John Keslo, W1MBG, Jamey Finchum, KC1ENX, and I recently had the chance to again be part of SPARK Day at the Academy for Science and Design (ASD) in Nashua, New Hampshire. We attended SPARK Day to provide an Introduction to Amateur Radio for the students at ASD. ASD’s goal is to be a world-class school that specializes in science, engineering, mathematics, and design. The school provides education for students in grades 6-12. ASD periodically holds SPARK (Symposium Promoting Advancement of Real-world Knowledge) conferences, which enable ASD students to learn about areas which might help them to develop careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and/or Math (STEM).
ASD Group Learning About Amateur Radio
The students at ASD are extremely bright and are highly motivated to develop STEM careers. We had about 65 students elect to attend the two sessions that we presented. The kids showed a lot of interested in our presentations and demonstrations.
SPARK Day Classroom Activities
Explaining the HAB to the ASD Students
We began each session with some classroom time where we explained what Amateur Radio is about and some of our club’s Amateur Radio projects. We talked about and showed components of our High Altitude Balloon Project, our Satellite Ground Station and our Field Day activities. The interest level among the kids was high and lots of questions were asked.
SPARK DAY GOTA Station
Making an HF Contact using our GOTA Station
We also put together an HF GOTA station in the lobby of the school. This gave the kids a chance to get on the air and experience Amateur Radio first hand. After the kids got over the usual “mic-fright”, they had a lot of fun.
We are looking forward to our next opportunity to participate in ASD’s SPARK Day in the fall. This is one of the most enjoyable events of the year for me.
The ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY contest is open to anyone who was first licensed in 2015, 2016 or 2017 or anyone who has never made a RTTY mode contact.
We will be defending our title as #1 Multi-Op Area 1 in the ARRL Rookie Roundup – RTTY. The contest will take place on August 20 from 2 pm – 8 pm and we will operate from AB1OC/AB1QB’s QTH.
This is a great opportunity for you to try out digital modes or to try your hand at contesting!
Abby, AB1BY and Jamey, KC1FFX operate during the 2016 Rookie Roundup RTTY
Please contact Anita at [email protected] if you are interested and for more details, see the calendar event.
Field Day 2017 is but a memory for us now. Dave, K1DLM, our Field Day Chairman, and the entire Field Day team did a great job with putting together our Field Day operation this year.
We are still adding up our score and collecting pictures and video from everyone. I wanted to get something out quickly so that we could begin to enjoy some of the memories. So here is my quick Sights from Field Day 2017….
Our Field Day Telegraph Article
We did a fantastic job on publicity this year…
The Parking Lot Was Full
and the parking lot was full of visitors and members on Saturday and Sunday.
Our Public Info Tent Is A Hit
Our updated Public Information Tent was a hot spot for our many visitors (over 45 visitors signed our guest register)!
ARRL Section Leaders – Peter, K1PJS And John, K1UAF
The ARRL “brass” came out early to congratulate Dave, K1DLM our Field Day Chairman, and to tour our site.
The Food Was Awesome!
The food was unbelievably good – thanks, Valerie!!! And the N1FD cafe’ was a hot-spot as usual.
Everyone operated very hard and we made more contacts than last year!
CW Ops – Dennis, K1LGQ
Our CW operators were amazing again this year. Here’s Dennis banging out CW QSOs. Dave, KM3T even operated SO2R for a period – calling “CQ” and working contacts on both 20M and 40M CW at the same time! Gene, W3UA brought his CW skimmer and we set up an OCF dipole to provide on-site CW spots.
And The Generators Played On…
And the new generators worked flawlessly and were much easier to service.
and our visitors got a kick out of seeing the computer controlled satellite antennas.
Team Finchum In Action
Team Finchum was in high gear as always – here’s Abby, AB1BY operating with her brother Connor, KC1GGX. It seemed like Abby was on every SSB station that I looked at all weekend long…
New Digital Station For 2017
Our new SDR powered Digital Station worked well and we had lots of digital contacts using the antennas on the new 60 ft. tower.
The SDR GOTA Was Cool!
The SDR-based GOTA station worked out super well. Ira, KC1EMJ was our GOTA coach and was busy on Saturday and Sunday introducing our guests and newly licensed members to “high-tech” Amateur Radio. We had many young people try Amateur Radio for the very first time on our GOTA station.
Anita, AB1QB, our scoring chairman is still working on tallying up our score but it will be higher than last year.
Please take a minute and send me any photos or video that you have from Field Day 2017. We’ll be producing a video of all of the fun for the Field Day 2017 Recap at our club meeting on July 11th. Don’t miss it!
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