Category Archives: Featured

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

Featured, General, Newsletter, Space

AMSAT’s Fox-1D Satellite Scheduled For Launch!

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Source: AMSAT’s Fox-1D Launch Scheduled for 03:58 UTC January 12, 2018 | QRZ Forums

Fox-1D Satellite - a new Amateur Radio FM EasySat

AMSAT’s next Fox-1 satellite, Fox-1D, is scheduled for launch on January 12, 2018 at 03:58 UTC (Thursday, January 11th at 10:58 PM EST) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. Fox-1D will launch as part of the PSLV-C40 mission on board a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle with Cartosat-2F, an imaging satellite for the Indian government, and 29 other payloads.

In addition to the Fox-1 U/v FM transponder, Fox-1D contains a number of exciting experiments, including a camera built by students at Virginia Tech, the University of Iowa’s HERCI (High Energy Radiation CubeSat Instrument), and AMSAT’s L-Band Downshifter which will give amateur radio operators an opportunity to experiment with a different uplink band. Stay tuned for more information about the launch and early operations of the satellite.

Another Amateur Radio Satellite will be on the air soon! Fox-1D carries an FM U/V transponder – another FM EasySat. It’s a great time to get involved in Amateur Radio sSatellites! There is lots of information here on our website about how to build a satellite ground station, operate using satellites, and about what is up. See the following link for our satellite articles. Our Members can view the our Tech Night presentation on building a satellite station in our video archives.

Fred, AB1OC

Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air, Space, Youth Activities

Kids Day On The Air

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Saturday, January 6th was ARRL Kids Day On the Air.  and we hosted a club event for kids at Fred, AB1OC and Anita, AB1QB’s QTH.  We had many fun activities for the kids including getting on the air via HF and Satellite, learning CW and demos of some cool Raspberry Pi projects.

Nora making her First Satellite Contact

Satellite Operation

The portable satellite station was set up and it was a great day for satellites as there were many good passes.  Fred helped many of the kids make their first Satellite contacts.

Keith, KC1IMK working the Satellites with Fred, AB1OC
Keith, KC1IMK working the Satellites with Fred, AB1OC

We had a total of 9 kids who participated in the event, along with their parents.

Mary, who attended with her brother, KA1LAS and father KC1IMI works the Satellites
Mary, who attended with her brother, KA1LAS, and her father KC1IMI, works the Satellites

Raspberry Pi, CW, Fox Hunting, and HAB Demos

We provided demos to the kids of several Raspberry Pi projects,  Pi-Lexa – a home built Raspberry Pi Alexa built by Connor, KC1GGX,  along with a CW decoder and the DX Alarm Clock.  Jamey, KC1ENX provided some CW demos including his favorite YouTube video – The Rhythm of the Code.  Fred, AB1OC did a show and tell of the High Altitude Balloon including pieces of the balloons that we in space and a Fox-Hunting demo.

HF Operation in the Shack
HF Operation in the Shack

We also went down to the shack and the kids got on the air and made some HF contacts.  Jamey, KC1ENX helped the kids to make contacts with other kids as well as adult Hams on the air.  The kids really enjoyed the HF operation. We did some live streaming on the N1FD Facebook page during the event.   Follow this link to see the live stream of some of our on-air activities during Kid’s Day.

AB1BY Gets On the Air

Abby, AB1BY shows off her log after running a huge pileup
Abby, AB1BY shows off her log after running a huge pileup

After most of the kids left, Abby, AB1BY took the mic and ran a huge pileup.  She was very popular on the air and did a great job of running the pileup.  We also streamed her pileup operation to Facebook and it got a huge response.

Overall, Kids Day On the Air was a fun day for both the kids and the adults.   We are looking forward to the next Kids Day in July!

Anita, AB1QB

Activities, Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter

2018 Tech Night Survey Results

The results are in for the Tech Night program survey. We had 18 respondents and several volunteers to help with presentations.

In order to produce a meaningful ranking, a weight was given to votes for High, Medium, and Low. High was assigned a value of 10. Medium was assigned a value of 3. Low was assigned a value of zero. The score for each idea was then tallied, and the table sorted by score. Anything with a score below 95 was considered uninteresting at this time. Note that future surveys may have these very same ideas, and new members (or even old members) may rate the ideas higher later. Just because an idea didn’t get scheduled this year doesn’t mean it is off the table for next year.

I’m happy to say that five of the ideas that ranked highest have already been scheduled. We are also doing an Antenna Modeling program two nights, and a two-night kit build event in January and February to round out the package. As for the other popular ideas, we’ll be seeking out presenters for these in the coming weeks and months.

Here is a list of the ideas that made the cut:

Here are the remaining issues ranked, and a few more that were suggested during the survey.

Our hope is to bring interesting speakers and ideas to Tech Night. If you have ideas for program topics, or if you’d like to present at a Tech Night, please contact me.

Scott, NE1RD

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide