Category Archives: Featured

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

Activities, Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter

Ham Bootcamp is Going Online

Are you a newly licensed Technician, or a General or Extra and have never been on the air or built a station?  Are you a prospective ham but would like to learn more about Amateur Radio activities?  Ham Bootcamp is the program for you and this year Ham Bootcamp is Going Online!

Registration is open for the Nashua Area Radio Society’s Fall Ham Bootcamp.  This year, Ham Bootcamp is going online using Zoom web conferencing. Going online will allow us to help new Hams get on the air, in a safe way during the Coronavirus Pandemic.  This will also let us reach out to new Hams across the country.

Jamey, AC1DC, elmers Randall, KC1KSY as he makes an HF Contact
Jamey, AC1DC, Elmers Randall, N1KRB as he makes an HF Contact

The ARRL has published an article about our Ham Bootcamp program.  It is the cover story in the October 2020 QST, which is just reaching mailboxes this week.  If you haven’t received your copy yet, you can access the article online at This Month in QST.  If you like the article, you can vote for it to receive the Cover Plaque award at http://www.arrl.org/cover-plaque-poll

Dan and Kenzie Satellite Intro at Bootcamp
Dan and Kenzie Satellite Intro at Bootcamp

Our fall Ham Bootcamp will be held on Saturday, November 7th from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm Eastern Time.  The morning session will focus on Technician level activities and the afternoon session will focus on HF activities for General and above licensees.  Here is the agenda:

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
Jamey Explains HF Station Building
Jamey Explains HF Station Building

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!

Ham Bootcamp is Going Online on November 7th

Registration is now open for the November 7th session.  You can get more information about Ham Bootcamp at https://www.n1fd.org/ham-bootcamp/.

Each attendee should register separately using this link.   After registering, you will be sent a link that will allow you to register for the Zoom meeting.  Following the Zoom meeting registration, you will receive a personal Zoom link via email.

Any questions about Bootcamp?  Contact me at [email protected]

DX, Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter

The South African Radio League Web Site and Free Publications

The South African Radio League has an annual Diary of Events (PDF) online.  Between the month-at-a-glance pages, this calendar has information on certificates they administer such as the Worked All ZS award and Worked All Africa award.

South African hams operating outdoors
South African hams operating outdoors
(From the public SARL Youth Facebook page,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/217437211797100)

For a bigger picture, I like their Year-at-a-Glance (PDF) calendar, for A3 paper (11.75″ x 16.5″).  (I’ve already suggested that the ARRL take a look at it and consider offering one too.)

South African hams operating outdoors
South African hams operating outdoors
(From the public SARL Youth Facebook page,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/217437211797100)

The South African Parks on the Air program looks interesting since it includes Flora and Fauna not seen in the wild anyplace near our W1 area!

Their HF Happenings (and other DX news) newsletter is downloadable and includes African IOTA information.

South African hams operating outdoors
South African hams during a SOTA activation
Cover of September/October 2014 issue of Radio ZS
(From the public SARL Youth Facebook page,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/217437211797100)

In response to the pandemic, they made the April 2020 issue of their magazine free to everyone.  (Apparently, some other societies have done the same, so if you find one, please post a link to it!)  This issue includes an adapter to use a Baofang radio as a ‘fox’, the design for the audio part of a direct-conversion receiver (SDR), information about an amateur radio exhibit they put up at a public exhibit of hobbies of all sorts, and other projects.

Don’t worry about being able to read the articles, everything I looked at was in English, with some columns also in Afrikaans.  I found it very interesting!

As you can tell from the pictures above, they also have a public Facebook page “for members of the SARL (South African Radio League) and amateur radio enthusiasts under the age of 25“.

Aron, W1AKI

Featured, General, Newsletter

Air Force Research Lab Tracks Sporadic-E

1 Comment

Amateur radio enthusiasts have been taking advantage of Sporadic-E skip or simply sporadic-e for many years. Sporadic-E is a poorly understood propagation method that takes advantage of ”clouds” of highly charged particles in the lower atmosphere. Using this method you can ”skip” a signal off the cloud and communicate over much longer distances than you normally could at VHF frequencies.

Late spring into summer is the time of year when sporadic-E really takes off in the northern hemisphere, but Sporadic-E can show up at any time and at any place making predictions very difficult. Really the best way to see if there is any chance of skip is to check the spotting networks or just get on the radio and give a holler and see who answers you just make sure to have your maidenhead grid square locator. Here’s a good link to one – https://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php.

Well, apparently amateurs aren’t the only ones interested in predicting Sporadic-E.

I was listening to one of my podcasts (This Week in Amateur Radio for the record) at work today and thought I would pass on some interesting information. Apparently, The Air force Research Lab is also interested in tracking Sporadic-E clouds and in a way that we may not have expected. I won’t ruin the surprise here but this discovery sounds very interesting and has far-reaching effects.

Sporadic-e
One antenna of the Sporadic-E detection array

You can read the whole article here.http://www.arrl.org/news/air-force-research-laboratory-tracks-sporadic-e.

73

-Jim K1BRM

 

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