Tag Archives: On The Air

Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, On The Air

2020 Field Day Results

December 12, 2020 Anita Kemmerer

The ARRL has published the 2020 Field Day Results in the December 2020 Issue of QST.

Field Day 2020 Rule Changes

Due to the pandemic, the ARRL made two rule changes this year. The first is that stations in category 1D could contact other 1D stations. The second is that individual submissions could specify a club affiliation and scores would be aggregated by club.

NARS held several activities to help members operating in Field Day to earn bonus points toward their scores. A virtual site visit via Zoom with Gary Gasdia (father of member Ryan, KC1KJS), who is a member of the Hudson School Board and Community Emergency Response Team Members Patrick, W1YTT, Joe, AC1BG and Dan, W1MUZ helped members with bonus points. Sterling, AK1K, trained us all and hosted a messaging net to help us get the messaging bonus. These bonus points helped to increase our score.

Field Day 2020 Scores

Thanks to all of our members who submitted their scores for the Nashua Area Radio Society, our efforts resulted in a total club score of 14,952. From a quick scan of the line scores published by the ARRL and back of the envelope calculation, we placed in the top 3% of all clubs!

We had a total of 16 members contribute their scores toward our aggregate club score:

Call	Name	Operators	Class	Power	Total
AB1QB	Anita Kemmerer	AB1QB, AB1OC, KC1IMK, AB1BY	3E	Low	3930
AK1K	Sterling Eanes	AK1K	1E	Low	1762
NE1RD	Scott Andersen	NE1RD	1B1B	QRP	1300
W1XMM	Brian Quick	W1XMM	1E	Low	1278
N1CEO	Peter Dabos	N1CEO	1E	Low	1218
NF1H	Andrew Wuelfing	NF1H	1D	Low	958
AC1EV	Jon Turner	AC1EV	1E	High	914
W1YCZ	Matt Truland	W1YCZ	1E	High	838
K1BRM	Jim Lajoie	K1BRM	1D	Low	506
NU1T	Jorgen Dahl	NU1T	1D	Low	502
W1AKI	Aron Insinga	W1AKI	1D	Low	446
KC1IMK	Keith Sangillo	KC1IML, KC1IMK	1D	Low	390
KC1IML	Mark Sangillo	KC1IML, KC1IMK	1B2	Low	388
AC1FX	Jeff Lalmond	AC1FX	1D	Low	214
W1TED	Ted Trost	W1TED	1E	Low	194
KC1DXL	Anthony Rizzolo	KC1DXL	1D	Low	114

To learn more about our members Field Day 2020 operations, see the field day articles on our blog.

To review the ARRL Results Article, visit the ARRL Web site at https://contests.arrl.org/ContestResults/2020/Field-Day-2020-FinalQSTResults.pdf

To search the 2020 ARRL Field Day score database, visit http://www.arrl.org/results-database and select 2020 ARRL Field Day from the drop down box.

Winter Field Day 2021

Winter Field Day is coming up on January 30-31. Similar rule changes have been made due to the pandemic. If you are interested in operating on Winter Field Day, review and reply to Craig, N1SFT’s post in the Field Day Forum. Also, plan to join our January Membership Meeting, where Craig will talk about Winter Field Day.

Anita, AB1QB

Activities, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

NARS QSO Party Update

September 21, 2020 Jim Lajoie

The Nashua Area Radio Society is sponsoring the NARS QSO party on September 26th. This QSO party is born from the frustration of not being able to have large groups of our members meet for the SOTA, POTA, and IOTA events that we had scheduled before the Pandemic.

There have been some important rules changes that you need to know about. We have adjusted the final exchange and scoring to make it easy for you to use the existing North American QSO Party set up in a contest logger such as N1MM+ to participate and score your operation in the NARS QSO Party.

Exchange and Multipliers

The exchange and multipliers for this contact are patterned after the North American QSO Party. Here’s a summary of what has changed:

The most important rule change is that this will be a phone contest only. It wasn’t possible to do an all-mode contest without having some issues in other areas related to using standard contest setups that are available in most loggers.
Also, the exchange will be the operator’s first name plus (state/DC/province/country).
Finally, the time window has been changed to 1600 UTC on September 26 to 04:00 UTC September 27th. That’s Saturday 12:00 noon to midnight on the East coast.

Setting up N1MM+

I want to quickly go over how to set up N1MM+ to log contacts and score your entry correctly. N1MM+ is a free logging software that will allow you to log contacts, score the contest for you and also provide you with a log in Cabrillo format as well.

When you are finished downloading open the software.

Go to file> new log in the database and choose NAQPSSB.
Change the start date and time.
Go down the options and change as needed taking special care with the sent exchange, mode, and operator information boxes.
Click ok at the bottom of the page. You come back to the logging screen.
The next important change to make is to right-click anywhere in the logging window and go down to change band panel display.
Click on this option and click on the VHF tab and the UHF tab. this will allow you to add contacts from 2 meters on up.

This explanation probably sounds kind of clunky but once you open the software it will make a lot more sense. I think you should have N1MM+ configured correctly if you follow the steps above. I have pictures that I took. Email [email protected] if you want a copy of the setup pics.

Summary of the Rules

There will be two operating categories for the NARS QSO Party: HF and VHF and up. A summary of the rules is below.

You should submit your final log as an Electronic Entry only and your submission should include a complete Cabrillo format log and your claimed score. Logs should include date and time in UTC, Frequency, Mode, Call Signs, and the Exchange for each of your contacts. Logs are due 7 days after the contest is finished.

Certificates will be awarded to the top 3 stations in each category.

Ham Nation

Fred, AB1OC, and I will be on Ham Nation this Wednesday, September 23rd, starting at 9 PM Eastern Time, to publicize this so we should see plenty of activity on the air.

I hope to get you in my log!

Jim Lajoie, K1BRM

DX, Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter

The South African Radio League Web Site and Free Publications

September 15, 2020 Aron Insinga

The South African Radio League has an annual Diary of Events (PDF) online. Between the month-at-a-glance pages, this calendar has information on certificates they administer such as the Worked All ZS award and Worked All Africa award.

South African hams operating outdoors
(From the public SARL Youth Facebook page,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/217437211797100)

For a bigger picture, I like their Year-at-a-Glance (PDF) calendar, for A3 paper (11.75″ x 16.5″). (I’ve already suggested that the ARRL take a look at it and consider offering one too.)

The South African Parks on the Air program looks interesting since it includes Flora and Fauna not seen in the wild anyplace near our W1 area!

Their HF Happenings (and other DX news) newsletter is downloadable and includes African IOTA information.

In response to the pandemic, they made the April 2020 issue of their magazine free to everyone. (Apparently, some other societies have done the same, so if you find one, please post a link to it!) This issue includes an adapter to use a Baofang radio as a ‘fox’, the design for the audio part of a direct-conversion receiver (SDR), information about an amateur radio exhibit they put up at a public exhibit of hobbies of all sorts, and other projects.

Don’t worry about being able to read the articles, everything I looked at was in English, with some columns also in Afrikaans. I found it very interesting!

As you can tell from the pictures above, they also have a public Facebook page “for members of the SARL (South African Radio League) and amateur radio enthusiasts under the age of 25“.

Aron, W1AKI

Field Day 2020 Rule Changes

Field Day 2020 Scores

Winter Field Day 2021

Exchange and Multipliers

Setting up N1MM+

Summary of the Rules

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide