Education and Training information is for folks looking for help to earn or upgrade their license, learn about Amateur Radio, and get help with Ham Radio questions.
Ham Bootcamp includes a series of demonstrations and tutorials designed to help prospective and newly licensed Technician, General, and Extra class license holders get on the air and use their amateur radio license. It is also a great opportunity for prospective hams who are interested in seeing what the hobby has to offer.Our Bootcamp activities are provided online via a series of sessions geared towards Technicians and prospective Hams and General class licenses and higher Hams. Bootcamp participants will find all of this material interesting and fun no matter what their focus or license level.
We are continuing to provide our Bootcamp program during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are providing Ham Bootcamp in an online format using Zoom. Our online Ham Bootcamp program is available to all licensed and prospective Hams in North America. Please contact us to sign up for our next online Ham Bootcamp via email to [email protected].
Repeaters and VHF/UHF Session Activities
Putting together a Station for Repeaters – How to pick an HT or Mobile Radio and an Antenna
Radio Programming Tutorial
Getting started with EchoLink
Making Contacts and Joining a Repeater Net
Getting Started with Amateur Radio Satellites
Getting started with Fox Hunting
HF Session Activities
Putting together an HF Station for SSB, CW, and Digital
Picking and putting up an HF Antenna, Feedline, and Ground
Operating on the HF bands using SSB Voice
Software and setup for Logging Contacts via your computer
Getting started with WSJT-X and FT8 Digital
Finding DX and QSL’ing – Getting them in the log and confirmed
… and more!
Virtual Ham Radio Shopping Trip
Join us for a guided tour of all of the gear and goodies that are available to build or expand your station.
Ask questions and get answers from NARS experts on what gear might be best for your situation.
We provide the Virtual Shopping Trip via a follow-on Zoom session shortly after Bootcamp. Information on how to join us for this event will be shared at our next Bootcamp session.
Bootcamp has also been featured in the October 2020 edition of QST Magazine. You can view the article here.
Sign Up for Ham Bootcamp
Don’t miss this twice a year opportunity to learn more about Amateur Radio, improve your station, expand your skills, and get on the air.
Our Fall 2020 Ham Bootcamp session will be held online via Zoom on Saturday, November 7th from 10 am – 6 pm Eastern Time.
See you at Ham Bootcamp! You can contact us to sign up for our next Bootcamp via email to [email protected].
Support Ham Bootcamp
The Nashua Area Radio Society provides many training and skills development activities for new Hams and Young People. We also have many programs to enable folks young and old alike to join the Amateur Radio service. Please consider supporting our programs and our work by making a donation via the GoFundMe campaign which follows.
The Nashua Area Radio Society is a 501c(3) non-profit charity.
Interest and Excitement around HamXposition @ Boxboro are building! The event will take place on September 6th – 8th in Boxboro, Massachusettes. You can learn more about HamXposition here.
The Nashua Area Radio Society will be hosting several activities and displays at HamXposition this year. Our planned activities include:
NEW! Ham Bootcamp Program – a hands-on activity to help folks get on the air and build their stations
Our Ham Expo Display featuring information and hands-on activities you can do with Amateur Radio
A Kit Building Activity featuring a choice of two different kits
Multiple Get On The Air Stations including an HF Remote GOTA station and an on-site Satellite GOTA station
You can learn more about HamXposition and our activities there at the HamXpostion website.
Ham Bootcamp
A First HF Contact at Ham Bootcamp
We have created a program that we call Ham Bootcamp to help recently licensed and upgraded hams to get on the air. We are making this program available to up to 100 HamXpostion attendees on a first-come-first-served basis.
Our Bootcamp program will run from 9 am to noon on Saturday, September 7th in the Federal Room. Bootcamp will feature tracks for both Technician and General class license holders. It is also a great place for folks who are not yet licensed to learn more about Amateur Radio and how to get on the air.
Our Bootcamp program will include:
How to make a contact and join a repeater net
Putting together an HF station
Radio, antenna, and feed line choices
Getting started with FT8 and digital modes
Exchanging QSL cards
Learning Morse code
Tips on upgrading
Introduction to ham radio kit building
Handheld radio programming tutorials
Ham Bootcamp is free. Participants will receive discount certificates for a kit build at the show and for purchase of Ham Radio Gear from Ham Radio Outlet.
Our Ham Radio Expo will feature a total of 10 hands-on exhibits about activities that you can do with Amateur Radio. Our display will include:
Information on Licensing and Ham Radio Skill-Building Activities
Ham Radio Communications via Satellites and the ISS
High-Altitude Balloons carrying Amateur Radio
Radio Direction Finding (Fox Hunting)
DXing and HF Station Construction
Portable Operating
Field Day and Emergency Communications
Ham Radio Kits and Computers
Learning and using Morse Code
and more!
70 cm Ground Plan Antenna
Our kit building activity will feature a choice of two kits that you can build at HamXposition. In addition to the popular Morse Tutor kit, will also have a 70 cm Ground Plane Antenna kit available at the show.
Kit Builder and Mentor at HamXposition
We will have tools and mentors available to help you build your kit at HamXposition.
HF Remote GOTA Station – Visitor Operating the N1T Special Event Station
Our Remote HF GOTA Station will be back again this year. Visitors can use it to make HF contacts around the world. You can also help to operate our N1T Special Event Station. This is a great way to learn about DXing and speak with other Hams in the USA and around the world!
Computer Controlled Satellite Station at HamXposition
We will also have a Computer-Controlled Satellite Station on-site. The station will feature the new Icom IC-9700! It will also use an automated antenna system to track satellites in space. Visitors can use the station to learn about satellite communications and to talk to other Hams through a satellite in space.
Get Your HT Programmed At HamXposition
Kenwood TH-D74 HT
We will be offering an HT programming service at HamXposition. Programming software and cables will be available to program the following popular FM HTs:
Icom – ID-31A and ID-51 Models
Kenwood – TH-D72 and TH-D74
Yaesu – FT60, FT65, and FT70
BaoFeng – UV-5R and BF-F8HP
TDXOne – TD-Q8
We will help you to create and load a custom list of repeaters into your HT that are available near your home QTH.
HamXposition Forum Presentations
NARS Forum Presentation, Dan AC1EN Presenting
It has been a very active year for the Nashua Area Radio Society. We will be sharing some of the fun in two Forum Presentations at HamXposition:
A Recent Local School ISS Crew Contact Time/Place: 1 pm in the Cotillion Room
The Nashua Area Radio Society worked with the Hudson (NH) Memorial School to plan for and execute and ISS crew contact this past year. Join us for an overview of this project including information about what goes into planning, preparation, and execution. The presentation will feature a video of the students talking with astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor abroad the ISS. The talk will highlight the STEM learning aspects of the project.
The Journey to 2019 Club of the Year
Time/Place: 2 pm in the Cotillion Room
The Nashua Area Radio Society was recently honored as the Dayton Hamvention (R) 2019 Club of the Year for its work in bringing new people into the Amateur Radio service and providing mentoring and STEM learning opportunities for young and old. Members will discuss some of the programs that NARS has created to help folks enter the Amateur Radio service, build their skills, and have fun with Amateur Radio.
Reaching Out To Hams Across New England
HamXpostion Program Info – Amateur Radio Licensing and Skills Development Opportunities
The Nashua Area Radio Society is continuing to expand the reach of our Licensing and Training programs to as many Hams as possible. Our hands-on weekend License Training classes for Technician, General, and Extra class licenses are already quite popular with folks outside of our area.
We are also making our training video content and our popular Q&A forums available to Hams outside of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. These materials are available via our Internet Subscriptions. Look for more information about what we can provide in the HamXposition program and visit us at www.n1fd.org/hamradiofun to learn more as well.
We are continuing to provide our Ham Radio Youth Expo displays at local Hamfests. We are always looking to simplify to delivery of our Ham Expos displays.
Youth Expo Kits and Computers Display
Dave, K1DLM recently suggested a great simplification idea. His idea is to replace the multitude of Laptop Computers that we’ve been using to display videos at our Expos with Raspberry Pi Computers. I wanted to share how we went about building our Raspberry Pi Video Players so that others might have the information needed to duplicate what we did for other applications.
Raspberry Pi Video Players
Completed Raspberry Pi Video Players
We’ve been using a total of 8 laptop computers as part of our Ham Expo displays and most of these only play video content. Many of these computers can be replaced with a simple and compact Raspberry Pi Computer.
Raspberry Pi Player Close-up
The image above shows a closeup view of one of the completed Raspberry Pi Video Players. All that is required to use our new players is to connect the player to an HDMI display. Power is provided via a small USB power supply.
Raspberry Pi Video Player Display
The players produce a very nice display on an HDMI monitor. We also connect the players to a small USB powered speaker to provide audio.
Player Hardware and Packaging
Our video players are relatively inexpensive and easy to build. Here’s a bill of materials:
The parts cost a total of about $60 new on Amazon. Fortunately, we had most of the parts required on hand except for the cases which significantly reduced the overall cost of the project.
Raspberry Pi 3 B+
The current build of the Raspian OS includes a copy of the VLC Media Player which we use to play our videos. Playing high-resolution videos does stress the capabilities for the Model 3B+ that we are using and a few of our videos needed to be downscaled to 720p resolution to play smoothly. The downscaling was done using QuickTime Player on a Mac. Our monitors are 27 in or smaller and there was no noticeable loss of video quality at 720p resolution.
Case, Power Supply, Fan, and Heatsinks
The processing load associated with continuously playing videos causes the Raspberry Pi to generate a good bit of heat. To deal with this and also to provide a nice case for our players, we chose an enclosure package which includes a fan and heatsinks. The package also includes the required USB power supply with an on-off switch.
Player Software
RPi Desktop via VNC
We enabled the Raspberry Pi VNC Server on our Video Players to provide keyboard and mouse access via Windows and Mac computers. This allows a single PC to configure and start the VLC players on all 7 of our Video Players used in our Ham Expo Display. We use the RealVNC connect client on the controlling PC to access our Raspberry Pi Video Players.
Raspberry Pi File Sharing on a Windows PC via Samba
We also installed the Samba file sharing package on our Video Players. Samba allows a Windows or Mac PC to access the drive on the Players to load our videos.
The Model 3B+ provides both wired and WiFi access and we use the wired connection for loading our videos because it is much faster than WiFi. The Raspberry Pi’s WiFi connection is great for VNC access to start out players at our Expos.
Planned Use Of Our Players
The Raspberry Pi video players create an inexpensive and easy to use System for playing videos as part of our Ham Expo Displays. We will be using them for the first time at our Ham Expo Display at HamXpostion at Boxboro in September.
The resulting Raspberry Pi are very capable systems and I expect that we will find other applications for them as we go forward.
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