll be hearing a few minutes each from:
Brian, W1BP: Winter Field Day
Frank, KC1HSC: 6-80 Meter BASIC-FMJ portable HF antenna show-and-tell
George, K1IG: boasting about our field day results
As always, if you’d like to be the speaker at a PART meeting (full 1h slot, or 20/30 minutes with someone else), please let me know. Please also let me know if you want to speak for more than 2 minutes (or present even one slide) as I also coordinate the secondary speaker time after the main speaker, trying to keep the meetings from ending too late. More information is at: http://www.lexort.com/blog/par
73 de N1DAM
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[PART meets at the Cameron Senior Center in Westford the third Tuesday of every month at 7:30PM. The Senior Center is located at 20 Pleasant Street in Westford, near the intersection of Pleasant Street and Oak Street.]
Charlie Bures, WA3ITR, writes in the Wellesley ARS “The Sparkgap” November, 2019 newsletter:
As part of the new collaboration between WARS (Wellesley Amateur Radio Society) and NEST (New England Sci-Tech in Natick), Charlie has proposed a NEST High Altitude Balloon (HAB) project.
What are the goals?
NEST mission is to help youth with STEM projects. As you recall, Charlie has previously done balloon launches with Natick HS and now, he is leading this new effort for NEST.
The goals are to get young people involved in a project, which has Amateur radio (an APRS tracker device) with STEM learning. They will learn about project planning, platform testing, launching, tracking, and recovery of the balloon and its payload, and flight data analysis. The platform will carry up to 3 GoPro cameras, a commercial GPS tracker, and the APRS tracker. A 20-foot tether connects the platform to the HAB balloon, which is filled with helium or hydrogen, and is about 8 feet in diameter at launch. The platform will weigh less than 4 pounds.
As the balloon ascends, the APRS tracker will provide location info, pressure, temperature, altitude and a few more items in its telemetry. At around 90,000 feet after a 2-3 hour ascent, the balloon will have expanded to over 30 feet in diameter when it explodes and the package starts its return to earth.
The parachute will deploy and the downward trip will take 30-45 minutes. Hopefully it will not land on a roof, pond, or the Mass Pike!! It needs to be recovered to collect the photos from the cameras. The STEM team will write a report on the whole project.
Proposed Budget
Here is a breakdown of the expected cost of an HAB. The kit is obtained from High Altitude Science (https://www.highaltitudescience.com/) who has perfected the items for a youth team, supervised by adults (if you can call Charlie an adult!)
1. HAB kit – $ 750
2. Extra balloon $ 30
3. Helium or Hydrogen $ 150
4. 3 GoPro like cameras $ 150
5. APRS tracker $ 250
6. Batteries $ 25
TOTAL: $ 1355 (approximate)
Of course, subsequent flights can be done more cheaply if the platform is recovered successfully. Then, you just need a new balloon and more helium!
Timeline
The project flyer is being designed and advertising to students will begin in late November through the end of the year. To give you a feeling of the project, here is a rough schedule as to the project activities:
1. November – Create flyer and start advertising
2. December – Sign up and order kit
3. January – start meetings, which are 2x/month at NEST
4. Late Feb/March – start assembly of the kit
5. March/April – flight planning and launch prep
6. May – tethered test prior to launch to ensure all systems are go
7. Late may – launch (likely from central or western MA)
8. June – data analysis and write report
The idea is not only to learn and have fun, but also to analyze the results and decide how the next flight should be done. For instance, radiation devices could be used or, perhaps, amateur live streaming of the flight and balloon burst could be added to future flights.
How you can help
I’d like to ask for your support in two ways. First, if there is anyone who would like to be involved in the meetings to learn, build, and assemble this platform, please let me know what you’d like to do. Second, I’d be grateful for any private donations of any amount or any general support of WARS. I know there are lots of worthy causes for your charity contributions, and I hope you can see the value of this STEM project for youth learning about ham radio and be able to offer some support – THANK YOU!
The Wellesley Amateur Radio Society will hold its November meeting on a different date than usual. The next meeting will be on Monday, November 25, 2019–NOT Tuesday, November 19. Presenter Bruce MacKinnon, KC1FSZ, will discuss homebrewing and the details of his home-made transceiver.Dan Pedtke, KW2T, writes:
TechNight is tomorrow night, Thursday, Nov 14th. 7:00 PM in Ayer as usual.
See www.DansTechNight.com for details and directions.
This month we’ll use SPICE circuit simulator in more detail, analyzing part of the TechNight Radio IF amplifier stages. Also I’ll talk briefly about my tour of the Museum of Broadcast Technology, and I’ll show the beginnings of a user interface for the TN Radio, and anything else you want to talk about.
Hope to see you there.
Michael Powell, W1KU, writes on the Algonquin ARC mailing list:
Our November meeting will be on Thursday at 7:30. I hope to see you there.
Our featured speaker will be Skip Youngberg, K1NKR, on “Radio Interference. ”
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Let’s talk about radio interference. Not RFI, not EMI, not EMC–but station-to-station interference. What is interference? What’s the “interference neighborhood?” Who’s protected? What classic cases are there that we can learn from? And what do we Amateurs do about it? “Radio Interference,” by Skip Youngberg K1NKR, is an evolving talk addressing these issues by looking at who our RF neighbors are and how we coexist with them.
Skip has been a ham since he was a teenager in 1960. In fact, Amateur Radio led him to his career. His resume includes suffering from, analyzing, causing, and protecting against interference. He served as an engineering officer in the Air Force for twenty-five years and in industry for an additional fifteen, building and analyzing systems in the fields of communications, navigation, and intelligence.
Whitman Amateur Radio Club members will operate a special events station over the Thanksgiving weekend, November 30-December 1, 2019, at the Plimoth Plantation, the home of the Mayflower II in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The participants will demonstrate Amateur Radio to tourists and visitors. In the past the group has logged over a hundred HF and VHF contacts with US and foreign amateurs, including a contact with Plymouth, England.
Volunteers are need for setup, breakdown, and station operations. Antenna and setup takes place on Friday, November 29 from 10 AM to 12 noon. On-air operations run in shifts on Saturday from 8:00 AM – 12:30 PM (shift 1); 12:00 PM – 4:30 PM (shift 2); Sunday at 8 AM – 12:30 PM (shift 1); 12:00 PM – 4:30 PM (shift 2). Antenna and station breakdown occurs from 3:45 PM – 5:00 PM on Sunday. ” Multiple volunteers are needed for each shift. Email wa1npo@gmail.com with your name, callsign, cell phone number and the shifts you’re committing to.
The station will be on the air on or near the following frequencies: 18.160 14.260 7.260 and 3.860, as well as the Whitman 147.225+ PL 67.0 repeater (EchoLink: WA1NPO-R and IRLP node 8691).
If you make contact and would like an event certificate mailed to you, please send QSL/contact details and a full size 8.5 x 10 envelope to their call book/QRZ.com address. A “green stamp” would be appreciated as well.
Nick Magliano, KC1MA, writes on the Mystic Valley Amateur Radio group mailing list:
The November meeting of the Mystic Valley Amateur Radio Group will be held on Sunday, November 17, 2019 @ 9 a.m.
The meeting will be held at the Milton Auxiliary Fire Department Station, 2nd floor, 509 Canton Ave. Milton, Mass.
The building is a little beyond the gazebo to the right of the Milton Fire Headquarters where we’ve held our Field Day Operations in past years. Local map is attached below as a post script.
We will be monitoring the 145.43 Belmont repeater for talk-in. Please feel free to email me with any questions. kc1ma at arrl dot net
73
Nick Magliano, KC1MA
P.S.
https://www.townofmilton.org/sites/miltonma/files/uploads/towncommontrafficdirectionfinal.pdf
Bob Phinney, K5TEC, writes in the New England Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (STARS) newsletter:
The NESciTech (NEST) collaboration with Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory and Science Center (BHO) is now fully underway. A crew of eight volunteers arrived on November 9, 2019 at Blue Hill to install the antennas and repeaters for the new Blue Hill radio club that the BHO science center is starting with the help of Bob and Rusty at NESciTech.
Thank you Ted for doing much of the tower work, Bob D. for doing most of the repeater configurations and antenna setup, Jeremy for high quality cable connector terminations, and everyone for all your help running coax, hauling equipment, and supporting Blue Hill’s educational mission and STEM collaboration.
The Blue Hill repeaters will link back to the STARS repeater at NEST in Natick, so talking on one opens all of them. Burlington is by itself for now. Repeaters are open to use by all hams, and shared by Blue Hill Science Center and STARS. Please send any propagation reports to info@NE1AR.org.
Photo, left to right: Bob DeMattia, K1IW; Ted Reimann, W1OG; Jeremy Breef-Pilz, KB1REQ; Alex Dills, KB1SSN; Bruce Pigott, KC1US (kneeling), science center director Don McCasland, Eoghan Bacon, K2VUD; and Bob Phinney, K5TEC. Photographer, not in photo, Rusty Moore, K1FVK.
Waltham ARA writes on Facebook:
The Waltham Amateur Radio Association invites all hams and friends for a festive Holiday Dinner! It’s a great time to get that “eyeball” QSO with some of the folks we’ve been talking to all year. Spouses / friends / prospective hams are all welcome! No RSVP necessary.
Cost: $25 per person at the door which includes the buffet and 1 ticket for the door prizes. Membership renewal will also gain you an extra ticket for the door prize.
See you there!
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Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 6 PM-9 PM
Sichuan’s Garden, 411 Waverley Oaks Road, Waltham MA
Andy Stewart, KB1OIQ, writes in the PART of Westford PARTicles newsletter, November, 2019:
The PART kit building team is Andy, KB1OIQ; Steve, W1KBE; and Allison, KB1GMX. We recently received a very generous donation from an anonymous member of ten (10) DrDuino kits. You may remember reading about this kit in a recent issue of QST.
The PART kit building activity got started in KB1OIQ’s basement classroom on November 7th, 2019. There were five (5) kit builders: George, K1IG; Rakesh, KC1HTB; Niece, KA1ULN; Rich, AB1HD; and Scott, KB1WMH. The first session was spent soldering together the kit. The next two sessions will be Arduino programming lessons taught by Andy (KB1OIQ). The attendees will learn how to program switches, LEDs, potentiometers, a speaker, an ultrasonic distance measuring device, and those very colorful (and BRIGHT) LED strips. If there is time, we may also make a simple CW practice oscillator and a binary counter displayed on the LEDs.
There will be a future kit building activity using the four (4) remaining DrDuino kits (I built one). Additionally, this training will be a great prerequisite for the DDS VFO kit that we’ll unleash during a future session.
All things considered; the first session went really well. I’m really looking forward to the next two sessions!