Holiday greetings to all. Hard to believe Thanksgiving Day is next week. I will be staying here with family coming from Pennsylvania for a very long-time-coming family reunion. For those who are traveling I wish for safe travels, and to all a happy Thanksgiving.
As we look forward to the December holidays I wish to remind folks, as I do every year, that radiograms are a unique way to send holiday greetings. Not only do we share our thoughts with family and friends, but we keep the nets active and let others know about Amateur Radio and what it can mean to them.
I am sure you have heard that Fred Kemmerer AB1OC has been elected as ARRL New England Division Director whose term will begin January 1, 2022. I look forward to working with Fred who has shown an interest in the role of NTS particularly where it relates to emergency communications. After years of perceived neglect it appears NTS will finally have a voice at ARRL and I am greatly encouraged. Congrats to Fred!
The nets continue to function well with multiple nets operating on any given day with opportunities to relay traffic to anywhere in the US and Canada as well as internationally where either third party agreements exist or anywhere from ham to ham. We have a great group of dedicated people who keep this system in operation every day of every week throughout the year. A special thanks to all those folks.
This month I wanted to focus a little on the CW nets. There has been a real surge of interest in CW especially with the likes of the CWOPS CW Academy, the Long Island CW Club (LICW) and Eastern Mass’s K1USN Club. To all of those getting excited about using CW I would like to introduce you to CW with a purpose, which is training and experience in formal message handling on CW nets. Check out the following link on our section website: https://ema.arrl.org/basic-cw-net-procedures/. CW operators are a friendly and helpful group always welcoming new people, and our MARI is no exception. Here are just a few basics to get you started.
“Q” signals can be a big stumbling block, so first take note of the following four, QND, QNZ, QNI, and QNX. When listening to a net you will hear Net Control call CQ MARI de KW1U QND QNZ QNI. What’s all this Q stuff? Translation: Calling the MARI net (CQ MARI), this is (DE) KW1U. (QND) Net is directed where all net business goes through Net Control Station (NCS). (QNZ) Please zero beat my frequency. Note NCS may have filtering going on so as to filter out interference (QRM) from nearby frequencies, so if you are outside that filtered range he/she won’t hear you.) NCS continues (QNI) check in now.
Now it’s your turn, so respond with a letter (any letter) and wait for NCS to send that letter back to acknowledge you. When that happens it’s your turn to give your call sign followed by (QRU) I have no traffic. NCS may ask for your name and QTH to which you may respond.
Don’t worry about handling traffic yet! You will not be asked to do so until you feel comfortable to do so. Once you have checked in, listen and follow along as the net continues. I encourage copying down everything you hear so you increase your copying skills as you also get the gist of what is going on.
When net business has completed you will hear NCS call you using either your call sign or the suffix of your call. Then respond with a dit or dash to acknowledge, and wait for instructions. NCS will say you are (QNX) or excused from the net to which your response can be simply 73 DE (your callsign). You may add something like TU (thank you) and GE (Good Evening).
That’s all there is to it. Just a few Q signals to remember (QND, QNZ, QNI, QNX) and a paper and pen/pencil to write things down, and you’re on your way to becoming a CW traffic handler! Welcome!
Here is the STM report for October. Thanks to all for your support.
73, Marcia KW1U STM EMA / WMA
| MASSACHUSETTS STM REPORTS 2021 | Oct-21 | |||||||||
| NET | SESSIONS | QTC | QNI | QTR | NM | FREQ | Net Time | |||
| WMTN C1 | 6 | 0 | 37 | 33 | N1YCW | 146.91 | 1300 Daily | |||
| WMTN C2 | 25 | 3 | 127 | 84 | KD2JKV | 146.91 | 1630 Daily | |||
| MARIPN | 26 | 78 | 139 | 410 | N1LAH | 3978 KHz | 1700 M-Sa | |||
| MARI | 30 | 123 | 128 | 482 | KW1U | 3565 KHz | 1900 Daily | |||
| CITN | 16 | 16 | 51 | 177 | W1TCD | 147.375 | 1930 M,Tu,Th,F | |||
| EM2MN | 31 | 174 | 202 | 673 | KC1HHO | 145.23 | 2000 Daily | |||
| CM2MN | 15 | 6 | 75 | 106 | KK1X | 146.97 | 2100 Daily | |||
| HHTN | 26 | 49 | 249 | 541 | W1HAI | MMRA Rptrs | 2200 Su-F | |||
| WARPSN | 5 | 10 | 90 | na | N1IQI | 147.225 | 0830 Su | |||
| WMEN/HF | 5 | 0 | 136 | 80 | N1CPE | 3944 KHz | 0830 Su | |||
| WMEN/VHF | 4 | 0 | 71 | 54 | N1PUA | 146.91 | 0900 Su | |||
| 189 | 459 | 1305 | 2640 | |||||||
| Note: HHTN accessible also via Plymouth and Mt Greylock rptrs and Echolink New-Eng2 Conf and IRLP 9127 | ||||||||||
| SAR | ORG | REC | SENT | DEL | TOTAL | BPL | BPL = 500+ points | |||
| KW1U | 0 | 280 | 267 | 0 | 547 | X | ||||
| N1IQI | 0 | 100 | 186 | 4 | 290 | |||||
| KC1KVY | 1 | 97 | 174 | 8 | 280 | |||||
| N1TF | 0 | 42 | 49 | 3 | 94 | |||||
| KC1MSN | 0 | 29 | 24 | 34 | 87 | |||||
| W1RVY | 0 | 65 | 19 | 2 | 86 | |||||
| KC1HHO | 0 | 54 | 19 | 4 | 77 | |||||
| N1LAH | 0 | 38 | 25 | 2 | 65 | |||||
| W1TCD | 0 | 23 | 12 | 7 | 42 | |||||
| WA1LPM | 0 | 15 | 20 | 0 | 35 | |||||
| KB1SYL | 1 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 29 | |||||
| WA1VAB | 0 | 10 | 10 | 7 | 27 | |||||
| KC1OIP | 4 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 21 | |||||
| KE1ML | 0 | 4 | 12 | 3 | 19 | |||||
| NV1N | 0 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 17 | |||||
| W1PLK | 0 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 14 | |||||
| AJ1DM | 1 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 11 | |||||
| KC1NBI | 0 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 9 | |||||
| KD2JKV | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | |||||
| PSHR (Min 70 Points) | ||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Total | ||||
| W1RVY | 40 | 40 | 30 | 150 | 0 | 0 | 260 | |||
| KC1OIP | 8 | 21 | 10 | 110 | 0 | 0 | 149 | |||
| KW1U | 40 | 40 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 130 | |||
| N1TF | 40 | 40 | 30 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 115 | |||
| N1IQI | 40 | 40 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 110 | |||
| N1LAH | 39 | 40 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 99 | |||
| KC1KVY | 40 | 40 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 90 | |||
| KC1HHO | 30 | 40 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 90 | |||
| KC1MSN | 30 | 40 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 80 | |||
| WA1LPM | 26 | 35 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 71 | |||
| DRS | RCV | FWD | TOTAL | |||||||
| KW1U | 694 | 694 | 1388 | |||||||
| N1IQI | 100 | 186 | 286 | |||||||
| KC1MSN | 50 | 26 | 76 | |||||||
| W1RVY | 4 | 1 | 5 | |||||||
| Marcia KW1U, STM | ||||||||||