Category Archives: Youth Activities

Articles and other information about Ham Radio activities for young people. Our youth activities include GOTA events, our High Altitude Balloon project, help getting licensed and more.

Antennas, CW and QRP, Education and Training, Featured, General, Homebrewing, Newsletter, On The Air, Space, Youth Activities

Plans for HamXposition @ Boxboro 2019 – We Need Your Help

July 31, 2019 Fred Kemmerer

The Nashua Area Society will be part of the fun at HamXposition @ Boxboro again this year. We will be adding some new things this year as well as providing the Ham Radio Expo display that we did last year. Our contributions will include:

An expanded Ham Expo Display
Ham Bootcamp – a new activity for prospective and recently licensed Technician and General Class Hams
An Expanded Kit Building Activity
Several Forum Presentations featuring some of our recent projects and NARS Activities leading to our recognition as Club Of The Year

We will need a lot of help from NARS members to make our contribution to HamXposition successful. More on this later in this article.

Ham Radio Expo Display

HamXposition @ Boxboro — Ham Expo Display

Our Ham Expo display will cover many activities that you can do with Amateur Radio. Our display will also include three GOTA stations:

A Computer Controlled Satellite GOTA
A Remotely Controlled High-Power HF GOTA
A Repeater GOTA

We will also be adding a radio programming clinic where you can get your HT programmed at the show.

The diagram above shows the planned layout for our Ham Expo display. It will cover the entire back wall of the main exhibit hall in the vendor area and will include the Satellite GOTA station in the bar area as we did last year.

Ham Bootcamp

Ham Bootcamp is a new activity this year. Ham Bootcamp is a hands-on activity for folks interested in getting a Ham Radio License and folks who have gotten their Technician or General Class License and would like so help to get on the air or to upgrade their station to take advantage of their new General Class privileges. Our planned activities are outlined in the chart above. Most will be hands-on in small groups of 10 or less so we can answer questions and demonstrate how to have fun with Ham Radio. Ham Bootcamp will take place from 9 am to noon on Saturday and will accommodate up to 100 HamXposition attendees on a first-come-first-served basis. We will also provide a $5 discount coupon to all Ham Bootcampers to use toward one of the kits that are included in our kit building activity at HamXposition.

Kit Building Plans

The popular Morse Tutor kit will be back again this year and we’ll have folks on hand as well equipment so that folks can build their kit and get it working at the show. You can find more about our Morse Tutor kit here.

We will be adding a second kit at our kit build – a 70 cm ground plane antenna. This is an antenna that you can build and use to help your HT or base rig get out better on the 70 cm band. We’ll have an analyzer and folks who can help you to tune your antenna for the best operation after you complete your kit.

Forum Presentations

The Nashua Area Radio Society has had a pretty amazing year and we will have the opportunity to share some of our experiences at HamXposition via forum presentations. You can see the topics for our planned presentations above.

We Need Your Help

HamXposition is an important undertaking for us and for the northeastern Amateur Radio Community as a whole. We need your help to plan and execute our plans. Please reach out to Dave, Jerry, Scott or myself and join our HamXposition Team. It will be a lot of fun and a rewarding change to give back to the northeastern Amateur Radio Community.

Fred, AB1OC

Activities, Featured, General, Newsletter, Youth Activities

NARS August Activities

July 28, 2019 Jamey Finchum

We have a busy month of activities coming up in August. Our monthly Club Breakfast will be held on Saturday, August 10th at 8:30 am at the Dream Diner in Tyngsboro.

The following weekend we will hold what has become our annual trip to activate Mount Washington on Saturday, August 17th. We will activate Mount Washington for Summits on the Air (SOTA) and Mount Washington State Park for Parks on the Air (POTA).

We have had members get to the top almost every possible way there is. We’ve had members hike up – this is a very strenuous climb and takes about 4 hours, one way. We’ve had some members come up on the Cog Railway. It is the steepest rack railway in the US and 2nd steepest in the world! Reservations are recommended. There is also a Steam Punk Festival taking place on the 17th as well.

August Activities — The Mount Washington Cog Railway

We also have had members make the strenuous hike up the mountain. This is quite a hike and will take you close to 4 hours to reach the top. If you are interested in hiking up please get in touch with Jamey, AC1DC at [email protected].

