ARRL EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS SECTION Section Manager (SM) - Phil Temples, K9HI Assistant Section Manager (ASM) – Jeremy Breef-Pilz, KB1REQ Affiliated Club Coordinator (ACC) - "Bo" Budinger, WA1QYM Official Observer Coordinator (OOC) - Ed Parish, K1EP Public Information Coordinator (PIC) - Bob Salow, WA1IDA Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) - Rob Macedo, KD1CY Section Traffic Manager (STM) – Marcia Forde, KW1U State Government Liaison (SGL) - Shawn O'Donnell, K3HI Technical Coordinator (TC) - Eric Falkof, K1NUN JUNE 2012 SECTION NEWS It's Memorial Day, the unofficial start of the summer and many clubs and groups in the section are well into their Field Day planning. As most of you know, Field Day is part cookout, camping trip, emergency exercise, live classroom, low-intensity contest, and also, an excuse to socialize with your fellow amateurs. Additionally, it's a great opportunity to introduce our hobby-service to the general public. Do you have a public relations strategy in place to promote your Field Day to the local media? What about handouts? Check. Signage and directions to the site? Check. Visitor's signup sheet. Check. How about an official greeter and a tour guide? Uh... oops. Nothing makes a worse impression than having non-hams visit your Field Day site only to be left to their own devices, and ignored by operators who are sequestered away in tents and campers, their headphones tightly clamped over their ears as they rattle off contacts. If you haven't already done so, be sure to visit the Eastern Massachusetts Field Day web page at <http://fd.ema.arrl.org>. The brainchild of N1VUX, Bill has maintained this resource for thirteen years. It's packed with lots of useful information, like event rules and regulations, safety tips, a detailed site listing including latitude and longitude coordinates, and other historical notes. As Bill notes, "Field Day lets you find out what equipment works in the field, and who can bring it. You also practice operating with field conditions and emergency power." As in year's past, I will attempt to visit as many Field Day sites in Eastern MA as I possibly can. I apologize in advance should I miss stopping by your club's site. I'd like to close on this note: Field Day is an excellent way to encourage the new hams in your club to be more active and to grow into the new leaders. Many a newcomer has had his or her first "taste" of club leadership by taking on a Field Day assignment. Please consider this when organizing and delegating responsibilities for the weekend. The Falmouth ARA is working with teachers at the East Falmouth Elementary School to conduct a contact with the International Space Station and Capt. Sunita Williams on Oct. 22. The school had a recent videoconference with the astronaut; she has family ties to East Falmouth. Three to four hundred elementary school students were present for the event. Jim McGuinness, the sponsoring teacher, estimates an even bigger group of students for the ISS contact. "I've been in touch with Gene Chapline, K5DFL, the ham volunteer with ARISS and received a generous package of ARRL materials from Debra Johnson, K1DMJ," says FARA President Richard Wiklund, K1MGH. Dick adds, "These have been passed on to Jim McGuinness and we will be developing a curriculum for the students in preparation for and after the ISS contact." Congrats to Les Peters, N1SV, of Townsend, who was recently nominated by New England Division Director K1KI to serve as a DXCC Card Checker. Kudos to the Quannapowitt RA for helping to grow over a half-dozen new hams as a result of its recent "Tech in a Day" session! Don't forget to QNI the K1USN Slow Speed CW Net at 8:30AM Sunday mornings on 3545 kHz. For more info, contact W1QWT at <recallahan@comcast.net>. WGBH employee W1DAN will conduct a technical tour of the FM and TV stations for North Shore RA members on June 16 in Boston. Rumor has it that the recent NEAR-Fest was saturated with members from the Whitman ARC in attendance--in fact, 27 in all! The Minuteman RA featured the DVD presentation on the 3Y0X Dxpedition to St. Peter I. at its May 23 meeting in Northborough. K1PTF presented on experimenting with interfacing Dragon speech recognition into the ham shack at the May 17 meeting of the Nashoba Valley ARC in Pepperell. Congrats to WB1HGA, who recently completed his ARRL "Worked All States" Award using QRP. Ron says he worked many states in the "milliwatt" range; all the contacts were made using 4 watts or less. Science Magazine recently published this fascinating story entitled "The Return of the Vacuum Tube" at<http://tinyurl.com/78d9j8m><http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/05/return-vacuum-tube>. KB1PBA reports that the four "hounds" found one of the two 2-meter foxes hidden in Westford on May 12 were: KB1SWZ, KB1SSA, KB1OIQ, and KB1USE. The fox transmitted with 60 milliwatts using MCW on a 2-minute cycle. No one found the second fox, a 2W FM voice transmitter. The South Shore Hospital ARC provided communication support for the Halifax Elementary School Road Race on May 6. Seven amateurs assisted. SSH ARC will also assist with comms for the South Shore Hospital Road Race at Wompatuck State Park in Hingham on June 16. The Eastern MA ARES leadership met at the Clay Center on May 12. N1IPP shares this wonderful link to the "Amateur Radio Kit Roundup" a compendium of many Amateur Radio kits currently available, at <http://tinyurl.com/cx4eofh>. N1ZZN reminds us that Tuesdays and Thursdays are "220 Day" and "900 Day" respectively. These days are intended as a way to promote activity on the repeaters on those bands in New England. Jeff adds, "The first 900 MHz handheld targeted to the ham community was released about 6 months ago, the Alnico DJ-G29T, and it is a dual band radio, 220 and 900, so perfect for these activity days." PART of Westford is one of four Massachusetts clubs who will participate in the Thirteen Colonies special event operation as K2H from the end of June through the 4th of July holiday. According to PART president Andy Stewart, KB1OIQ, "The QSO counts have been rising exponentially over the last couple of years as this event becomes more popular. Last year, the pileups were tremendous, and a great training ground for learning to handle them." K1PUB is coordinating the event on behalf of PART. Congratulations to Emma Klinkhamer, KB1WBB, of Rehoboth, recipient of the Southeastern MA ARA 2012 Scholarship. Emma is a student at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School. More info at<http://www.semara.org/node/281>. <http://semara.org/congratulations-emma-j-klinkhamer-kb1wbb/>. The Taunton Amateur Communications Group simplex net meets on Wednesdays at 8:30PM on 146.43 MHz. Visitors are welcome to check in. This factoid comes via WA1IDA: Q Signals are not just for hams. In fact, categories of codes are reserved for various services as follows: QAA-QNZ, aeronautical service; QOA-QQZ, maritime services; QRA-QUZ, all services; QZA-QZZ, other usage. Hams have unofficially assumed control of the QN- block, and they use a few other unofficially assigned codes, like QST. The FCC recommends these codes be for use only on cw, not phone. The entire list and full meanings can be found at <http://www.kloth.net/radio/qcodes.php>. Thanks, Boston ARC's "The SPARC" May 2012. Finally, from "Ham Overload: Outrageous-Amateur-Radio-Art-Car (or, "If this is his _car_, I'd _hate_ to see his ham shack"): <http://tinyurl.com/2dbrn9b>. 73, and have a safe and enjoyable Field Day! K9HI -------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section Section Manager: Phillip Temples, K9HI k9hi@arrl.org --------------------------------------------------------------------
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