Our March Membership Meeting will feature Dr. Bob Heil, K9EID. Bob will speak to us about Antennas and Installation Techniques and Radio Settings .
Ham Nation
Dr. Bob Heil is well know to amateurs as the former host of Ham Nation and the founder of Heil Sound.
Heil Sound makes world class Ham Radio and Professional audio equipment including headphones, microphones, and related equipment.
Heil Talk Box
But did you know that Bob has made a name for himself in the world of Rock and Roll? He has created touring sound systems for several rock and roll bands such as the Grateful Dead and the Who. Bob invented the Heil Talk Box, which was used by many rock and roll musicians. He even has a display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
Bob Heil at the Organ
An accomplished organist, Bob played for us at the end of meeting the last time he visited us. You can see the recording on our Videos page – look for the March 2022 Membership Meeting.
Bob Heil is a great storyteller and his previous visits to the Nashua Area Radio Society were truly memorable. Don’t miss Tuesday’s meeting.
To learn more about Bob Heil and his incredible accomplishments, visit his QRZ and Wikipedia pages.
The membership meeting will take place on Tuesday March 7th starting at 7:00 pm. It will be a hybrid meeting, at the Nashua Library in the NPL Theater as well as on Zoom. For more information, including the Zoom link, see our main page and scroll down to the section titled Plans for Online Meetings and Tech Nights.
Are you a newly licensed Technician, or a General or Extra and have never been on the air or built a station? Are you a prospective ham but would like to learn more about Amateur Radio activities? Ham Bootcampis the program for you. We will be holding another online Ham Bootcamp on Saturday, May 14th, 2022.
Registration is open for the Nashua Area Radio Society’s Spring Ham Bootcamp. Ham Bootcamp will be held online using Zoom web conferencing. This will also let us reach out to new Hams across the country.
Jamey, AC1DC, elmers Randall, N1KRB as he makes an HF Contact
Our spring Ham Bootcamp will be held on Saturday, May 14thfrom 10:00 am to 6:00 pm Eastern Time. The morning session will focus on Technician level activities and the afternoon session will focus on HF activities for General and above licensees. New this year will be a breakout session where attendees will have a choice between 3 different sessions.
Here is the agenda:
Abby Speaks About Fox Hunting in Fall 2020 Ham Bootcamp
Repeaters and VHF/UHF Session Activities
Putting together a Station for Repeaters – How to pick an HT or Mobile Radio and an Antenna
Making Contacts and Joining a Repeater Net
Radio Programming Tutorial
Getting Started with Amateur Radio Satellites
Getting started with Fox Hunting
Jamey Explains HF Station Building
HF Session Activities
Putting together an HF Station for SSB, CW, and Digital
Picking and putting up an HF Antenna, Feedlines, and Grounds
Operating on the HF bands using SSB Voice
Getting started with WSJT-X and FT8 Digital
Breakout Session
The final session of the day will be a breakout session where attendees will choose to attend one of the following 3 sessions:
Learning CW
Finding DX, Logging Contacts, and QSL’ing – Getting them logged/confirmed
Portable Operating
Spring 2022 Ham Bootcamp will be Online on May 14th
Registration is now open for the May 14th session. You can get more information about Ham Bootcamp at https://www.n1fd.org/ham-bootcamp/.
Each attendee should register separately using this link. After registering, you will receive a link that will allow you to register for the Zoom meeting. Following the Zoom meeting registration, you will receive a personal Zoom link via email.
On March 15th 7 members of the Nashua Area Radio Society met at BOB to do an initial gear test and evaluation to begin our hands-on preparation for Field Day 2022. We were:
AC1LN Joe Luszcz
KB1RGB Rick Fulton
KC1FNF Peter Wolczko
KC1PEQ Hardy Hamilton
KC1PWB Alan Whitney
W1JDG John Ginsberg
AC1EV Jon Turner
Our goal for the day was to inspect the Tents, Beam antenna, and Tower components we will use in June for Field Day.
Layout of our tower
BOB is the name we have for our storage location for our gear. It stands for Big Orange Box. It is a retired UPS trailer that is parked on the grounds of a city public works facility, so is secure and secluded. Our first step is to remove the bins which are stacked on the floor of the trailer to give us access to the rest of the gear we want to evaluate.
We selected tower sections that were color-coded from previous years to layout and confirm they all fit together and that we had all the required fasteners, guy lines, straps, pulleys, cables, etc. When we are actually setting up Field Day it is done in a time-limited window, so chasing after missing parts is best done in advance, not on the day of the event. We are fortunate this year that all the components are stored in clearly labeled Bins and Ziplock bags and our dedicated Tower construction toolkit is complete.
Tower and Tents
Here is the tower with the segments press-fitted to confirm they all fit. This was done before we found the detailed instructions from previous years. You can see progress on the tents in the background.
First Tent
The first tent is assembled. There were no missing parts! Alan and Joe inspect their work. The first tent took longer to set up than the second and the third was even faster. Practice now will make the day of the event easier.
Second Tent
Peter and Hardy join in on the construction of the second tent and get a good lesson from Joe.
Tents and BOB
Our fourth tent is another brand, but not difficult to assemble. Tents will sit on tarps and have floors inside to support the tables and chairs that we’ll use during Field Day.
Tower Pre-Assembled
After we found and read the instructions, we re-assembled the tower parts in proper order and have the falling derrick installed along with the proper cabling and guys. We also confirmed we had the other required parts that are identified in the instructions. Given the shorter days and cooler temperatures in mid-March, we did not have time to evaluate the Beam antenna. We located the proper antenna and the dedicated toolkit for it, so we know where to begin when we return for more preparations. Sometime around 2:30, we decided it was time to pack everything up carefully and return it to the trailer. It took around an hour to tear down and pack up everything. I’m happy we had enough volunteers to make it easy.
Based on our experience this day we are scheduling another expedition to BOB on April 19th with a rain date of April 20th. This second trip is more ambitious. Our plan is to assemble the beam antenna and attach it to the tower and raise the whole assembly including additional dipoles and all coax and control wires required. Fred, AB1OC will guide us through the procedures so by the time we are going live on the day of Field Day we will have done this before. Some of us participated in past Field Days, and have experience with these tasks, but haven’t led the teams. In addition to confirming we aren’t missing any critical parts, and nothing is broken we will also have the experience of standing up this part of our station so can have experienced team leaders to manage our setup in June.
If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. It is also a lot of fun. Sharing this experience is a great way to build friendships along with complex radio stations. If you have any interest in joining us in this event, please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. We will make sure you can be involved at whatever level you want and will share all our skills to make sure you can do it. We can turn “I don’t know how to do that” into “I didn’t know how to do that, but I do now”
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