Category Archives: Education and Training

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.

Activities, Education and Training, Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, On The Air, Youth Activities

Membership Renewals

Close to 40% of our members are up for renewal in the month of September.  We encourage those members to renew early,  beat the rush, and make sure your membership does not expire.  This article will show you how to tell when your membership is up for renewal. It will also show you how to renew your NARS membership online.

When is My Membership Due for Renewal?

Looking up my membership status
Looking up my membership status

You can visit the following page to see when your membership is up for renewal: https://www.n1fd.org/member-directory/.   Scroll to the 2nd table on the page, titled Membership Roster and Status, put your callsign in the search box and hit return.  As you can see above, I have looked up my membership status and I see that my membership is expiring in September 2019.

Membership Renewal Form
Membership Renewal Form

 

How to Renew Your Membership

To renew your membership, you can fill out the membership renewal form at the following page:  https://www.n1fd.org/renew-your-membership/.  At the end of the form, you will be asked to pay your membership fee using PayPal.

We have multiple membership renewal options to choose from if you qualify, with the following yearly fees.  Make sure you take advantage of a discounted rate if you qualify:

  • Regular Membership:  $31
  • Senior Membership (Age 65 or over): $26
  • Full-Time Student: $26
  • Family Membership: $46
Field Day 2019 Team

Your membership allows you to participate in all of our activities including:

HAB-3 Students and Teachers - Ready to Launch
HAB-3 Students and Teachers – Ready to Launch

Your membership in the Nashua Area Radio Society also supports our education and youth outreach work including:

  • Amateur Radio Licensing class delivery and scholarships for students, teachers, and young people
  • STEM Education for school students through Amateur Radio (ex. our High-Altitude Balloon program)
  • Activites to introduce young people and new Hams to Amateur Radio such as ARRL Kids Day, ARRL Rookie Roundup, and other youth outreach activities

If you are not yet a member, you can join the Nashua Area Radio Society online at https://www.n1fd.org/join-us/

 

Antennas, CW and QRP, Education and Training, Featured, General, Homebrewing, Newsletter, On The Air, Space, Youth Activities

Plans for HamXposition @ Boxboro 2019 – We Need Your Help

The Nashua Area Society will be part of the fun at HamXposition @ Boxboro again this year. We will be adding some new things this year as well as providing the Ham Radio Expo display that we did last year. Our contributions will include:

  • An expanded Ham Expo Display
  • Ham Bootcamp – a new activity for prospective and recently licensed Technician and General Class Hams
  • An Expanded Kit Building Activity
  • Several Forum Presentations featuring some of our recent projects and NARS Activities leading to our recognition as Club Of The Year

We will need a lot of help from NARS members to make our contribution to HamXposition successful. More on this later in this article.

Ham Radio Expo Display

HamXposition @ Boxboro
Ham Expo Display

Our Ham Expo display will cover many activities that you can do with Amateur Radio. Our display will also include three GOTA stations:

  • A Computer Controlled Satellite GOTA
  • A Remotely Controlled High-Power HF GOTA
  • A Repeater GOTA

We will also be adding a radio programming clinic where you can get your HT programmed at the show.

Ham Expo Layout

The diagram above shows the planned layout for our Ham Expo display. It will cover the entire back wall of the main exhibit hall in the vendor area and will include the Satellite GOTA station in the bar area as we did last year.

Ham Bootcamp

HamXposition @ Boxboro
Ham Bootcamp Activity

Ham Bootcamp is a new activity this year. Ham Bootcamp is a hands-on activity for folks interested in getting a Ham Radio License and folks who have gotten their Technician or General Class License and would like so help to get on the air or to upgrade their station to take advantage of their new General Class privileges. Our planned activities are outlined in the chart above. Most will be hands-on in small groups of 10 or less so we can answer questions and demonstrate how to have fun with Ham Radio. Ham Bootcamp will take place from 9 am to noon on Saturday and will accommodate up to 100 HamXposition attendees on a first-come-first-served basis.  We will also provide a $5 discount coupon to all Ham Bootcampers to use toward one of the kits that are included in our kit building activity at HamXposition.

Kit Building Plans

HamXposition @ Boxboro
Morse Tutor Kit

The popular Morse Tutor kit will be back again this year and we’ll have folks on hand as well equipment so that folks can build their kit and get it working at the show. You can find more about our Morse Tutor kit here.

We will be adding a second kit at our kit build – a 70 cm ground plane antenna. This is an antenna that you can build and use to help your HT or base rig get out better on the 70 cm band. We’ll have an analyzer and folks who can help you to tune your antenna for the best operation after you complete your kit.

Forum Presentations

NARS Forum Presentations

The Nashua Area Radio Society has had a pretty amazing year and we will have the opportunity to share some of our experiences at HamXposition via forum presentations. You can see the topics for our planned presentations above.

We Need Your Help

NARS HamXposition Teams

HamXposition is an important undertaking for us and for the northeastern Amateur Radio Community as a whole. We need your help to plan and execute our plans. Please reach out to Dave, Jerry, Scott or myself and join our HamXposition Team. It will be a lot of fun and a rewarding change to give back to the northeastern Amateur Radio Community.

