Category Archives: Featured

This category is for featured articles that we want to include in the sidebars and other areas on our website.

Digital, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

2018 13 Colonies Special Event Results

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The 2018 13 Colonies Special Event took place from July 1-7 this year and Nashua Area Radio Society members operated as K2K, the New Hampshire station.

Charlie, W1CBD operating the pileups from AB1OC station
Charlie, W1CBD operating the pileups from AB1OC station

Several members operated from AB1OC and AB1QB’s QTH.  We were operating from 2 stations.  The SSB station was in our shack and used the stacked SteppIR DB36 beams.

Fred, AB1OC operating FT8 as K2K
Fred, AB1OC operating FT8 as K2K

We also had an FT8 station set up in our kitchen.  It used the Flex 6700 in our shack remotely and the SteppIR BigIR vertical antenna, which is in the woods next to our house, far enough from the tower to avoid interference.

We live-streamed much of the operation on our Facebook page – here is one of Brian, AB1ZO operating as K2K.

In addition to the operators at AB1OC and AB1QB’s QTH, several members operated as K2K from their own stations.

13 Colonies Certificate
13 Colonies Certificate

With 13,622 QSOs, the Nashua Area Radio Society won the top club and New Hampshire was the 2nd state behind K2J, North Carolina.

Congratulations to all of the 13 Colonies operators:

Activities, Digital, Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter, Youth Activities

Congratulations New Techs!

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We held a technician license class for students, teachers, and parents from our HAB-3 schools and other youth outreach programs on July 16th through 19th at Hudson Memorial School.  The new Hams from the class have just received their call signs and are ready to get on the air!  Congratulations to the new Techs!

New Ham with her CSCE - Amateur Radio Youth Outreach
New Ham with her CSCE
  • Mackenzie Pooler, KC1KBU
  • Victoria Trost, KB1KBV
  • Karen Crivac, KC1KBW
  • Bridget Lalmond, KC1KBX
  • Christopher Levasseur, KC1KBY
  • Adam Goldstein, KC1KBZ
  • Daiel Bartus, KC1KCA
  • Maximillian Piech, KM6UVJ
  • Tatiana Piech, KM6UVK

Here are some of the upcoming activities that the new Techs can get involved in:

  • Join our Weekly Repeater Net – Sundays at 7:30pm – see our Amateur Radio Nets page for more info
  • Get on Echolink
  • August Tech Night on FT8, a very popular digital mode on 6 meters – August 14th, 7:00pm at the First Church Nashua
  • Family Picnic – August 18th at Greeley Park in Nashua
  • ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY – August 19th at AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH – we will be control operators so Techs can participate
  • Fox Hunts – Stay tuned to our forums for announcements when the Foxes are out
  • Open House – Get your HT programmed, make your first contact, train for your first contest (ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY) – August 12th at AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH
  • Customize your QRZ page 
  • Sign up for our General License Class in November and start studying!

If you haven’t yet joined the Nashua Area Radio Society, you can do so at https://www.n1fd.org/join-us/

Tech Students Tuning an Antenna - Amateur Radio Youth Outreach
Tech Students Tuning an Antenna

Thanks to the following members who helped out with the license class as instructors, giving demos, updating tech class materials, donating equipment, and as VEs:

Digital, Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter

Significant Changes in Store for FT8 and MSK144 with WSJT-X 2.0

WSJT-X co-developer Joe Taylor, K1JT, has announced that major changes are coming to the FT8 and MSK144 digital protocols when WSJT-X 2.0 arrives in a few months. Taylor said version 2.0 should be ready for prime time by January.

“Much of the necessary programming is finished,” Taylor said in a post to the Packrats reflector. “Many of the new features have been tested on the air, and we find them to work well.”

Source: Significant Changes in Store for FT8 and MSK144 with WSJT-X Version 2.0

Some of the more interesting additions planned include:

  • Support for Field Day Exchanges
  • Support for the ARRL RTTY Roundup
  • Support for user-defined telemetry messages

Support for Telemetry messages (could be useful for a future long-range HF HAB radio system). See Joe’s whitepaper here for more details.

Looks like we’ll see a beta in October…

Fred, AB1OC

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