The final way up is to drive the Mount Washington Auto Road. The Mount Washington Auto Road offers a one of a kind experience with spectacular views. If you’re not comfortable with heights or narrow mountain roads you can also take a guided tour on one of the Mount Washington vans.

We’ll plan to arrive at the peak around 10:00 am and set up and then operate as long as the weather permits. Please contact Jamey, AC1DC via email at [email protected] if you are planning on attending.

After hiking up the mountain on Saturday, Fred, AB1OC and Anita, AB1QB will host the ARRL’s Rookie Roundup for RTTY. Anyone licensed under three years or anyone that has not made a RTTY contact may join in the fun. The contest begins at 2 pm local time and runs until 8 pm. If you are interested in participating please contact Anita at [email protected].

Jim, K1BRM operating in the Rookie Roundup RTTY - August Activities — Jim, K1BRM operating in the Rookie Roundup RTTY

Finally, we will also have our Club’s Family Picnic on Saturday, August 24th at Greeley Park in Nashua. This will run from 11 am until 4 pm. We have a potluck lunch. Members can sign up to bring a dish on our Google Sheets page. We’ll have some foxes (hidden transmitters) out and may try a satellite contact with a hand held and yagi antenna. Bring your family and friends and come enjoy an afternoon with the club!

We have a lot going on in August and I hope to see you at one or all of the events we have scheduled!

Jamey, AC1DC

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

HAB-4 to Launch on Sunday from Hollis-Brookline High School

June 7, 2019 Fred Kemmerer

We are planning the fourth launch of our High-Altitude Balloon (HAB-4) this Sunday, June 9th between 10:30 am and 11:30 am ET. We will be launching locally from the Hollis-Brookline HS here in Hollis, NH. Read on to learn more about our HAB projects and how to track our HAB while it is in flight.

You can learn more about our HAB projects here on our website and you can view a video about our first three HAB launches above.

High-Altitude Balloon Launch Site and Weather

The weather and Jetstream conditions look good for our HAB-4 launch! The jet stream has finally settled down to a point that will enable us to launch locally from the High-School here in Hollis, NH. Nashua Area Radio Society members and friends are invited to join us for our launch.

We have been working with students at the Hudson Memorial School and Bishop-Guertin High School here in NH. The students and their teachers will handle HAB-4 launch preparations and the launch. Launch preparations will begin on site at 9:00 am ET.

The weather forecast looks great for our launch on Sunday with mostly sunny skies and moderate winds. These conditions should enable us to capture some spectacular video from HAB-4 during its flight! We are also planning to live-stream video from our HAB-4 launch and recovery to the Nashua Area Radio Society Facebook page.

Tracking Our HAB

I wanted to share some information about tracking our HAB as it flies. Our balloon will carry a GPS receiver and a 2m APRS Transmitter.

The onboard APRS transmitter will operate on the Amateur Radio standard terrestrial APRS frequency of 144.390 MHz and will transmit our HAB’s position, heading, speed, altitude and other telemetry data every minute during HAB-4’s flight. The transmitter is battery-powered and generates a 250 mW signal into a dipole antenna suspended from HAB’-4s flight platform. HAB-4 will use N1FD-11 as its call sign.

HAB-4’s APRS packets will be picked up by ground-based Digipeaters and iGates and will be relayed to aprs.fi where the HAB’s current location and flight path can be tracked. You can click on the link in the previous line to see HAB-4’s current location and flight track.

Based upon online HAB flight prediction calculators that we have been using, we expect the HAB’s flight to last a little more than 2 1/2 hours. The HAB should reach an altitude of about 110,000 ft before the balloon bursts and the parachute on the flight platform brings HAB-4 back to the ground at a safe speed. The above predictions will likely somewhat different from HAB-4’s actual flight path. Based upon the predictions, HAB-4 will be traveling approximately 42 km between its takeoff point and landing near Marlborough, MA.

Aprs.fi will store and display a copy of all of the APRS AX.25 packets transmitted by HAB-4 during its flight. Of particular interest to the STEM element of the flight will be the Balloon’s data on atmospheric temperature and pressure conditions at different altitudes.

All you need to track HAB-4 during its flight is Internet access and a web browser. Just click on one of the aprs.fi links here to see HAB-4’s current location and altitude. If you have an APRS ground station, you may also be able to receive HAB-4’s telemetry directly during the flight.

We will post updates on launch plans and the flight in the Youth Forum on our website.

You can join us for the launch. Here’s a map showing how to get to our launch site.