I must apologize yet again for the tardiness of this report. I will place blame on my recent travels. The bare report did go to ARRL HQ in time however to make the July QST, which, by the way, publishes call signs of all those who turn in a PSHR report. Want to see your call sign in QST? Anyone can submit a Public Service Honor Roll (PSHR) report although you must have 70 points or more in order for your call sign to be published. It is not just for traffic handlers. More information on ways to be awarded points can be found on the https://ema.arrl.org/national-traffic-system/ page.
With warm weather finally here, our thoughts turn to outdoors and I’m beginning to plan for the annual traffic handlers picnic. As mentioned previously, save the date Sunday, August 4. We will gather in Concord MA at 44 Raymond Rd beginning at noon. Bring your beverage of choice and a lawn chair if you have one (I do have a few if you don’t). You’re welcome but not required to bring anything else to share. Hamburgers, hot dogs and Italian sausages will be provided. Anyone with an interest in traffic handling is welcome. More details will be forthcoming.
I was privileged to attend Hamvention in Xenia Ohio this month of May. I understand they broke an attendance record of over 35K attendees. The weather was great, except for some rain Friday morning. Major vendors were there and while I didn’t get to see much of the flea market I heard it was a success as well. One thing missing, however, was a meeting of traffic handlers. I did see a few folks I knew, but I’m sure there were more I would have liked to meet. All in all it was a great time and I recommend it to anyone able to travel.
Our own HamXposition will be coming up August 23-25. We are planning some NTS activity, including a forum and a meet and greet which has always been well attended. Planners have been working on making this convention the best yet. Hope to see many of you there.
In just a few weeks we will celebrate Field Day, one of the biggest ARRL events of the year. Clubs have been busy making their plans. I hope to see many traffic handlers involved as well. There are a variety of ways you can be involved, whether helping at a FD site or making contacts from home, assisting in generating those NTS radiograms for the extra points or monitoring traffic nets to assist with relay or delivery of FD traffic. Among other things, this is an opportunity to demonstrate amateur radio to the public and show what we can do. Most importantly, we can all have fun!
My traffic tip of the month concerns the ARRL numbered radiograms. You have no doubt heard about the expanded list of standardized texts, created to shorten radiogram messages. This list which was updated by the NTS 2.0 group can be found at https://nts2.arrl.org/numbered-texts/. If you have been using the old FSD-3 form from the ARRL website, be assured these have not changed. However there are more options on the new list and you may see any of these in a radiogram and need to translate before making a delivery.
That’s it for this month. Thanks to all for your participation and support. The traffic report is attached/below.
73, Marcia KW1U
STM EMA WMA RI