Interest and support for the Nashua Area Radio Society’s Amateur Radio Expos for Young People are continuing to grow! We’ve been busy with follow-up activities from our Youth Expo at the New England Amateur Radio Convention in Boxboro, MA earlier this month and we are planning our next Youth Expo as part of the New England Tech Trek (NETT) at NEAR-Fest in October.

The Boxboro Convention team put together a really nice slide show which includes some photos from our Youth Expo. Click on the image above to view it!

We are having a new N1T Special Event QSL card printed for our Boxboro on-air operation. We made QSOs on the HF bands as well as via Satellites during our Expo. Requests for N1T QSLs from Boxboro are coming in daily and we hope to have our new card back from the printer soon.

Plans for NETT at NEAR-Fest

We have been working with the NEAR-Fest folks to plan our next Youth Expo as part of the New England Tech Trek (NETT) at the NEAR-Fest Ham Festival in Deerfield, NH on October 12th and 13th.

Our Expo at NEAR-Fest will feature five GOTA stations, an expanded kit building activity, new Fox Hunt and Morse Code activities, and a classroom area we can use to introduce young people to Amateur Radio and our display.

We will again be hosting a Special Event at NETT and we will be operating as N1T there. Our planned GOTA stations include:

• Remote HF Operation of AB1OC via SDR
• Remote HF Operation of K1DLM via SDR
• Computer Controlled Satellite Operation
• Repeater and VHF/UHF Simplex Operation via a GoKit
• Mobile HF Operation

Our kit building activity is very popular and we are going to expand our kit building activity at NEAR-Fest to support up to 21 simultaneous builders. We expect that students in larger groups will likely work in teams of two so we should be able to accommodate over 40 students at a time! Our kit will cost $18 and will include a printed color manual and batteries. NARS members will be available to mentor builders on soldering and building their kits.

We are planning a Fox-Hunting activity at NEAR-Fest and we’ll also have a variety of hands-on Morse Code activities as well.

You can view and download a printable flyer about our plans for NETT at NEAR-Fest here.

NEAR-Fest and Our Members Help with Fundraising

The NEAR-Fest Organization along with a few  NARS members have agreed to match dollar for dollar all contributions up to a total of $1,100 made to our STEM Learning and Training fundraising project between now at the end of NEAR-Fest!

Please consider making a donation to support our projects as your contribution during this time will have double the impact in supporting our work to bring young people into the Amateur Radio service.

We are raising funds to support a variety of STEM learning projects including High-Altitude Balloon projects, electronics learning projects,  license training for High School and Middle School students, and other projects that provide STEM learning through Amateur Radio. We are also raising funds to allow us to purchase and maintain equipment to provide emergency communications and associated training in times of disaster.

We hope to see you at NEAR-Fest! NARS members, we need your help! If you’d like to help us with our Youth Expo display, please contact Anita, AB1QB at [email protected].  See Anita’s forum post for details on where we need help.

Fred, AB1OC