The Thirteen Colonies Special Event begins at 9 am Eastern Time (13:00 UTC) on Saturday, July 1st and ends on July 6th at midnight ET. The K2K NH team will have a full complement of top-notch operators on all bands and modes again this year including a dedicated QRP station. We’ve also designed a new QSL card for this year’s special event (above).
2017 Thirteen Colonies Special Event Certificate
Take some time during the event and work K2K New Hampshire for your own copy of our new K2K QSL and don’t forget to send for your certificate. If you work a station from each of all Thirteen Colonies, your certificate will indicate a “clean sweep”. There will be two bonus stations that you can work as well. Check out The Thirteen Colonies Special Event Site for all of the details on the event.
This event is a lot of fun for all involved and may well be the largest special event in the world. The QSO count for the event last year was 139,772 contacts in about 6 days! We hope to hear from you during the event and DX stations are especially welcome!
I am a Purdue University graduate (MSEE) and I spent most of my working life at AT&T Bell Laboratories/Lucent where I worked on Wireless Systems, Broadband Access, Data Networking and VoIP products in a variety of engineering and business management roles. I also served as the Chief Technology Officer for a mid-sized VoIP and Wireless company in Dallas, TX for about 7 years.
When did you become licensed and build your first station?
I have wanted to be involved in Amateur Radio since I was about 8 years old. Growing up in a rural area of Pennsylvania, I did not have anyone who could really help me to learn code and become licensed. School, work, and other things took up most of my attention until late in 2010 when I looked seriously at Amateur Radio again and decided to earn my license.
AB1OC/AB1QB Shack
Anita, AB1QB and I built our home station in 2012. The project included a 100 ft tower which covers all of the bands from 160m through 70cm and a dedicated shack which is set up for multi-one contesting and DXing. We added a satellite ground station and equipment for EME late in 2012.
Our Mobile HF Station
In 2015, we built our Mobile HF station. I enjoy working DX, running counties and doing special events like National Parks on the Air using Mobile HF. I am QRV on all bands from 160m through 10m in the mobile. We also have 2m/70cm FM setups in both of our vehicles.
What do you like to do most with Amateur Radio?
I really enjoy station and antenna building. I also enjoy Field Day, Contesting, Space Communications and Mobile HF.
Tuning a 6M Yagi
I enjoy helping others to learn about and have fun with Amateur Radio. Finally, I am the NH State Manager for the Thirteen Colonies Special Event and I have a lot of fun every year operating during the Thirteen Colonies Special Event.
Presentation at the Dayton Contest Forum
I also enjoy speaking about Amateur Radio station building and related topics at Hamvention and club meetings. I have had the opportunity to speak on these topics on many occasions including at our and other clubs meetings, and at Boxboro, Dayton and the ARRL 100th Anniversary Hamvention.
I write also write a Blog about Amateur Radio Station Building and related topics. This is a great way to encourage and help others to do Amateur Radio projects similar to the one that we have enjoyed.
Satellite Station Antennas
Recent projects include portable HF and Satellite stations which we built to share at club events, license class, and GOTA opportunities. I am also working on learning CW.
AB1OC Operating In CQ WPX SSB
I have been fortunate to do a lot of operating in the 5 1/2 years since becoming licensed.
What are some of your most memorable experiences in connection with Amateur Radio?
Early in 2012, my company provided a trip to Bora Bora Island in French Polynesia. Anita suggested that we take a radio and portable antenna on the trip and do a holiday style DXpedition.
QSL Card from FO/AB1OC and FO/AB1QB from Bora Bora
We had almost no SSB phone experience prior to this trip. The response (and the pile-ups) were amazing on Bora Bora and I was able to earn a Worked All States from French Polynesia in just 5 days of operating from there. I came home totally hooked on running pile-ups and operating SSB phone in contests and during special events.
I was one of the W1AW/1 operators for the ARRL 100 Centennial Special event and had a ball operating during both periods when NH was on the air as W1AW/1.
My most memorable contact ever was working Japan for the first time on 75m SSB phone from my truck using Mobile HF.
75m SSB Contact to Japan via Mobile HF
All involved in this contact were very surprised that such a short antenna (I use a screwdriver antenna with a 4 ft rod and a cap hat) could be used to make such a contact.
Abby, KC1FFX earns her Extra Class License
The experiences that mean the most to me are those involving our work to bring young people and new Amateurs into our hobby. Being able to make a difference for people and aid them to learn means a great deal to me.
What do you like to do with the Club?
I really enjoy participating in and contributing to our Tech Night programs. It’s great to be in a position to learn about the many aspects of Amateur Radio and to help others to do the same. We have a tremendous knowledge base among our club members and our Tech Night program provides a way for us to share everyone’s knowledge and experience for the benefit of the entire club.
40m V-Beam at Field Day 2016
I also really enjoy our yearly Field Day. It ‘s a lot of fun to plan, build and operate a multi-multi station with as many transmitters and towers as we typically put up for our club’s Field Day operation.
Bishop-Guertin High School HAB Project Students
Our club’s High Altitude Balloon Project has been a lot of fun. It was fun to be part of delivering the STEM classroom program associated with this project.
Teaching Amateur Radio Licence Classes
FInally, I really enjoy contributing to the license classes that our club offers. There is nothing that I find more rewarding than to help someone new into Amateur Radio or to help an Amateur earn a license upgrade so they can expand their participation in Amateur Radio.
Our club has accomplished a great deal in the last year. We have grown to over 130 members. We have introduced many new people to Amateur Radio, helped them to earn their Licenses and worked with them to get on the air and develop their knowledge and operating skills. We’ve also worked hard to provide opportunities to enjoy and learn about Amateur Radio for members of our club and for the Amateur Radio community which we are a part of.
Much of the credit for our club’s success this past year belongs to you, our members. We very much appreciate all that you have done to contribute to our success and the fun that we have all had as part of what we have done together. Your enthusiasm and support provide great encouragement and inspiration to the many new members who have joined us as well as to all of us who are part of our club’s Leadership Team.
We, as your club’s Executive Committee, have been working on a set of goals and plans to continue on this path during 2017 – to provide even better opportunities for our members to learn more about and to enjoy Amateur Radio, to continue to encourage people to join the Amateur Radio Service, and to provide opportunities for STEM learning for young people.
Our goals and focus for 2017 centers around continued success in and focus on the following areas to benefit both our members and our community as a whole:
To do these things and to be successful as a growing club, we are also pursuing status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. This will enable our club to more effectively secure support from other groups to further our work towards these goals.
Each of us has taken ownership for creating a focus on meeting different aspects of our goals for this year. We are planning to share more about our plans for 2017 at our February Club Meeting.
We are asking that each of you, as members, to consider how you can get the most from all of these and the other opportunities that our club provides. We are working hard to try to create something for everyone that can provide enjoyable opportunities to have fun, to contribute, and to expand the value that we all create and derive by being part of the Amateur Radio Service. We are also asking each of you, our members, to consider helping us with these initiatives in 2017.
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