Our club has had quite a year in 2016. We initiated many new activities and our members learned some new skills. Most importantly, we contributed a great deal to the Amateur Radio Service through license classes and other educational and outreach activities. We have plenty of material to include in our 2016 Highlights video which follows.
Highlights From Nashua Area Radio Club’s 2016 Activities
We made a video as a sort of memory book about our club’s activities and accomplishments in 2016. We hope that you enjoy it!
Connor (KC1GGX) and myself (Abby-AB1BY) both participated in the club’s November Tech Night. Our mission for the night was to build a 40m QRP CW Pixie Kit. Going in I was nervous – I had never soldered before – and wasn’t sure if I would understand how to put it together. Connor had done some soldering and was feeling more confident.
When we walked into the room Brian (AB1ZO) had all the kits neatly set out for everyone so we could get right to work. We opened the kits and instructions and I was overwhelmed! Thankfully we had some very experienced Elmers to help us out. Bill (K1TWO) and Charlie (AB1ZN) were extremely helpful in improving our soldering techniques and figuring out what went where. At first, I was very slow and asked a lot of questions, but as the night went on I think my technique got better and things went faster.
We worked the whole time and were the last two to finish, but when it came time to test our kits out they both worked! I was very proud of myself and learned a lot. Connor also had a great time and wants to do another project with soldering!
We would like to thank Brian and everyone involved for putting this fun tech night together.
With only 1 month to go in the ARRL NPOTA event and some free time this Thanksgiving weekend, Fred and I decided to hit the road to activate some new parks. We activated two nearby parks, each less than 1 hour away from our home, Lamprey Wild and Scenic River, WR23, near Epping, NH, and Minuteman National Historical Park, HP27, near Concord, MA. There were close to 900K QSOs made overall in the NPOTA program as of Thanksgiving day and we also wanted to help the cause to get to 1Million NPOTA QSOs by year’s end.
Map of Lamprey Wild and Scenic River
On Saturday, we drove to Epping, NH, where we activated Lamprey Wild and Scenic River. It was a rainy day, but we still enjoyed the scenic drive along the river. We drove along the river until we found a place by the river to park and operate. The bands were not great, with a K-index of 4 and a high A-index. Despite the conditions, our activation was a success. We operated on both 20m and 40m SSB and made a total of 307 QSOs over 3 hours.
View of Countryside in Minute Man National Historical Park
I work in Burlington, MA and often travel between Burlington and Waltham, MA for meetings. Each time I passed by Lexington on I-95 I saw the sign for Minute Man NHP and thought it would be fun to do an NPOTA activation from there. We activated the park on Saturday. We entered the park from the Concord, MA end and were pleasantly surprised to see some nice countryside in the middle of a suburban area of Massachusetts, not far from Boston.
AB1QB logging for AB1OC/M during the NPOTA activation.
We operated from a parking lot in the park from mid-afternoon until dark. The bands were a little better on Saturday and we were able to get 239 contacts into the log, mostly the US but also worked stations from Spain, Jamaica, Aruba and Puerto Rico.
We have enjoyed activating 8 National parks so far in the NPOTA event. We are planning another activation between Christmas and New Years of multiple parks before the end of the event on December 31.
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Connor (
