Category Archives: Newsletter

Nashua Area Radio Society Newsletter Articles. You can find an archive of our Newsletters on our website.

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

Kids Day On The Air

3 Comments

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

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

2018 Tech Night Programs (First Half Of The Year)

Tech Night

Here are the plans for Tech Night for the first half of 2018. If you haven’t already done so, please fill out the 2018 Tech Night Survey to provide your input on your choices for future Tech Night activities.

Month Topic Presenters
January 9 Kit building skills Steve Elliott, K1EL
February 13 Kit build night
March 13 Antenna Modeling I B. Scott Andersen, NE1RD and Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
April 10 Antenna Modeling II B. Scott Andersen, NE1RD and Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
May 8 Antenna Analyzers Advanced Topics B. Scott Andersen, NE1RD
June 12 Field Day Skill Builder

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide