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Larry Krainson, W1AST, writes: 13 Colonies Massachusetts, is looking for a few new ops to join Team K2H. 13 Colonies takes place every July 1-7. We’re looking for volunteers who can operate for at least 2 hours per day for at least 4 of the 7 days. Operating as K2H is a blast. You become the DX, and stations want to work you. You don’t have to be a contest op to volunteer. Anyone interested and available is welcome. As part of team K2H for the past few years, we have made around 20,000 contacts.  If you are interested, please contact …

From Nashoba Valley ARC Signal, April 2025: The Groton Road Race Committee has requested the assistance of the Amateur Radio community for the Race on May 4. NVARC and the ham community have been providing situational awareness, health and safety communication for this event for over three decades. The course circles Groton Hill, starting and ending at the Groton Hill Music Center. This is the third year the Race has followed this course.  The planned event schedule this year is similar to 2024; the two main races start shortly after 10am. The communications support that we provide is expected to …

Ken Horton, KA1GFN, writes on the Algonquin ARC mailing list: Hudson High School will hold a STEM night on April 9 from 6:00 – 7:30 PM. Students will have the opportunity to use FT8 and talk on the 446.675 repeater. [Algonquin ARC] Members can monitor the repeater and maybe have a chance to talk to the students and possibly answer some trivia questions. It’s not known when an interested student might show up during the time period, so just listen and wait.

Rich Zack, KK1RZ, will present “Comparing all Five Digital Modes Found on New England Repeaters” at the Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society hybrid meeting on April 15, 2025 in Natick and online. Biography: Rick was first licensed as a ham in 1966.  His late father was a ham, as is his son, K1DRZ.  Rick also holds an FCC First Class commercial license.  His career includes an RF consulting business; Chief Engineer for WCVB-TV in Boston; Chief Engineer of Television for WBIN-TV; VP of System Engineering for a high-end microwave equipment manufacturer; Land-mobile dealer and commercial repeater system operator; and Consulting Engineer for the FCC …

Brett Smith, AB1RL, writes:   The Run of the Charles is running again this year on April 27. After being on hiatus for a few years, this event returned last year with streamlined organization, and they’re keeping that for this year. Still, the event can always use more amateur radio volunteers to watch out for participants’ safety and help keep tabs on event logistics.   There are assignments available for a variety of times and locations along the Charles River from I-95 into Boston. If you can join us, please just write back to let me know if you have …

Jessie Kneeland, KC1SLQ, writes:   Call for Volunteers! The Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts is hosting a STEM Festival on Saturday May 3rd from 9 am – 1 pm at Camp Cedar Hill in Waltham MA, and local hams will be hosting an amateur radio themed event station. We are looking for more on-site volunteers to answer questions about amateur radio and help event participants format and send radiogram messages to their family members. No prior experience in traffic handling is needed, just your presence and enthusiasm. We expect more than 300 Scouts to participate and would love more volunteers to …

Hello to all… The April Eastern Massachusetts ARES section net will be Monday April 7th, 2025 at 830 PM on the MMRA Repeater system. For frequencies that will be linked into the ARES Net on the MMRA Network, please see the following link from the MMRA web site detailing the repeaters that will be linked in through Hub 1: https://mmra.org/repeaters/repeater_linking.html (Click the ARES box to see the repeaters and other systems linked) We look forward to your participation and remember, we are always looking for Net Controls to run the ARES Net. We will have several announcements for the net. …

Mike “Sparky” Leger, N1YLQ, ARES DEC – MEMA Region 2 RACES Radio Officer writes:   Hello to all,   This email is the typical monthly message to let everyone know that Monday evening, April 7th, 2025 is our first non-holiday Monday of the month and, as such, will be the next RACES/ACS/Preparedness Net night.  For those who participate in the WinLink net, please note that there is a different NCO noted for the WinLink net this month with messages being routed to KF1D with a copy to AB1PH.    Due to family constraints, I may not be able to reliably …

Don Rolph, AB1PH, Walpole area ARES Emergency Coordinator writes: The MEMA RACES nets are held on the first Monday of the month, unless the first Monday is a holiday, when it is delayed one week. For Apr 2025, the MEMA RACES nets will be held on Mon Apr 7 at: ******************************************************************************** 80 meter Voice net 6:45 PM Frequency: 3930 KHz working up until the first free frequency Matt KC1PFA will be net control ********************************************************************************* Region 2D VHF net: 7:30 PM ET VHF net on 146.865 MHz PL 103.5 (Sharon Repeater) We will have a general call up of any RACES, …

Jeff-N1SOM and the South Shore Hospital Group W1SSH writes: Good Evening, On Saturday April 5, 2025 the South Shore Hospital Amateur Radio Group will hold an Eastern MA Hospital Net commencing at 10:00AM. We realize that some locations, individuals, and groups may be subject to COVID restrictions. We encourage everyone who is affected by these restrictions to utilize their home or mobile stations to check into the net if possible. Even if you cannot reach all the systems being used, please check-in on those you can. We will use the following repeaters in the order listed. 1. West Bridgewater repeater …

