Brian, W1XMM, has opened up his station for NARS members to operate Winter Field Day (WFD) on Saturday and Sunday January 27th and 28th so that members can operate WFD with the club callsign, N1FD. Brian’s station is in a great location, in Antrim, NH and should provide for some great operating.
What is Winter Field Day?
Winter Field Day is an annual event, sponsored by the Winter Field Day Association on the last full weekend in January to encourage development of emergency operating skills. It is open to frequencies on the HF, VHF and UHF bands. Here is a summary of the rules. The full rules can be found here.
All stations are limited to a maximum of 100 Watts PEP
QRP CW limit of 5 watts multiplier of 2
QRP Phone limit of 10 watts multiplier of 2
Each mode worked on each band counts as 1 multiplier
SteppIR DB18 at W1XMM
W1XMM Station
The following stations and associated bands will be available at W1XMM:
SteppIR Vertical 80/40/20/15/10/6m with a Yaesu FT991a
Log Periodic 50MHz -1.2GHz
Inverted V: 80M and 160M (one cable out to both)
Log Periodic Antenna at W1XMM
Great Opportunity for New and Experienced Hams!
This is a great opportunity for newly licensed or inactive amateurs to get some operating experience and a top-notch station. Brian and other members will be available to coach those who are new to HF and VHF operating.
We have been challenged by the ARES group to also set up an NVIS antenna and communicate with other ARES operators at set times. This would be both VHF/UHF and HF. The ARES is going to use this opportunity to test their communication skills here in New England.
SteppIR Vertical Antenna at W1XMM
Join Us
Interested in joining us for Winter Field Day? Please sign up by Thursday January 25th at 7:00 pm. Here’s what you can do:
Sign up for operating times – See this Forum Post for the link to the sign-up sheet.
Join us on Thursday, January 25th at 7:00 pm for our final Winter Field Day meeting. See this Forum Post for the Zoom link. Or contact Brian at [email protected] to get the details if you cannot make the meeting.
Show up at Brian’s QTH in Antrim before your operating slot.
2020 was a year that most people would like to forget. However we had a great year at the Nashua Area Radio Society, as we continued to have great meetings and activities online despite the pandemic. Here is our 2020 Year in Review.
Winter Field Day
WFD 2020 Operations
Winter Field Day 2020 was held the last weekend in January. We improved our score by over 100% and came in 2nd in the Outdoor Category. See this article for more on our operation and this article for the results. This was the last major event that we were able to spend together.
Craig N1SFT Working to setup for Winter Field Day
The Pandemic – Meetings Moved Online
May Meeting – Bob Heil, K9EID
When the Coronavirus Pandemic hit, we could no longer meet together. We moved our meetings online and continue to hold our monthly membership meetings and tech nights over Zoom web conferencing. Although we miss getting together in person, this allowed us to include our internet members in our meetings. In addition, geography was no longer a barrier so we brought in some great speakers for our monthly meetings including Bob Heil from Ham Nation, Tim Duffy, K3LR from DX Engineering, Ray Novak from Icom, Fred Lloyd from QRZ, Doug Grant, K1DG, world class contester, and more!
Tim Duffy, K3LR Speaking at June Membership Meeting
September Meeting – Doug Grant, K1DG – Getting Started in Contesting
Ray Novak, N9JA, tells us about the Icom-705 at our November Meeting
Summer Field Day – 2020 Year in Review
Field Day Virtual Site Visit on Zoom
The Nashua Area Radio Society decided to not hold a large group operating event for Field Day 2020 due to the pandemic and the need to social distance. The ARRL modified the rules to allow Category D (Home w/non-emergency power) stations to contact each other and to allow operators to designate a club with their entries.
We held a social distanced field day but still maintained a few of the annual field day activities. Sterling, AK1K took the lead in teaching us all how to send and receive messages for the messaging bonus, and led a messaging net during Field Day. We also held a Zoom meeting and invited an elected official and several club members who are in public agencies so that the members attending could claim those bonuses. Club members who were operating published articles with their plans on the website. You can visit this link to see the Field Day stories.
Our total club score was 14,952, and put us in the top 3% of all clubs.
Jeff, AC1FX Operating at Field Day 2020
Summer Field Day Antenna Setup at Jon, AC1EV’s Station
Spencer Webb, W2SW, Taught us about Antennas, Feedlines and much more!
In addition to taking our membership meetings online, we also took our Tech Nights online each month. This allowed our members as well as internet subscribers to have access to the live training sessions. We had some great speakers including Spencer Webb, W2SW, Jamey Finchum, AC1DC, Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC and learned all about EME, Antennas, Contesting, Portable Operating, PCB Design with Eagle and more! Members and Internet Subscribers can find video recordings of our tech nights on our website.
Jamey, AC1DC, Teaches us about Portable Operations
Gordon West Checks In to Technician Class
We also took our license classes online this fall. We are now offering an online exam session after the class to all students in the class. Gordon West dropped in to offer some words of encouragement to our Technician class! Our Spring 2021 Classes are on the calendar and registration is open.
Class Zoom
Ham Bootcamp
October 2020 QST Cover
This year we took our Ham Bootcamp program online. We held an all day Ham Bootcamp on Saturday November 7th, where we taught new and inactive hams the skills they need to get on the air. The session was very successful – we had over 200 people attend! The ARRL published an article about our Ham Bootcamp in the October Issue of QST, which helped Hams all over the country and in Canada find out about it. Our next Ham Bootcamp is scheduled for April 24th, 2021. See this article for more information and links to register for Bootcamp.
Thanks to our Ham Bootcamp instructors, Abby, AB1BY, Jamey, AC1DC, Aron, W1AKI, Burns, WB1FJ, Fred, AB1OC and Anita, AB1QB.
Abby Speaks About Fox Hunting in Fall 2020 Ham Bootcamp
Membership
300 Member Cake
2020 was a great year for membership! We celebrated over 300 members at our December Meeting – an increase of over 100 members since 2019! We now have over 240 regular members and over 80 internet subscribers!
Student Teacher Contest Series
Keith Sangillo, KC1IMK – Winner of the Student Teacher Contest Series
We held a Student Teacher Contesting competition this year to encourage young people to get on the air and develop their operating skills. The winner was Keith Sangillo, KC1IMK, who won an IC-7300. Abby Finchum, AB1BY was a close 2nd and will win a DX Engineering Hex Beam Antenna.
NARS in the Media – 2020 Year In Review
Ham Nation Bob with Ham Bootcamp QST Article
The Nashua Area Radio Society got quite a bit of media exposure this year. We published 2 articles in QST, were on Ham Nation twice, and were mentioned in a youth contesting article in the National Contest Journal.
Jim, K1BRM, tells Ham Nation audience about the NARS QSO Party
Our activities chairperson Jim, K1BRM was interviewed by Val, NV9L on Ham Nation to publicize the NARS QSO party, which we held in the fall. We also publicized Ham Bootcamp on that episode.
Note that ARRL Membership is Required to access QST and NCJ online
December Meeting
We ended the year with a memorable December Meeting, where we held Elections, heard from our NH Section Manager, John Gotthardt, K1UAF. We even had a visit from Santa where we could tell him Ham toys we want for the holidays! I hope everyone got what you wanted!
Santa at December Meeting
As we close 2020, we are hoping for a better 2021, and that we can finally get together in person with our fellow club members. We wish all of you a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Hi. My name is Keith Sangillo, KZ1Z (formerly KC1IMK). I would like to thank the Nashua Area Radio Society for hosting the 2020 Student-Teacher Contest. The ICOM IC-7300 radio that I won is in good hands and being put to use.
The first thing I did was take the NARS Extra class in December 2020 and get my Extra license so that I could use “all the bands and frequencies”. It turned out that the weather was a bigger challenge than the test questions. After two days of an online class, a snowstorm turned off the power. My dad and I missed most of the Day 3 class sessions as we searched for friends with power. We arranged to take the test at a friend’s house 30 minutes farther south. The VE’s watched us take the test in a basement storeroom during the pandemic when we were not supposed to be visiting friends.
The first big test for the new radio was Winter Field Day 2021. We pushed out the lawnmower and set up the station in the utility shed.
WFD “shack”
We hung a 20 m inverted V dipole in the adjacent tree and ran the feed line in the window so that we could close the doors when it was windy. We did not use our existing antenna for the shack in the house.
WFD Setup: Deep Cycle battery powering radio and laptop
We went for all the bonus points. The shed is non-insulated and considered outdoors. It was far enough away from the house to be remote. We used battery power.
ICOM IC-7300 from Youth Contest
And yeah, we had no heaters either. We dressed up in ski gear and warmed our hands on several cups of hot chocolate and tea so that we could log contacts with N1MM linked to the radio.
Cold, 5 deg F night OPS
With a single band antenna and part-time operation, I made 27 contacts. With bonus points from freezing my butt off, I sent in 4552 points for NARS. Thanks again for putting on the Student-Teacher Contest and hope to see folks sometime soon.
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