Tag Archives: Satellite

Dayton / Xenia Hamvention 2017

May 30, 2017 Anita Kemmerer

Fred, AB1OC and I recently returned from the Dayton Hamvention, which was held at the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia, OH for the first time this year. Here is a summary of our visit.

Dayton Hamvention - Dr. Tamitha Skov teaching us about Space Weather — Dr. Tamitha Skov teaching us about Space Weather

We always arrive 1 day before the Hamvention to attend Contest University. We get to listen to professors who are experts in contesting, propagation and other aspects of Ham radio and always learn something new. The presentation that stands out in my mind was on Space Weather by Dr. Tamitha Skov, who is a regular on Ham Nation and has a web site Space Weather Woman.

On Friday it was time to visit the first day of Hamvention. We spent most of our time visiting the vendors. The new venue had 5 buildings with vendor booths and 2 more buildings for Forums. It took us most of Friday and some of Saturday to visit all of them. Here are some of the highlights.

Icom 7610 at the Dayton Hamvention — Icom 7610

Icom has a new SDR transceiver coming out later this year, the IC-7610. We got to see it in person at their booth. The display was impressive. If the performance is as good as the IC-7300, this will be a great transceiver.

Elecraft KPA-1500 Amp at the Dayton Hamvention — Elecraft KPA-1500 Amp

The Elecraft booth was very busy – we got to see their upcoming 1500 W amplifier, the KPA1500, which will cover 6m – 160m.. this one is going on the wishlist.

Flex Radio's new Transceiver with kbows at the Dayton Hamvention — Flex Radio’s new Transceiver with knobs

Next, we visited the Flex Radio booth and spent some time playing with the Maestro, which will have at Field Day for the GOTA station. Their newest radios, including the Flex 6600 have buttons and knobs and a display.

Kenwood TH-D74 HT at the Dayton Hamvention — Kenwood TH-D74 HT

At Kenwood’s booth, we got to look at their newest HT, the TH-D74, a tri-bander which does APRS, D-Star and has a great looking color display.

Begali Keys Booth at the Dayton Hamvention — Begali Keys Booth

We then visited the Begali booth where we got a chance to try out a large variety of Begali Keys.

This year's new Toy at the Dayton Hamvention — This year’s new Toy

At the Begali booth, Fred picked out his Hamvention toy for this year – the Sculpture Mono key.

Burns, W2BFJ at the AMSAT booth at the Dayton Hamvention — Burns, W2BFJ at the AMSAT booth

We made several visits to the AMSAT booth and saw Burns, W2BFJ, one of our newest club members. We also talked to their educational lead about ARISS opportunities to contact astronauts on the space stations and learned the details about how cube sats are built and launched. We also picked up a copy of their latest satellite book, which is one of the best books on the topic we have read.

We also visited the ARRL booth where we received a warm welcome from Tom Gallagher, NY2RF, ARRL CEO, who spoke at our club meeting last year. He is very interested in our HAB project.

After the Hamvention closed for the day, we attended many of the dinners and activities at the Crowne Plaza with the contesting community. At the Top Band dinner, we saw a very interesting presentation from Nodir, EY8MM, about his home country, Tajikistan and his plans for 160m operations during the Bouvet Island DXpedition coming up in 2018.

Overall we had a great time at the Hamvention and are looking forward to attending in 2018.

Anita, AB1QB

Activities, Education and Training, General, Newsletter, On The Air, Space, Youth Activities

HAB Open House

May 30, 2017 Nashua Area Radio Society

On May 6, members and friends of the HAB (High-Altitude Balloon) Project gathered at Anita (AB1QB) and Fred’s (AB1OC) QTH for an open house to introduce the students participating in our project to amateur radio and the HAB itself. The weather wasn’t exactly cooperating with us, as rain was in the forecast. In fact, this was supposed to be the week before our actual launch so we could do some prep work with the kids. Fate had other ideas for the launch, however, as it was postponed due to more rain and has been since rescheduled to June 3.

Among the students there, we had representation from Merrimack High School, Bishop Guertin High School, and our independent group of which Abby (KC1FFX) and Connor (KC1GGX) made up 2/3 of the students.

HAB Project - Teachers (and a student) from Merrimack and Bishop Guertin — Teachers (and a student) from Merrimack and Bishop Guertin

Beginning around 9 am, we crowded into the kitchen to have Fred introduce the agenda for the day.

HAB Project Team gathering around the table — Gathering around the table

After showing off the HAB, the components, and explaining what everything did and how it was interconnected, we broke off into three teams. The first would tour the illustrious shack, the second would get a primer on antennas and towers in the backyard, and the third would brave the elements and go on a foxhunt.

HAB Team members going on a Fox Hunt — A crew going on a Fox Hunt

After each group was able to accomplish all three activities, we then invited the kids to make some QSOs in the shack and/or make some QSOs with Fred and Anita’s amateur satellite station v2.0. (I, myself, had made my first two satellite QSOs earlier that morning. A VERY cool station, indeed). A few were definitely nervous and mic shy, but most stepped up and seemed truly amazed (bewildered) that they could talk to some random person in some random corner of the globe.

By about 2 pm, there seemed to be expressions of fatigue on the young faces, and it seemed a natural time to conclude the day. All in all, it seemed the kids truly were excited about amateur radio and the HAB. We look forward to working with them in future phases of our HAB project and hope this is something that many of these freshmen can turn into a serious senior science project when they’re looking ahead towards graduation in a few years. (And perhaps, we’ll get some of them licensed too!)

73,

Brian (AB1ZO)

Hashtag: #N1FDHAB

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