Tag Archives: Magic Band (6m)

Congratulations New Techs!

We held a technician license class for students, teachers, and parents from our HAB-3 schools and other youth outreach programs on July 16th through 19th at Hudson Memorial School.  The new Hams from the class have just received their call signs and are ready to get on the air!  Congratulations to the new Techs!

New Ham with her CSCE - Amateur Radio Youth Outreach
New Ham with her CSCE
  • Mackenzie Pooler, KC1KBU
  • Victoria Trost, KB1KBV
  • Karen Crivac, KC1KBW
  • Bridget Lalmond, KC1KBX
  • Christopher Levasseur, KC1KBY
  • Adam Goldstein, KC1KBZ
  • Daiel Bartus, KC1KCA
  • Maximillian Piech, KM6UVJ
  • Tatiana Piech, KM6UVK

Here are some of the upcoming activities that the new Techs can get involved in:

  • Join our Weekly Repeater Net – Sundays at 7:30pm – see our Amateur Radio Nets page for more info
  • Get on Echolink
  • August Tech Night on FT8, a very popular digital mode on 6 meters – August 14th, 7:00pm at the First Church Nashua
  • Family Picnic – August 18th at Greeley Park in Nashua
  • ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY – August 19th at AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH – we will be control operators so Techs can participate
  • Fox Hunts – Stay tuned to our forums for announcements when the Foxes are out
  • Open House – Get your HT programmed, make your first contact, train for your first contest (ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY) – August 12th at AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH
  • Customize your QRZ page 
  • Sign up for our General License Class in November and start studying!

If you haven’t yet joined the Nashua Area Radio Society, you can do so at https://www.n1fd.org/join-us/

Tech Students Tuning an Antenna - Amateur Radio Youth Outreach
Tech Students Tuning an Antenna

Thanks to the following members who helped out with the license class as instructors, giving demos, updating tech class materials, donating equipment, and as VEs:

A 6m Es Season to Remember

2018 has been a summer 6m E-Skip (Es) season to remember. The Es openings have been strong this year and they are continuing into the second half of July. We are enjoying almost daily openings to E…

Source: A 6m Es Season to Remember

If you are interested in trying the 6m Band, plan on attending our August Tech Night. We’ve changed our plans and will be talking about getting started with the FT8 mode and how it can be used on the 6m and HF bands. The preceding link is an excellent source of information on how to get started with FT8.

Fred, AB1OC

Field Day Operators Take Note – 10m and 6m are Open

I spent a little time this morning evaluating the band conditions on 10m and 6m in preparation for our upcoming Field Day Operations this weekend. To try for an “apples to apples” test, I used the antennas here with FT8 at 10 W input power. Our field day setup will have 1/2 the number of elements as we have here but we will be running 100 W so I believe the is to be a reasonable test. The beam heading for my tests was 260 degrees – the same as we will be using for Field Day.

As you can see from the image above, 10m was open for a good portion of the USA at 9:30 am this morning local time.

FT8 QSO with North Dakota on 10m
FT8 QSO with North Dakota on 10m

I made quite a few QSOs on 10m including several to the western states.

6m Band Opening
6m Band Opening

The 6m Band was also wide open and I was able to make about 40 contacts this morning include several to California and Arizona.

The openings on 6m and 10m were most likely a result of E-skip propagation. You can see the current propagation conditions on these bands here.

Digital, CW, SSB, and 6m operators at Field Day take note – its important to take advantage of openings on 10m and 6m during Field Day. These bands were not only open for FT8 digital but I am sure they supported SSB and CW contacts as well.

Fred, AB1OC

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