Category Archives: Newsletter

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

Activities, Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air, Youth Activities

Academy for Science and Design SPARK Day

John Keslo, W1MBG, Jamey Finchum, KC1ENX, and I recently had the chance to again be part of SPARK Day at the Academy for Science and Design (ASD) in Nashua, New Hampshire. We attended SPARK Day to provide an Introduction to Amateur Radio for the students at ASD. ASD’s goal is to be a world-class school that specializes in science, engineering, mathematics, and design. The school provides education for students in grades 6-12. ASD periodically holds SPARK (Symposium Promoting Advancement of Real-world Knowledge) conferences, which enable ASD students to learn about areas which might help them to develop careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and/or Math (STEM).

SPARK Day Group Learning About Amateur Radio
ASD Group Learning About Amateur Radio

The students at ASD are extremely bright and are highly motivated to develop STEM careers. We had about 65 students elect to attend the two sessions that we presented. The kids showed a lot of interested in our presentations and demonstrations.

SPARK Day Classroom Activities

 

Explaining the HAB to the ASD Students at SPARK Day
Explaining the HAB to the ASD Students

We began each session with some classroom time where we explained what Amateur Radio is about and some of our club’s Amateur Radio projects. We talked about and showed components of our High Altitude Balloon Project, our Satellite Ground Station and our Field Day activities. The interest level among the kids was high and lots of questions were asked.

SPARK DAY GOTA Station

 

Making an HF Contact using our GOTA Station at SPARK Day
Making an HF Contact using our GOTA Station

We also put together an HF GOTA station in the lobby of the school. This gave the kids a chance to get on the air and experience Amateur Radio first hand. After the kids got over the usual “mic-fright”, they had a lot of fun.

We are looking forward to our next opportunity to participate in ASD’s SPARK Day in the fall. This is one of the most enjoyable events of the year for me.

Fred, AB1OC

Activities, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

Thirteen Colonies Special Event – We are Top Club and Top State!!

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Well, it’s finally official – our Club is again the Top Club for the Thirteen Colonies Special Event 2017! Thanks to all of the hard work by the operators from our club, we also made K2K New Hampshire the Top State in the 2017 event with a total of 12, 838 contacts. We edged out K2M Pennsylvania by just 5 contacts!

Thirteen Colonies Special Event – K2K New Hampshire QSL Card
Thirteen Colonies Special Event – K2K New Hampshire QSL Card

Congratulations to all of our 2017 operators for a tremendous job well done!

Our 2017 Operator Team

  • AB1BY – Abby, Nashua, NH
  • AB1OC – Fred, Hollis, NH
  • AB1QB – Anita, Hollis, NH
  • AB1ZO – Brian Operating from AB1OC, Hollis, NH
  • AE1N – Layne, Nashua, NH – CW Only
  • AG1A – Wayne and Family (Megan and Mikayla), Operating from AB1OC, Hollis, NH
  • K1DLM – Dave, Windham, NH
  • K1HMS – Hamilton, Amherst, NH
  • K1LGQ – Dennis, Brookline, NH – QRP
  • KC1EMJ – Ira, Nashua, NH
  • KC1ENX – Jamey, Nashua, NH
  • N1CMD – Curtis, Peterborough, NH – Digital
  • W3UA – Gene, Bedford, NH – CW Only
  • WK1V – Desmond, Merrimack, NH

Our operator team also set an all-time record total number of contacts for K2K New Hampshire and increased our score from last year by +3,119 contacts.

You can learn more about the special event here. Also, check out Layne’s Thirteen Colonies soapbox article.

Thanks to all of our ops!

Fred, AB1OC
Thirteen  Colonies Special Event, K2K New Hampshire State Manager

General, Newsletter, On The Air

The 241st Birthday of The Thirteen Colonies

Yesterday, July 5, I participated in my second HF contest. The first was the Rookie Roundup last year where I worked SSB on HF. This time, I participated in the 13 colonies special event, and damn I was looking forward to it.

Admittedly, part of the excitement originated from being able to operate at Fred (AB1OC) and Anita’s (AB1QB) QTH; I was sure to be heard and sure to make a ton of QSO’s — and perhaps even a pileup? For a fellow who hasn’t been on the air for a bit, it was good to flex my ham radio muscles again and dive in.

Fred guided me through learning how to use the station and offered to log for me. He claims that he cannot hear that well. I think this is a front. The dude was hearing signals whose SNR was at MOST -20 dB; it was supernatural. When I was straining to hear anything in the pileups, Fred easily picked out a few letters or a full call. Whatever the truth may be, it was helpful to have someone guide me.

I began on 40m and it was pretty dead (it was about 6pm EST), so we switched over to 80m, which was even more absent of life. Finally, Fred suggested we go to 20m and work some DX.

Oh man…explosion of QSO’s!

Lots of dudes (and dudettes) operating. Lots of European pileups — and I thought I had a hard time hearing the American pileups. The European ones were even more challenging. Again, Fred came to the rescue with his familiarity of a lot of those calls. Some of the notable ones were a guy who was operating mobile from Turkey, and I believe someone from Algeria. I was trying to run the pileup and starting blurring letters at some points during the exchanges. I began to develop a sense of how difficult it would be to operate for an entire weekend without making a mistake. I was beat after two hours and some folks can bang out 48 with no problem.

At the end of my time slot, I really did have a blast. It’s fun to immerse yourself (especially during the work-week) in something so fun and exciting. Having caught the contesting bug again, I’m going to have to supe up my own station to begin to be a little more competitive 😉

73,

Brian (AB1ZO)

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide