Tag Archives: Portable

Activities, Featured, General

Junes POTA/SOTA Saturday June 10th and May’s POTA learnings

2 Comments

Hi I before I talk about June’s SOTA/POTA I want to say a few things about May’s. IT was buggy in every sense of the word. I met Matt WE1H  at Mount Kearsarge last month for the club’s first SOTA. POTA activation of the year. My battery was giving me issues, and Matt’s radio was giving him issues. Matt let me borrow an extra battery and resolved his radio issue. So we are good to go, right? Wrong a throng of hungry black flies descended on us. We made the call pretty quickly that we couldn’t deal with them as neither of us remembered bug spray.

So while we both were bummed out about driving all the way over there for nothing we did learn a few important lessons. First, if you haven’t fired up that portable rig in a while. Give it a test and work out the bugs

Jamey AC1DC’s operating position on Mt. Kearsarge.

before heading out to operate portable. Iron out any battery or radio issues at home before you set up an antenna in the wild. This is a good time to check and make sure you have all the crazy RF adapters you might need for that portable rig too! And let’s not forget bug spray, head net, and a hat to keep the bugs off you.

Ok, with that out of the way for June’s activation, we will be back at Kearsarge. It’s really a great place to activate.

The plan for  Mt. Kearsarge activation is to meet at the picnic grounds at the end of the auto road Saturday at 11:00. I should be there till at least 4 so don’t worry if you can’t make it for 11:00 The physical address for Rollins State Park  (the location of the auto road) is 1066 Kearsarge Mountain rd. in Warner.  I just went to their website here and they recommend a reservation so plan on visiting the link for a pass.

Anyone that wants to hike up from the other side and meet us here is the physical address of Winslow State Park 475 Kearsarge Mountain Rd, Wilmot, NH 03287. Check The nhstateparks.org website you may need a parking reservation on this side of the mountain as well.

We will most likely be operating from the picnic area at the end of the auto road. If anyone wants to operate from the actual summit it is only .5 miles away. I’m not sure how long a hike it is from Winslow State Park. In addition to SOTA/POTA, the ARRL June VHF Contest starts at 2:00 local so there should be plenty of opportunities to make QSO’s.

As far as radios an HT with an upgraded rubber duck can get you surprising performance from even a modest rise in altitude, so if that’s all you have, bring it and try it out.  I’ll have my  6-meter QRP rig and a new homebrew Moxon antenna.

Hope to see you on Mount Kearsarge on Sunday!

PS Don’t forget to go to the state park website for a parking pass! It’s early in the season so you shouldn’t have a problem with them letting you up, but do you really wanna take the chance?

73′

Jim K1BRM

Activities, Featured, General

SOTA/POTA Hikes Start September 10th 2022

1 Comment
GENERAL

Great news for fans of our SOTA / POTA hikes. If you made it to our August membership meeting then you already got the lowdown but for anyone that might have missed it then  I’ve got the schedule here for you and it begins in just a few short weeks.   Covid is mostly in our rear mirror so we can finally meet in groups and start having some fun.

Abby AB1BY portable operating from the summit

On September 10th we will be headed to Mount Kearsarge in Warner N.H. We plan on taking the auto road from Rollins State Park to 1066 Kearsarge Mountain Road. The 3 1/2 mile auto road terminates at a parking lot and picnic areas. Let’s plan to meet up in this parking lot at 10:00 am You can choose to operate here or hike a .5  mile to the summit. If you’re a purist you can start on the other side of the mountain at  Winslow State Park and hike the whole mountain with only modest effort and meet us. It is necessary to buy a parking pass and it is best to do this several days or a week ahead of time to ensure they don’t sell out. If they do you will be stuck at the bottom waiting for someone to come down as they only let a certain number of vehicles up at one time. Here is a link to the State of NH State Parks page where you can get the parking pass.

As far as operating from Kearsarge you can operate anything from an HT to the newest and best that is commercially offered or your own home-brewed rig. Seeing the range of what others brought is part of the fun of these activations. I’m bringing my MFJ qrp rig  I’ve run this rig before but haven’t had any luck yet so I’m hoping to have better luck this year.

Here is the rest of the SOTA / POTA scheduled for 2022

  • October 8 th   Pack Monadnock

Hope to see a lot of you on Kearsarge in a couple of weeks!

Jim Lajoie K1BRM

Activities, Antennas, Digital, Education and Training, Featured, On The Air, Station Equipment

Register Now for Ham Bootcamp!

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 Bootcamp is 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, KC1KSY as he makes an HF Contact
Jamey, AC1DC, elmers Randall, N1KRB  as he makes an HF Contact

Our spring Ham Bootcamp will be held on Saturday, May 14th from 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 on Fox Hunting
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
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.

Any questions about Bootcamp?  Contact me at [email protected]

 

Anita, AB1QB

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide