Scott, NE1RD has been putting together a great lineup of presenters for our Membership Meetings and Tech Nights. Our Members have asked that we include some of the Membership Meeting presentations that we’ve been seeing at our meeting here on our website. We’ve added a selected presentation archive to our Membership Meetings page for this purpose. You need to be logged into our website to see this material.
We have lots of activities going on and we begin each of our Membership Meetings with an update on what’s coming up and how our many projects are doing. We’re also going to include the update from our latest meeting as well.
You can find all of this material along with information about the speakers for our upcoming meetings on our Membership Meetings page.
We will again be launching from the Elementary School in Winchester, NH at around 10:30 am. Preparation for our launch will begin at 8:30 am.
Our HAB carries video cameras that allow us to see what the HAB sees as it travels through the atmosphere. You can click on the video above to see what a HAB flight is like including video taken at over 90,000 ft above sea level!
HAB Camera Insulation and Heating System
High Altitude Balloon 4 (HAB-4) will be the first to launch with our new camera insulating and heating system. This arrangement is intended to keep the cameras from freezing and shutting off early. The cameras will also carry the smaller, lighter weight batteries that we used on HAB-1. Together, we hope these improvements will allow us to capture video throughout HAB-4’s ascent, balloon burst, descent, and landing.
HAB-4 Flight Parameters
The graphic above shows the final flight parameters for HAB-4. We are expecting HAB-4 to burst at around 110,000 ft a.s.l. with the flight lasting about 2 1/2 hours.
HAB Flight Path Prediction – Saturday, April 6thHAB Flight Path Prediction – Sunday, April 7th
The images above show the initial flight path predictions for the first HAB-4 launch window. The weather and Jetstream forecasts are still fairly unreliable at this point (6 – 7 days in advance of the first launch windows). These will likely change quite a bit between now and this coming Thursday evening when we will make a final go/no-go launch decision for the April 6th / April 7th launch window. We will also be looking closely at the Ground Weather for acceptable ground wind speed under 15 mph at launch and either clear skies or limited cloud cover to permit HAB-4 to be launched.
Stay tuned to our Forums for additional updates and the final go/no-go decision as the week progresses. If the first launch window does not work out, we’ll begin counting down to the second window (April 13th / April 14th). We hope that you’ll join us in Winchester, NH for our launch!
We have held the first three sessions of New Ham Boot Camp the past few weeks to help our newly licensed members learn the skills they need to get on the air.
Session 1 was held at Fred, AB1OC’s and Anita, AB1QB’s QTH. The session focused on UHF/VHF. The following activities were part of this session:
HT Programming
Station Tour including Antenna Towers and Mobile Stations
Echolink Setup and Use
Satellite Operating Demo
Antenna Demo
Practice QSOs and Repeater Net
Jamey, AC1DC, elmers Randall, KC1KSY as he makes an HF Contact
Session 2 was also held at AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH. During this session, members were able to Get on the Air to make contacts via HF SSB, Satellites, and HF Digital.
70 cm Ground Plan Antenna
In addition, we built a 70 cm ground plane antenna and members got kits to build their own antenna. and Jamey, AC1DC spoke about SOTAs and demonstrated a Buddipole antenna.
Fred Advises on Selecting Wire Antennas
Session 3 was held at Ham Radio Outlet in Salem, NH. Peter, KI1M opened HRO during the evening of March 19th exclusive to NARS New Ham Boot Camp members. Fred and Peter advised members and answered questions on selecting HTs, Transceivers, Antennas, Headphones, Microphones, Coax and other Amateur Radio components.
Peter shows us the repeater
We have two more sessions of New Ham Boot Camp to be held in April:
Session 4: – Saturday, April 6 – How to set up your first station, Getting on 6 meters, What do all the buttons and knobs on my HF Transceiver do? How do I use them to work DX
Session 5: Date TBD – Building and Tuning up HF Wire Antennas
Stay tuned to the General Information Forums – we will post there when Session 5 is scheduled.
Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide
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