It’s autumn and the leaves are turning their bright New England colors. 10 days ago we drove up north through New Hampshire to the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains where the colors were spectacular. Now they are finally turning in Eastern Massachusetts and are quite lovely. Soon enough the leaves will be off the trees and it will be a good time to get antenna work done.
October this year is also a month for ARRL members in New England to vote for ARRL New England Division Director. As you no doubt have heard there are three candidates running for this position, K1VR current director, K1KI past director and AB1OC. While all three have their strong points, as an avid supporter of NTS and of emergency communications, I have supported and have cast my vote for AB1OC who has not only been a great listener, but has the experience and the energy to be a voice for us, and is I think our best shot to make a difference at ARRL. I hope you will cast your vote for whomever you feel will best represent New England. Ballots were mailed October 1 and must be received back at ARRL by November 19 (in other words get your ballot in the mail by November 1).
The traffic nets continue to do well thanks to the support of our net managers and all their participants. We do have one new manager, with thanks to Tim W1TCD who took over for AC7RB effective October 1 as manager of the Cape and Islands Traffic Net (CITN). Check our net listings on the section website for information about this net. We also have one new Official Relay Station (ORS) appointee who is John AJ1DM. John is in Rhode Island and our one RI participant on the nets. We definitely appreciate his participation and support.
I wanted this month to say a few words about our digital network. More and more hams are becoming interested in digital modes. For NTS message handling we use specific modes that allow for store and forward, error correcting and are standardized throughout our national digital traffic network. We have been using Packet on VHF and Pactor on HF. Pactor has four speeds, from the slowest Pactor 1 to the fastest Pactor 4 (which at this time is not permitted in the US by our FCC). Pactor 1 modems are now open source and inexpensive but rather slow, but for greater speed one would need a Pactor 2 or 3 modem which are proprietary and quite expensive. Now however there are sound card modes that can be used for NTS traffic. The KW1U MBO (message board) has been operating Pactor 3 on HF, but effective immediately is also accepting connects using VARA HF, a sound card modem which can achieve speeds comparable to Pactor 3. I hope folks will get interested in trying this mode and find some fun in digital message handling. Contact KW1U for information.
Once again, thanks to all for your support of the traffic nets and our digital network. Below is the report for September.
73, Marcia KW1U
| MASSACHUSETTS STM REPORTS 2021 | Sep-21 | |||||||||
| NET | SESSIONS | QTC | QNI | QTR | NM | FREQ | Net Time | |||
| WMTN C1 | 6 | 0 | 40 | 41 | N1YCW | 146.91 | 1300 Daily | |||
| WMTN C2 | 23 | 2 | 70 | 75 | KD2JKV | 146.91 | 1630 Daily | |||
| MARIPN | 26 | 60 | 157 | 381 | N1LAH | 3978 KHz | 1700 M-Sa | |||
| MARI | 30 | 147 | 128 | 548 | KW1U | 3565 KHz | 1900 Daily | |||
| CITN | 17 | 16 | 70 | 198 | AC7RB | 147.375 | 1930 M,Tu,Th,F | |||
| EM2MN | 30 | 94 | 235 | 485 | KC1HHO | 145.23 | 2000 Daily | |||
| CM2MN | 14 | 9 | 80 | 122 | KK1X | 146.97 | 2100 Daily | |||
| HHTN | 26 | 44 | 253 | 584 | W1HAI | MMRA Rptrs | 2200 Su-F | |||
| WARPSN | 4 | 8 | 72 | NA | N1IQI | 147.225 | 0830 Su | |||
| WMEN/HF | 4 | 0 | 97 | NA | N1CPE | 3944 KHz | 0830 Su | |||
| WMEN/VHF | 3 | 0 | 44 | 36 | N1PUA | 146.91 | 0900 Su | |||
| 183 | 380 | 1246 | 2434 | |||||||
| 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 | 247 | 228 | 1 | 476 | |||||
| N1IQI | 0 | 28 | 242 | 4 | 274 | |||||
| KC1KVY | 0 | 59 | 136 | 8 | 203 | |||||
| N1TF | 0 | 46 | 60 | 6 | 112 | |||||
| W1RVY | 1 | 72 | 26 | 0 | 99 | |||||
| N1LAH | 0 | 38 | 31 | 1 | 70 | |||||
| WA1LPM | 0 | 18 | 30 | 0 | 48 | |||||
| WA1VAB | 0 | 12 | 22 | 4 | 38 | |||||
| KC1HHO | 0 | 22 | 9 | 4 | 35 | |||||
| W1TCD | 0 | 13 | 13 | 8 | 34 | |||||
| KC1MSN | 0 | 8 | 11 | 10 | 29 | |||||
| NV1N | 0 | 5 | 12 | 1 | 18 | |||||
| KE1ML | 0 | 3 | 10 | 2 | 15 | |||||
| W1PLK | 0 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 9 | |||||
| AB1ZS | 0 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 9 | |||||
| KD2JKV | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 8 | |||||
| AJ1DM | 0 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 8 | |||||
| KC1NBI | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6 | |||||
| KC1OIP | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | |||||
| KB1SYL | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | |||||
| PSHR (Min 70 Points) | ||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Total | ||||
| KW1U | 40 | 40 | 30 | 30 | 0 | 20 | 160 | |||
| N1TF | 40 | 40 | 30 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 115 | |||
| N1IQI | 40 | 40 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 110 | |||
| W1RVY | 40 | 40 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 110 | |||
| N1LAH | 40 | 40 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | |||
| KC1KVY | 40 | 40 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 90 | |||
| KC1HHO | 30 | 35 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 85 | |||
| WA1LPM | 28 | 40 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 78 | |||
| DRS | RCV | FWD | TOTAL | |||||||
| KW1U | 742 | 742 | 1484 | |||||||
| N1IQI | 28 | 242 | 270 | |||||||
| KC1MSN | 10 | 11 | 21 | |||||||
| W1RVY | 1 | 6 | 7 | |||||||
| AB1ZS | 0 | 3 | 3 | |||||||
| Marcia KW1U, STM | ||||||||||