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Hi all, I’m sure there are other modern Mac owners who would like to join the Winlink network. As part of my work with the West Middlesex ARES group here in Massachusetts, I worked out a pat configuration that is fully functional with ARDOP and VARA HF modems, despite their being Windows-only applications. I’ve had this working for about 6 months now, and I’ve finally gotten around to writing the instructions necessary for others to try out. They are in a blog post on my web site at: https://www.wg1v.org/posts/2023-12-27-Winlink-and-Pat-on-M1-Mac/ It’s also the most recent blog post on my ham radio …

Marcel L. Dumont, W1MLD, writes on the Southeastern MA ARA mailing list: Tony [Souza], NN1D, will be giving a class for your tech ham license beginning the second week of January on Thursday, January 11, 2024. The classes will be held at the Dartmouth Police station on Tucker Road just south of Route Six. The classes will be held for four weeks with testing on the fifth week. The classes will be from 7 PM till 9 PM each night except for the first night at 6:30 for registration. The cost will be for the book only at under $15.00. …

The MA/RI STM report for November 2023 can be found at https://ema.arrl.org/massachusetts-rhode-island-stm-report-for-november-2023/ . Note: scroll to bottom of the page to find page 2.  Holiday greetings to all the great traffic handlers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Thank you for all your participation and support.  73, Marcia KW1U  STM

KI1U-Mike Corey – FEMA Region 1 Emergency Management Specialist in Disaster Communications writes: Good afternoon, FEMA Region 1 will begin conducting monthly Winlink tests starting January 2024. The purpose of this test is to exercise the Regional PACE plan, Winlink is part of the “Emergency” category of the plan. We would like to include Amateur Radio and SHARES stations in New England in this test. Here are the details: Testing Procedure: Each month FEMA Region 1 Disaster Emergency Communications Branch will generate a Winlink message to participating stations. The message will be sent via Winlink through an Amateur Radio or …

From https://hamxposition.org: If you attended the grand banquet at the 2022 HamXposition you saw Dr. Erickson give a terrific presentation on HamSCI and Haystack Observatory’s ionospheric investigations. —Thanks, K1FVK MIT News article: https://news.mit.edu/2023/philip-erickson-named-director-mit-haystack-observatory-1215  

PART of Westford President George Allison’s, K1IG, correspondence to ARRL was featured in “Letters from Our Members” in the January, 2024 issue of QST.  George wrote about his experiences contributing to the ARRL Education and Technology Fund.  

Brandon Hockle, NQ1W, writes on the Cape Ann ARA mailing list: Just a quick note to remind everyone that Paul Krueger [N1JDH] has been kind enough to come back for the second in our lecture series on antennas! Last time he gave an excellent overview of some of the horizontal antenna systems we commonly work with as hams and a look at computer models of them at various heights. This month we will get to enjoy a similar treatment for vertical antenna design! Paul has put together a fine presentation with models of some the most common vertical design cases …

The New England Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society will meet on-line and in-person on December 19, 2023 at 7 PM and feature: “Factors Affecting Small Transmitting Loop Antenna Performance” by Augie “Gus” Hansen, KBØYH. This presentation is an updated version of one given in the first QSO Today Academy in September 2023. A Small Transmitting Loop Antenna (STL) of diminutive size can perform very well on both transmission and reception if care is taken in the design, material selection, and construction phases. The program STLcalc is used to reveal the performance impacts of main loop conductor material, size, shape, and length, as …

Seventeen boys and girls from the Lexington BSA scouts participated in a three-hour program at New England Sci-Tech in Natick toward their radio merit badge, electronics merit badge, and amateur radio license. For two groups over two weekends, Jon Lyna, George Lyna, Rusty Moore, K1FVK, and Bob Phinney, K5TEC, led radio and electronics activities. Scout leader John Aldridge created the curriculum which he and Bob plan to make a regular program for scout activities at New England Sci-Tech.