Fred, AB1OC

Antennas, Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter

Latest Tech Night – Putting Up A Tower

July 2019 Tech Night – Putting Up A Tower

We recently did a how-to presentation on Putting Up A Tower at a Nashua Area Radio Society Tech Night. The video from this presentation can be viewed above.

Putting Up A Tower Video - Topics Covered
Putting Up A Tower Video – Topics Covered

We covered a variety of information related to planning, building and integrating Guyed and House-Bracketed towers. You can view the accompanying presentation materials here.

The Nashua Area Radio Society produces similar how-to training materials on almost a monthly basis and we make these materials available to our Members an Internet Subscribers (folks that live too far from our location to be regular members) for a small cost which supports our new Ham development programs and covers the production and storage costs associated with the video material. Here’s a list of the training topics that we’ve produced to date:

2019 Tech Nights

  • Almost Everything You Need to Know About Antenna Fundamentals Part 1 by Spencer Webb, W2SW and Steve Golson, W1SEG
  • Raspberry Pi for Portable Digital Communications by Jamey Finchum, AC1DC
  • HFTA, Feedline Design and Busting Pileups by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
  • QSL’ing and Awards by Anita Kemmerer, AB1QB
  • Fox Hunting: Radio Direction Finding for Beginners including a Tape Measure Yagi Build by Jamey Finchum, AC1DC
  • Surface Mount Technology by Hamilton Stewart, K1HMS
  • RF Design with Smith Charts, Building a First HF Station, and Begining with CW – Hamilton Stewart, K1HMS; Anthony Rizzolo, KC1DXL; and Jerry Doty, K1OKD
  • All About Field Day 2019 by our Field Day Planning Team
  • Putting up a Tower by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC

2018 Tech Nights

  • Operating Your Station Remotely by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
  • Transceiver Frequency Measurement and Calibration by George Allison, K1IG.
  • DMR Radios and Programming by Bill Barber, NE1B
  • WSJT-X: FT8, WSPR, MSK144 and More by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
  • Getting Started with Raspberry Pi Computers by Anita Kemmerer, AB1QB, Jamey Finchum, AC1DC,  Brian McCaffrey, W1BP, Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC, and Craig Bailey, N1SFT
  • All About Field Day 2018 by our Field Day Planning Team
  • Portable Operating Gear – demonstrations by Nashua Area Radio Society Members
  • K1EL Kits by Steve Elliott, K1EL
  • Antenna Modeling I by Scott Andersen, NE1RD.
  • Building and Operating a Mobile HF Station by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC

2017 Tech Nights

  • High-Altitude Balloons: Amateur Radio at the Edge of Space and was presented by our HAB Team.
  • Getting On The Air 2.0 by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC, and B. Scott Andersen, NE1RD
  • All About n1fd.org – Getting the most from our Website by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC.
  • Digital Modes: RTTY, PSK, and WSJT-X by Mike Struzik AB1YK, Anita Kemmerer AB1QB, and Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
  • Bonding and Grounding by Jeff Millar, WA1HCO and Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC.
  • All About Field Day 2017  by Dave Merchant, K1DLM, and our Field Day Planning Team.
  • Building and Operating a Satellite Ground Station by Burns Fisher, W2BFJ and Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC.
  • DXing and QSLing by Anita Kemmerer, AB1QB; Bill Barber, NE1B; Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC; and Dick Powell, WK1J.
  • Weak Signal VHF and UHF Stations by Jeff Millar, WA1HCO and Bill Barber, NE1B.
  • Getting the Most from your HF Transceiver and More by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC and Dave Michaels, N1RF.

2016 Tech Nights

  • Popular Loggers – Ham Radio Deluxe and DXLab Suite by Dave Merchant, K1DLM and Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC.
  • Low-Band Antennas by Dennis Marandos, K1LGQ; Hamilton Stewart, K1HMS; Brian McCaffrey, W1BP; and Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC.
  • RF Simulation and Matching by Jeff Millar, WA1HCO
  • Directional Antennas by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC; Dave Michaels, N1RF; Brian Smigielski, AB1ZO; and Greg Fuller, W1TEN
  • All About Field Day 2016  by our Field Day Planning Team.
  • Surface Mount Soldering and Desoldering, a Hands-On Presentation by Jeff Millar, WA1HCO
  • Building Your First Station and Getting On The Air by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC, and Dave Michaels N1RF
  • Software Defined Radios by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC and Skip Youngberg, K1NKR
  • Advanced Repeaters (DMR, EchoLink, DMR, and D-STAR) by Anita Kemmerer; AB1QB, Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC; and Bill Barber, NE1B
  • Antenna Modeling with EZNEC by Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC

You can gain on-going access to the full library of Amateur Radio Training and How-To materials by supporting our work to bring new people and young people into the Amateur Radio Service as a Nashua Area Radio Society Internet Subscriber. You can learn more about how to become an Internet Subscriber here.

Fred, AB1OC

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide