a field organization of the National Association for Amateur Radio®
Radio clubs
Norfolk County Radio Association President Dick Bean, K1HC, writes:
The Norfolk County Radio Association presented Dave Doe, K1HRV, with the ARRL Elmer Award at its September 11 meeting to thank him for his mentoring of so many fellow hams over 51 years of club membership (since January 10, 1968). Dave has held many leadership positions in the club, and he is currently club secretary and historian.
Ray Cord, K2TGX, writes on the SMH ARC mailing list:
This is to announce that the September Meeting of the SMH ARC will be held this coming Tuesday evening, September 17 [in Attleboro] at the Hospital in Conference Room D & E.
Please note that there will be an abbreviated ARES meeting starting at 7:00PM and the business meeting will start at 7:30PM to allow time for a presentation by Pierre Guimond, N1EZT.
Hope to see you all there.
Stan Pozerski, KD1LE writes in the September, 2019 issue of Signal:
We are exploring doing an Amateur Radio activity for the Boy Scout Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) with Owen Salter, KC1KZT, who is a boy scout from Ayer. Owen is working on whether arrangements can be made with the Boy Scout Council leadership. Possible locations at this point are the Lancaster Boy Scout office (where we set up two years ago) or Pearl Hill State Park in Townsend during a camporee. Stay tuned as we will need some help for this.
Dan Brown, W1DAN, writes in the Wellesley ARS’ The Spark Gap:
Our September meeting will be very different. We will visit New England Sci-Tech at 16 Tech Circle in Natick on Tuesday September 17 (https://www.nescitech.org/). Here we will have a short business meeting, then join Bob [Phinney, K5TEC] and his crew to enjoy what they are doing.
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New England Sci-Tech conducts classes and workshops in electronics, space science, ham radio, astronomy, robotics, photography, coding, computers, Arduinos, game theory, 3D design, spooky music, wearable technology, telescope making, edible 3D, Cubes-in-SpaceTM, kite making, quadcopters, battle-bots, and more. It also provides a Maker lab space and license classes in Amateur Radio.
Nick Magliano, KC1MA, writes:
Nick Magliano, KC1MA
https://www.townofmilton.org/
Welcome to the Harvard Wireless Club’s 110th year!
We’ve got a variety of exciting events planned, so we’re kicking off with a meeting at 6 Linden St. on Tuesday 9/10 at 7 PM. Dinner (pizza) will be provided so feel free to send me an email if you have dietary restrictions for us to accommodate.
We’ll be going over the basics of ham radio (what it is and why it’s important), our plans for the year, and giving a quick overview of how the club runs. If you’re interested in amateur radio but unable to attend, don’t worry! Let us know and we’ll fill you in whenever is convenient for you.
For prospective members of the club, if you’re unsure about whether to attend, consider the following benefits:
1. No time commitment. We understand you’re busy (we are too!) so we’re not going to put you through a semester long comp. Pass an easy 35-question test with all the questions known in advance and you’re in.
2. Fantastic experiences. HWC members get to watch the Head of the Charles Regatta from rescue boats, do road trips to bounce radio waves off the moon, and have even been invited to present in foreign countries. I’ll always cherish my HWC memories as some of the most fun in college.
3. Freedom to explore. No matter what you’re interested in, from mountaineering to astronomy, radio technology can find a role. As a member, you’ll have access to the equipment and expertise you need to use radio technology in your life.
On a personal note, the Wireless Club has been one of my best choices in college. Come and try it out—you won’t regret it.
73 (radio speak for “best regards”),
Benjamin Lee
President, HWC
NU Wireless Club mailing list, September 9, 2019:
Welcome back to all of our returning members and welcome to all of our new members. After a way-too-short summer, Wireless Club is starting back up. This semester we will have our bi-weekly general meetings, ham nets, workshops, and more!
Our first meeting is this Thursday, September 12th [in 503 Hayden at 6:00 PM]. We will be introducing new members to the club and talking about the upcoming semester. Come join us for pizza and refreshments. Hope to see you all there!
Andy Wallace, KA1GTT, writes on the BARS website, at https://www.w1hh.org/next-bars-meeting-wednesday-september-4-2019-at-700pm-eric-kv1j-qsl-sort-and-free-pizza/:
Everyone, I am pleased to announce that yet again we will have our annual QSL sort and pizza party!
Eric Williams, KV1J, is a volunteer for the W1 QSL Bureau, sponsored by the Yankee Clipper Contest Club.
The W1 QSL Bureau is a service which accepts incoming QSLs from overseas and redistributes them to U.S. hams in the W1 call district – 100,000 of them per year! Each card coming in must be sorted by first-letter-after-the-1 to prepare them for their final destinations to hams who have paid the small sum required for stamps and envelopes for the Bureau to mail them.
Eric is always happy to have Clubs’ help when it comes to sorting and it is a fun event too! Since BARS is doing this in September it is perfect timing because Eric will be bringing these cards to the Northeast HamXposition @ Boxborough for September 6/7/8 where hams can stop by his booth to pick them up and save mailing delay! And if you discover cards destined for you in the sort, you may pick them up immediately also.
Please join us for the sort. Eric will spend a few minutes explaining how the sort works and set up the mail-cubbies for filing. Then we will dig in! Literally – because we will break in the middle for pizza for all. Likely it will come from one of the fine Chelmsford pizza houses and we will try to get pies everyone will like. The cost will be covered by BARS. A treat!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Andy
KA1GTT
President, Billerica Amateur Radio Society
Adam Jenkins, AB1N, writes on the MITRE-Bedford mailing list:
The MITRE Bedford Amateur Radio Club will hold a meeting on Thursday, August 29, 2019, from 12-12:30 pm for the purposes of holding a special election for new officers, and voting on a proposed constitution/bylaw amendment (to remove paying dues as a requirement for membership). The club has been dormant for several years, so to the best of my understanding, all former memberships (which were based on annual payment of dues) and officers (which were 1-year terms tied to active membership) have lapsed. As a former officer of the club, I am announcing this meeting to the mbarc-list in the event that any former members would like to attend and participate. The meeting will be held in room 1M306, which is the publicly accessible conference room located off the M lobby.
The Framingham Amateur Radio Association recently announced the recipients of its annual Beverly Lees Scholarship:
Eric Williams, KV1J, writes on the Algonquin ARC mailing list:
To: Algonquin Radio Club and Marlborough EMA Team
Please mark your calendars for our support of the biannual joint Hudson-Marlborough Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day on Saturday, September 14th.
Our support is a combined effort by the Algonquin Amateur Radio Club and the Marlborough Emergency Management Team. Using our radio communications skills, we manage the traffic flow and validate residency for the approximately 400 cars that come to the event. We use the Emergency Management’s UHF radios. If you have them, please bring your Ham UHF portable radio since we will use the club repeater output frequency as a backup.
Please also bring your EMA vest or EMA yellow jacket if you have them. I will bring vests for those that do not have one.
We setup at 8 AM and the event runs from 9 AM to 1 PM. The event is next to the Marlborough Resident Drop-Off Facility, located at 860 Boston Post Road East in Marlborough, behind the Half Way Café near Home Depot.
We are also supporting the Marlborough Labor Day Parade. If you are not already signed up, please let Ed Fitzgerald know if you can help
Thanks and 73, Eric KV1J Marlborough EMA Communications Officer
Minuteman Repeater Association writes:
As you may already know, MMRA will be hosting the talk-in at the Northeast HamXposition @Boxboro on September 6, 7, and 8. We will also have a reception suite in the Boxwood room of the hotel where you can take a break and meet other members of the club.
Again this year, we be awarding door prizes – an Icom IC2730A dual band transceiver, a Yaesu FT65R dual band HT, and a ZumSpot USB Hotspot. Anyone with a membership renewed through 2021 will have one chance in the drawing. Additional tickets can be had by make a donation to MMRA: 1 ticket for each $2 donated, 3 for $5, 7 for $10.
MMRA will also have premium seating tables at both the Friday Dinner and Saturday Banquet. Members can purchase seats for $35, which is $5 off the convention price.
To make a donation or order seats, please visit http://mmra.org/renew.html
For more information on the convention, please visit
http://hamxposition.org
Andy Wallace, KA1GTT, writes on w1hh.org:
I am very pleased to announce that Bruce is returning to speak again at [the Billerica Amateur Radio Society], this time about CW Academy. Many BARS members use and enjoy CW. If you have never tried it, please attend this session and see what is possible for you!