Jon McCombie, N1ILZ, writes on the Eastern MA ARRL Members list: I hope everyone in the Section has been having a good time with the ARRL Volunteers On The Air (VOTA) program this year, making lots of QSOs and racking up lots of VOTA points! A reminder about the VOTA competition here in the Eastern MA Section: after the VOTA event concludes, the one Eastern MA ARRL member with the highest VOTA point total (per the VOTA Leaderboard, https://vota.arrl.org/leaderboard.php?state=MA&submit=Filter+by+State) will receive a softcover copy the of the ARRL-100 Antenna Book, compliments of ARRL. To enter: make sure to upload all …

Boston Marathon Communications Committee <contact@hamradioboston.org> Dec 7, 2023, 11:00 AM Volunteer registration for the 2024 Boston Marathon opened yesterday. Returning volunteers have received an email from the BAA that included registration instructions. In order to make registration as smooth as possible, we are providing specific instructions for our Amateur Radio Operator (ARO) volunteers. If you haven’t previously volunteered, or have a friend who would like to volunteer, please go directly to the Volunteer Registration page and follow the instructions for new volunteers. Step by Step Sign Up Guide: https://hamradioboston.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/44002497536-2024-volunteer-registration-step-by-step-guide A few notes for volunteers: Almost all amateur radio positions are single …

ARRL New England Division Director Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC, and Vice Director Phil Temples, K9HI, recently visited the W1AF club shack on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and awarded a 50-year ARRL affiliation plaque to HWC Vice President Cameron Lu, KC1LZI. The ARRL Board of Directors recognized the club in the form of an official motion at its July, 2023 meeting in Windsor, Connecticut.  The club has a distinguished history, and is one of the oldest radio clubs in the country. It was founded  in 1909 as “The Radio Society of the Institute of Geographic Exploration at Harvard” and …

Hello to all,      I hope the Thanksgiving Holidays were enjoyable for everyone! This email is the typical monthly message to let everyone know that Monday evening, December 4th, 2023 is our first non-holiday Monday of the month and, as such, will be the next RACES/ACS/Preparedness Net night. I would like to thank all stations that participated in last month’s Section Emergency Test as well as Skywarn Recognition Day this last weekend.       As always, I am looking for Net Control stations to staff our sector nets for the evening. This month I am planning to be able to …

Hello to all… The December Eastern Massachusetts ARES section net will be Monday December 4th, 2023 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 a number of announcements and …

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, The RACES nets for Dec will be held on Mon Dec 4 at: ******************************************************************************** The HF net will start at 6:45 PM ET: using the following frequency plan: We will start at 3930 KHz moving up to 3955 KHz until there is a clear frequency, Marc Stern WA1R will be net control. ********************************************************************************* Region 2D VHF net: 7:30 PM ET VHF net on 146.865 MHz …

Please join us at the Billerica Amateur Radio Society meeting on December 6, 2023 at 7:00 PM. Frank Garofalo, WA2NDV, on Basic Satellite Tracking.   Bio: Frank was originally licensed in 1970 in Corona Queens, New York by way of the Electchester Amateur Radio Club and his cousin, Hugo (SK). He was in 8th grade at the time and it gave his life a direction. Amateur Radio has allowed him to work in many diverse places including 18 years at NBC-NY and 15 years as a VoIP Engineer for the cable company with 3.5 million voice customers. It all started at …

Peter Doherty,  KC1HHO, writes: On December 2, 2023, members of Quincy Radio Club (KW1NZE) will host a special event station—“Quincy – Birthplace of John Adams.” The event will take place from 1600 to 1800 UTC at the Quincy Quarries & Granite Workers Museum on Riccutti Drive in Quincy. We will be operating HF CW/SSB/FT8, WiresX – Quincy Room #63826, APRS KW1NZE-7 and 2-meter simplex. Certificate and Wooden Nickel will be available for working our station. Please see our QRZ page for details. All are welcome to attend. 73 Peter KC1HHO

ARRL New England Division Director Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC, writes on nediv.arrl.org: I have been thinking a lot lately about what is most important to care for the future of Amateur Radio. There are many different views on the answer to this question. Some would say it’s about increasing participation in emergency communications and public service activities such as ARES, RACES, or the National Traffic System. Others would say it’s about protecting our bands. Those who live in HOA or covenant-restricted situations would emphasize the need to enable Hams to install antennas at their homes. Contesters would say that making contesting …

Frank Beaulieu,  WA1ESU, writes on the Cape Ann ARA mailing list: We are still looking for operators to staff the YuKanRun Happy Holidays 5K & Half MerryThon. Please let us know if you can staff a communications checkpoint for the event so we can plan staffing positions for the event. While CAARA’s repeater performance has greatly improved some regions of this course may still experience some difficulty with communications especially with low-powered HTs, so we’ll be looking for higher powered equipment to staff those areas Please let us know what type of equipment you plan to use (ie: mobile; H-T; …