Category Archives: General

Articles about Amateur Radio and the Nashua Area Radio Society. This is a general category which includes most articles on our website.

Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter

Submitting your Score for Field Day

Field Day 2020 is now over and you have until Tuesday, July 28th to submit your log and bonus points.  Members can find details in our Field Day Forum on the bonus points that we achieved as a group. Here are some guidelines on how to submit your score.

Steps to Submit your Score

  1. Export a Cabrillo file from your logging software
  2. Capture the breakdown of your score by band and mode from your logging program.  For N1MM it is the score window.

    N1MM Score Window
    N1MM Score Window
  3. Collect the evidence required for your bonus points:
    • Natural Power Bonus – List of QSOs made on natural power
    • Formal messaging – Copies of each message you originated, relayed or received (up to 10)
    • Message to ARRL Section Manager (Copy of fully serviced message)
    • Field Day Bulletin – an accurate copy of the message
    • Publicity from the local media – a copy of a press release sent to the local media or a copy of the actual media publicity received.
  4. You can submit your score via the web form provided by ARRL.  The link to this is http://field-day.arrl.org/fdentry.php
  5. On the web form, fill in your information (Call, ARRL Section, Number of Participants, Entry Class, etc.)  For the Club or Group Name, you can enter Nashua Area Radio Society so that your points count toward our club score.
  6. Check off the bonus points that you earned and upload the documents that you collected in step 3.
  7. Use the score breakdown from your logger to fill in the Band/Mode QSO Breakdown.  Note that you may need to combine your QSOs from multiple digital modes on each band to fill in the Digital QSO columns.  For example, in the Score window illustrated above, on 40 meters, we had 128 FT4 QSOs and 9 FT8 QSOS, so I would enter 137 for the total 40m digital QSOs.

    ARRL Webform - QSO Breakdown
    ARRL Webform – QSO Breakdown
  8. Use the “Choose File” button to upload your Cabrillo file.
  9. Check over all of your entries on the web form.  Then fill in your Name, Call, and email at the bottom and submit your entry.
  10. Any questions about bonus points, scoring, or other Field Day rules?  Consult the ARRL Field Day page and review the rules.

Anita, AB1QB presented a segment on Submitting your Field Day score as part of the June Tech Night on Field Day from Home.  For more details on Field Day score submission, you can watch the video of that Tech Night and view the slides on our Tech Night page

Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, Station Equipment

AC1FX Field Day 2020

AC1FX Field Day – The Shack

My shack is more of a secretary desk of a shack-in- the-box. But it’s not the shack so much as the radio right. This is what I used for Field Day at AC1FX this year.

AC1FX Field Day
My Humble Shack

I have an Icom 7300 running 100W and I connected it to my laptop to log my contacts.

The Antenna
7 band OCF Dipole up 35 ft.

The Antenna

They say the antenna is the most important part of any setup. I’d go as far as maybe half along with the radio. My antenna is a 7 band Off Center Fed (OCF dipole). It’s only up 35 feet so it’s only a half-wave above the ground on 20M. 

AC1FX Field Day - On the Air
AC1FX On the Air

Retrospect

I’m writing this after the fact so my hindsight is clearer. I had a great time this year.  Even though I think I made more contacts with the Club last year, being able to talk to other home class (1D) stations made up for it. I operated on in HF SSB mostly on 80 and 40 Saturday night and 10M on Sunday.  For me, 80 and 40 were open to Penn and New York, while Sunday 10M was more open to Ohio and Illinois. My original plan was to try to sit on a frequency and do a run. That seemed to work well for others but I found out they had higher power output and higher or more directional antennas. I sat on 28.460 around noon today and picked up 6 QSOs but they were relatively local. I then went on search and pounce and had so much fun seeing what was out there.  My most surprising contact was N3FJP of software fame. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was using N1MM+ for my logger. 

Improvements 

Just a few things I would like to do for next time : 

  • If I could get my dipole up to 66 ft it would at least be a ½ wave over the ground on 40M. 
  • Maybe put up my old Cushcraft R8 vertical and see how that goes. 
  • Practice CW more. It seems like they were having fun at the bottom of the bands but the fast pace of a contest and my lack of speed were incompatible.  
  • Do more digital. Although for me this year talking to people did seem fun. 

If you worked field day and are a NARS member don’t forget to add the full club name (Nashua Area Radio Society) in your entry.  See this link for details.

73,

Jeff, AC1FX 

Activities, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

The 2020 13 Colonies Special Event Begins on July 1st

The 2020 13 Colonies Special Event begins on Wednesday, July 1st at 9 am Eastern Time! There will be stations in each of the states that grew from the original Thirteen Colonies plus two bonu…

Source: 13 Colonies Special Event Begins on July 1st

The 2020 13 Colonies Special Event is almost here! We’ve got a great team of operators lined up for K2K, New Hampshire this year and we’re looking forward to a great event and some on the air fun. The 2020 event starts at 9 am on July 1st and ends on July 7th at midnight eastern time.

2020 13 Colonies Special Event QSL Card for K2K, New Hampshire
13 Colonies Special Event QSL Card for K2K, New Hampshire

The idea is to try to work all 13 Colonies Special Event stations K2A – K2M and the two bonus stations – WM3PEN and GB13COL. There is a nice certificate available for working one or more of the Colonies as well as QSL cards from each of the K2x stations. Check qrz.com for QSL information and the Thirteen Colonies Special Event website for certificate information.

K2K New Hampshire will be operating from a number of locations in the great state of New Hampshire including from AB1OC/AB1QB and KC1XX. We will be operating SSB, CW, Digital (FT8/FT4), and via Satellites! We are going to spend some time on 6m and perhaps 2m and 70cm if we have some Tropo openings.

You can learn more about the 2020 event via the link above. I hope we’ll see you in the pileups!

Fred, AB1OC

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