Did I just lose half my audience? I dearly hope not. If you have only used voice your whole ham experience, you are missing out. I promise you will find this talk interesting. Please come and hear why people love operating using Morse code, and the kinds of things you can do once you know it. [Full story]
The Whitman Amateur Radio Club will sponsor a ham radio exhibit and special events station at the 152st Annual Marshfield Fair August 16-25, 2019, from 1600Z-0059Z. The club will operate under the call sign NN1MF on the following frequencies/bands: 18.160, 14.260, 7.260, and 3.860 MHz. The station will also be active on EchoLink via the WA1NPO-R, and IRLP: 8691. Contacts will be acknowledged with a certificate and QSL at: Whitman ARC, PO Box 48, Whitman, MA 02382.
Eric Williams, KV1J, W1 QSL Bureau Co-Manager writes:
Seventh Annual AARC QSL Sort Night
The Algonquin Amateur Radio Club will be holding a QSL card sorting session on Thursday, August 8, 2019 at 7:30 PM at the Marlborough Fire Station. We will be in the classroom/EOC where we hold Field Day.
The W1 QSL Bureau receives QSL cards from DXers all over the world, sorts them and then sends them to the New England area hams. We process about 100,000 QSL cards each year. To do this, we are grateful for the team of over 40 volunteers and several area clubs that help make this happen. AARC is one of the clubs that helps with the presorting step in our process.
Our part is easy and fun. You get to see QSL cards from all around the globe. Maybe catch a card that is for you! We will have boxes of cards from the country national organizations that are for W1 call area hams. For our session we will have about 13,000 cards. Our mission is to sort those cards into stacks for each first letter of the call sign suffix. So there will be a stack for all the call signs the a suffix the starts with A and one for those starting with B and so forth. It goes quick especially with lots of people doing it on several separate tables.
When we are done, those stacks will be sent to our individual letter sorters who will then sort them by the individual recipient hams.
Thank you and hope to see you next month.
Section Manager Tom Walsh, K1TW, received a commendation letter from ARRL Special Service Club 
PART of Westford acknowledging the efforts of Eastern MA Section Traffic Manager Marcia Forde, KW1U, “for her professionalism and patience … in preparing members of PART for Field Day 2019 National Traffic System messaging.”
PART President Andy Stewart, KB1OIQ, writes, “[Marcia] worked with two of our members over the course of several weeks to advise on software and protocols.” KW1U’s knowledge and expertise allowed PART to earn an additional 200 points for message handling.
Stewart added, “her dedication to the Amateur Radio art reflects great credit on the Eastern Massachusetts section.”
Algonquin Amateur Radio Club members were featured in a Marlboro Community Television (WMCT) news segment in connection with their recent Field Day event June 22-23, 2019 at the Marlboro Fire Department, according to AARC Activities Chairman Joe Reynolds, KA1GDQ.
The story begins at 9:26 into the video.
The Falmouth Amateur Radio Association has embarked upon an ambitious project to raise $14,000 by September 1, 2019 for the purchase a 16-foot utility trailer and to “assemble a professional, self-contained, mobile communications platform that would be utilized for emergency and non-emergency, public safety and public service events.”
FARA intends to outfit the trailer with a number of operator positions that would “allow operation on a multitude of communications networks and frequencies … including local amateur radio repeaters that link local and regional communications for storm shelters, hospitals and aid stations.” The trailer would also be utilized for non-emergency events like road races, marathons, July 4th celebrations, fairs, and community service events.
The Falmouth ARA is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to “providing emergency and routine radio communications support to the citizens of the Town of Falmouth and the surrounding communities.”
[Full story]
ARRL division and section officials hit the road this past weekend to visit numerous clubs participating in the annual ARRL Field Day on June 22-23, 2019.
New England Vice Director Mike Raisbeck, K1TWF, reports he visited a total of twelve sites in New Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts:
RICOMU/RIEMA, North Scituate, RI
On Sunday, the duo stopped in at:
The dynamic duo wracked up 492 miles on the road.
Eastern MA Section Manager Tom Walsh, K1TW, accompanied by Assistant Section Manager Phil Temples, K9HI, toured five sites across the section on Saturday:
On Sunday, Tom continued the tour “solo,” visiting:
Tom reports a total of 365 miles driven.