Tag Archives: On The Air

Digital, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

2018 13 Colonies Special Event Results

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The 2018 13 Colonies Special Event took place from July 1-7 this year and Nashua Area Radio Society members operated as K2K, the New Hampshire station.

Charlie, W1CBD operating the pileups from AB1OC station
Charlie, W1CBD operating the pileups from AB1OC station

Several members operated from AB1OC and AB1QB’s QTH.  We were operating from 2 stations.  The SSB station was in our shack and used the stacked SteppIR DB36 beams.

Fred, AB1OC operating FT8 as K2K
Fred, AB1OC operating FT8 as K2K

We also had an FT8 station set up in our kitchen.  It used the Flex 6700 in our shack remotely and the SteppIR BigIR vertical antenna, which is in the woods next to our house, far enough from the tower to avoid interference.

We live-streamed much of the operation on our Facebook page – here is one of Brian, AB1ZO operating as K2K.

In addition to the operators at AB1OC and AB1QB’s QTH, several members operated as K2K from their own stations.

13 Colonies Certificate
13 Colonies Certificate

With 13,622 QSOs, the Nashua Area Radio Society won the top club and New Hampshire was the 2nd state behind K2J, North Carolina.

Congratulations to all of the 13 Colonies operators:

Digital, Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter

Significant Changes in Store for FT8 and MSK144 with WSJT-X 2.0

WSJT-X co-developer Joe Taylor, K1JT, has announced that major changes are coming to the FT8 and MSK144 digital protocols when WSJT-X 2.0 arrives in a few months. Taylor said version 2.0 should be ready for prime time by January.

“Much of the necessary programming is finished,” Taylor said in a post to the Packrats reflector. “Many of the new features have been tested on the air, and we find them to work well.”

Source: Significant Changes in Store for FT8 and MSK144 with WSJT-X Version 2.0

Some of the more interesting additions planned include:

  • Support for Field Day Exchanges
  • Support for the ARRL RTTY Roundup
  • Support for user-defined telemetry messages

Support for Telemetry messages (could be useful for a future long-range HF HAB radio system). See Joe’s whitepaper here for more details.

Looks like we’ll see a beta in October…

Fred, AB1OC

Activities, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

Nashua Area Radio Society August Member Activities

We have two great member activities coming up on August 25th and August 19th.

Family Picnic

We will hold our annual family picnic on Saturday, August 15th at Greeley Park in Nashua. All club members and their family members are invited.  This is the same day as the Greeley Park Art Show.

The picnic will be a potluck lunch.   To sign up to bring a dish, see the forum post https://www.n1fd.org/forums/topic/family-picnic-sign-up/

Fox on the Loose
Fox on the Loose

We will start to gather around 10:00 am and lunch will be served at noon. Rumor has it that some foxes may be on the loose around Greeley Park during the picnic!   Directions can be found on the club event calendar.

ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY

We will be hosting a multi-op entry for the ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY on Sunday, August 19th.  The contest starts at 18:00z (2:00 pm local time) and ends at 00:00z on Monday (8:00 pm local time Sunday).  To be eligible for the rookie roundup, you must have received your first license in 2016, 2017 or 2018 OR have never made a RTTY mode QSO.

Certificate from 2017 Rookie Roundup RTTY
Certificate from 2017 Rookie Roundup RTTY

We will operate with the N1FD callsign from AB1QB/AB1OC’s QTH.  

We will hold an elmering session before the contest starting at 1:00 pm on Sunday, August 12th at AB1QB/AB1OC’s QTH.  Please plan to attend the elmering session if you want to operate in the contest and have never operated from our station or never operated RTTY.  We will also help the newly licensed Hams to program their HTs at this time.

You can sign up by sending an email to Anita at [email protected].   Please let me know what times you are available and whether you plan to attend the elmering session on August 12th.

Operating slots are first come, first serve so be sure to sign up soon!

We hope to see you at one or both of the member activities in August!

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