From Algonquin ARC QRZ Newsletter, April 2025: The project to deploy a Winlink node at our Marlborough repeater site was completed this past month. George, N1ABC, led the project that was sponsored jointly by the Algonquin Amateur Radio Club and the Marlborough Emergency Management Agency. The Winlink system provides message forwarding communications via radio worldwide. It is an integral part of our amateur radio traffic system that supports our regional Emergency Management services. This new node provides coverage to the western Middlesex county and eastern Worcester county areas. The node is located at our N1EM/R repeater location on the Sligo …

K1UN-Joseph Fratto – USCG Coast Guard Auxiliary & FCC General Radiotelephone Operator writes: The Sunday morning Division 5 / 12 radio net has been postponed indefinitely due to a lack of participation and coverage of our repeaters. The Sunday morning Auxiliary Net on the MMRA Minuteman Repeater Association network was held at 1100 hrs. Auxiliarists on the net were advised of the upcoming training in April and the mandatory TCO radio training. Hopefully there will be a Zoom media training presentation at a later date for all those members who missed the required training presentation. The Net ended at 1230 …

Bob DeMattia, K1IW, writes: We will be removing the Billerica repeater from its current site on April 4th.  It will be off the air for 2 – 3 weeks while the antennas are relocated to the new site.  Some work will also be done to the equipment itself during the downtime.   The Burlington repeater on 145.43 should provide adequate coverage in the Billerica area during this period. We are in need of some people to help with the removal on the 4th.  The tower is hinged, so it will be lowered and everything removed.  We also need to bring the …

Leandra Mac Lennan, AF1R, writes on the Wellesley ARS mailing list: I will be doing an encore FreeDV Zoom and on-the air tutorial for WARS members on Monday, March 31 7:30 to 8:30 PM If you missed last Monday’s meeting, you can join us for this meeting. I will cover the basic setup of FreeDV. For those who were at last Monday’s meeting we will try the latest version of FreeDV to see how well the new vocoder works. We will use 50.190 MHz for our on the air tests while we are on Zoom. I recommend using a PC …

The Massachusetts – Rhode Island STM Report for February 2025 is now available at https://ema.arrl.org/massachusetts-rhode-island-stm-report-for-february-2025/. Note new traffic handlers, a new virtual traffic training net, a Treasure Hunt, APRS-NTS Gateway and more.

The Nashoba Valley Amateur Radio Club‘s March meeting is Thursday, March 20th at 7:30 PM at the Pepperell Community Center (in Pepperell). We start gathering at 7 PM to socialize before the meeting starts. NVARC has a special treat in store for you at the March meeting.  Dale Clement, AF1T, will be talking about antennas.  NVARC has had Dale speak before, but we have enough new members and new hams that we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have him speak again.  Dale demonstrates practically and visually how and why antennas work.  Trust me: He’s entertaining, and you will …

   Ticketing is now available for HamX ’25, to be held August 21 through 25 at the Best Western Hotel and Conference Center in Marlborough, Mass. Tickets to the Friday DX/Contest dinner, as well as the convention, are available online here. We have special news concerning our Friday DXCC dinner: DX Engineering (“DXE”) has graciously agreed to be the official sponsor for the Northeast HamXposition Friday evening DX/Contest Banquet. According to DX Engineering CEO Tim Duffy, K3LR, the company will donate six $100 gift certificates toward purchase of products from the company, along with a major prize of an Icom IC-7610 with a retail value …

March 18, 2025: “How to Become a POTA Hunter” by Harold Kramer, WJ1B. Description: Parks on the Air, POTA, is one of the fastest growing and most popular programs in Amateur Radio today. This presentation will provide an overview of the Parks on the Air program and will emphasize the tools, techniques, and practices for becoming an effective POTA Hunter. Hunters are stations that are not operating in a park, but rather, usually at their home stations. Hunters are essential to the POTA program because without Hunters, the Activators, stations located in a park, would have no one to work!   Bio: Harold retired eight …

The USTNR [Uncommon Service to Nautical Radio]  plans to activate the USS Massachusetts on April 19, 2025, according to Rick Emord, KB1TEE. “We plan to get on the ship around 0800 to celebrate scouting. We will pack up at 1530. Come on down if you can only spend a few minutes or any times, just come to the ship’s gift shop and sign the page with my name on it.” —Thanks, Massasoit ARA March 2025 newsletter  

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!  I hope everyone had a fine time wearin’ o’ the green and being Irish for a day. Drinking Guinness, or Harp, or Jameson’s, or Bushmill’s. And ya’ know, I love a corned beef and cabbage dinner as much as the next guy, but I’ve had enough for a while – maybe a whole year!  I hope you all made it through the Daylight-Saving Time transition. What a pain! Personally, I’d rather we just picked a time zone and stayed with it year-round, but that’s just me. For those of me that just can’t wake up early, …