We held our annual Holiday Party at our December meeting. Our Yankee Swap gift exchange was a lot of fun!
Jill Gordon – I finally got something that I can use…Jim Maxwell – Whoopee! I am going to be a Computer Engineer!Abby Finchum – I can’t wait until Field Day next year!
We’d also like to congratulate our club officers for 2017 –
Also, a very Special Thanks to Layne LaBaume, AE1N, and Mike Ryan, K1WVO; our current Club Vice-President and Secretary, for their service to our club and their hard work and contributions to our club over the past years. We look forward having both Layne and Mike continue to provide guidance and leadership as part of our Board.
The N1FD Contest Team operated in the final Rookie Roundup of the year – the ARRL Rookie Roundup CW. Jamey, KC1ENX and Abby KC1FFX operated as a Multi-Op team using the N1FD callsign at the QTH of AB1OC and AB1QB.
Abby, KC1FFX in the Rookie Roundup CW
The CW contest proved to be a great way to improve the CW skills of the rookies as well as the Elmers! It was the perfect follow-on to the Morse Code Class held earlier this year.
N1FD Multi-Op Score in the ARRL RR CW
Abby and Jamey made a total of 21 QSOs in the contest, including one with another rookie from Alberta, Canada. Most of the activity was on the 20m band with a few contacts on 40m.
US States and Canadian Provinces Worked in the Contest
We all had a great time in the contest and are looking forward to working another CW contest soon.
We’re also looking forward to the next Rookie Roundup, the SSB contest which will be on April 17. We invite all of the new hams in the club to join us for the SSB version of the contest.
With only 1 month to go in the ARRL NPOTA event and some free time this Thanksgiving weekend, Fred and I decided to hit the road to activate some new parks. We activated two nearby parks, each less than 1 hour away from our home, Lamprey Wild and Scenic River, WR23, near Epping, NH, and Minuteman National Historical Park, HP27, near Concord, MA. There were close to 900K QSOs made overall in the NPOTA program as of Thanksgiving day and we also wanted to help the cause to get to 1Million NPOTA QSOs by year’s end.
Map of Lamprey Wild and Scenic River
On Saturday, we drove to Epping, NH, where we activated Lamprey Wild and Scenic River. It was a rainy day, but we still enjoyed the scenic drive along the river. We drove along the river until we found a place by the river to park and operate. The bands were not great, with a K-index of 4 and a high A-index. Despite the conditions, our activation was a success. We operated on both 20m and 40m SSB and made a total of 307 QSOs over 3 hours.
View of Countryside in Minute Man National Historical Park
I work in Burlington, MA and often travel between Burlington and Waltham, MA for meetings. Each time I passed by Lexington on I-95 I saw the sign for Minute Man NHP and thought it would be fun to do an NPOTA activation from there. We activated the park on Saturday. We entered the park from the Concord, MA end and were pleasantly surprised to see some nice countryside in the middle of a suburban area of Massachusetts, not far from Boston.
AB1QB logging for AB1OC/M during the NPOTA activation.
We operated from a parking lot in the park from mid-afternoon until dark. The bands were a little better on Saturday and we were able to get 239 contacts into the log, mostly the US but also worked stations from Spain, Jamaica, Aruba and Puerto Rico.
We have enjoyed activating 8 National parks so far in the NPOTA event. We are planning another activation between Christmas and New Years of multiple parks before the end of the event on December 31.
