Category Archives: Featured

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

Antennas, Featured, General, Newsletter, Space, Station Equipment

EME Station 2.0 Part 5 – Control Cables and Rotator Controller

Snow is coming to New England this weekend so we wanted to get the control cables run to our new EME Tower before the ground is covered with snow. The project involved installing a Utility Enclosure…

Source: EME Station 2.0 Part 5 – Control Cables and Rotator Controller

We made some more progress on our 2m EME Station Project this past weekend. We began by installing a Utility Controller on our new EME Tower. With this done, we next ran three control cables through the conduits between our shack and the Tower. The control cables connect to our Azimuth Rotator, Elevation Rotator, and a planned MAP65 Switching and Preamp System.

Green Heron Az-El Rotator Controller
Green Heron Az-El Rotator Controller

With the cables run, we connected our Azimuth Rotator to a Green Heron Az/El Rotator Controller in our shack. This enabled us to get our Azimuth Rotator configured and tested.

You can read more about this part of our EME Station Project via the link above.

The next step in our EME Station Project will be to assemble the antennas that we have on order from M2 Antennas Systems and install them along with an H-Frame and related gear on our new Tower. We are hoping that the winter weather will allow us to get this done before spring.

Fred, AB1OC

Antennas, Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, Station Equipment

Winter Field Day VHF+ Preparations

We are continuing to make progress on our preparation for VHF+ Operations at Winter Field Day (WFD) 2020. We had a lot of fun on the VHF+ bands at WFD 2019 and we are planning to add some more bands for our operation this year.

New Winter Field Day VHF+ Mast

Jamey AC1DC Next To New Winter Field Day VHF+ Mas
Jamey AC1DC Next To New WFD VHF+ Mas

Jamey, AC1DC an I put together a new mast and antennas for the VHF+ bands this weekend. Our new mast comes from Max-Gain Systems. It is a little over 30 ft high and is guyed at 2 levels. We can rotate the mast at the base using the arm-strong method. We’ll be feeding the mast with LMR-600 coax.

Winter Field Day VHF+ Antenna Details
VHF+ Antenna Details

Our VHF+ mast holds yagi antennas for the 23cm, 33cm, and 1.25m bands.

M2 Antennas 222-7EZ Yagi for Winter Field Day VHF+
M2 Antennas 222-7EZ Yagi

Jerry, K1OKD and I assembled a new 220 MHz Yagi for this setup last weekend. We are using rear-mounted yagis on our mast to simplify mounting and feedline connections and to keep the overall weight on the mast at a reasonable level.

With 50 – 100w in, these antennas will produce 450 – 2500 watts of effective radiated power.

Transverters and Transceivers

33cm Transverter
33cm Transverter

The Transverters for our VHF+ station have also arrived from Q5 Signal. The unit shown above is for the 33cm (902 MHz) band.

33cm Transverter Rear Panel
33cm Transverter Rear Panel

Transverters upconvert transmitted and downconvert received signals from one frequency band to another (ex. from the 33cm band to the 28 Mhz or the 10m Band). They also typically include a power amplifier stage that generates 25w – 50w of output power on the target band.

Our station will use transverters along with an Elecraft KX3 Transceiver to put us on three VHF+ bands as well as to add an additional 100W HF Transceiver to our WFD Setup. We will also have an Icom IC-9100 Transceiver to cover the HF, 6m, 2m, 70cm, and 23cm bands.

The Winter Field Day Team is planning some station testing sessions in the near future to get all of our HF and VHF+ rigs ready. All Nashua Area Radio Society Members are invited to join us for these sessions to learn more about the equipment that we use at Field Day. We’ll post information in our Field Day Forum and on our Calendar as these sessions are scheduled.

You can read more about our plans for Winter Field Day 2020 in Jerry’s article here on our Blog.

See you at Winter Field Day!

Fred, AB1OC

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

Ham Nation Features Nashua Area Radio Society Activities and Projects

The Nashua Area Radio Society’s activities and projects were featured on Ham Nation on Wednesday, November 27th. You can view the show below.


Ham Nation Episode 430 Featuring The Nashua Area Radio Society

Bob Heil’s, K9EID interview covered activities and projects of the Nashua Area Radio Society.  The interview began with Bob sharing a clip from a previous episode that we did a while back.

We discussed several of the Nashua Area Radio Society’s projects and activities including:

Our Ham Nation interview also included information about the Nashua Area Radio Society’s online training materials. You can learn more about our online training materials and how to get access to them via this link.

Ham Nation hosts Bob Heil, Gordon West, and George Thomas all had nice things to say about the work that the Nashua Area Radio Society is doing to bring new folks into the Amateur Radio Service and to help our members build their skills and have fun.

We really enjoyed being part of Ham Nation and we look forward to doing it again soon!

Anita, AB1QB and Fred, AB1OC

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide