Announcements

BARC Member to Activate Park on the Air!

ke1ml Announcements, On the air
BARC Member to Activate Park on the Air!

In a VERY exciting development, BARC member Brendan Baldonado, the newly licensed KC1NEF, lets us know about an upcoming Parks On The Air (POTA) activation he’s about to attempt. He says:

“As you may know I am getting ready to take my General and Extra exam, but thought it could be a fun challenge to “Activate” a park using only Tech bands and Abilities. My Plan is to activate using 5 bands, if I can, with no data and no CW and mostly VHF!

The activation is not a contest so spotting is allowed, I only need to make 10 contacts to activate. For more information on POTA, go to http://parksontheair.com/

I am asking for help in activating the park by trying to contact me on the frequencies and modes listed below. I will submit a log through Parks On The Air where your callsign will receive hunter credit for you as well as activation credit for me! In addition to uploading the logs to eQSL and LoTW, I plan to buy either post cards as QSLs, or take a few pictures and turn them into Special Edition QSL cards for all the people who help me activate.

I plan to activate on Wednesday October 21, 2020. I’ll be at the Bunker Hill Monument and Park, a registered National Park, with my battery powered FT897 and Matchbox Random Length End Fed Dipole in a Tree. I’ll be starting around 2:00 PM (1800z) and going until about 6:00pm (2200z).

If you can reach out via these frequencies and let any other hams know to try and reach me I would be greatly appreciative.

Wednesday OCT 21 2020
10 Meters: 28.450 – USB
6 Meters: 50.294 – USB
2 Meters: 146.450 – FM
1.25 Meters: 223.450 – FM
70 CM: 446.00 – FM

For the most up to date spots please look at www.pota.us and look for my callsign: KC1NEF

QSO Today Virtual Hamfest

ke1ml Announcements
QSO Today Virtual Hamfest

Depressed that hamfests throughout the world have been cancelled? Unhappy that the New England Division Convention is not to be this year (see last post)? Well, there is an alternative…this weekend!

ICOM and the QSO Today podcast are attempting to hold a massive virtual, online hamfest on the weekend of 8-9 August. How do we define massive? 20 000 hams have registered for this free event! There are 162 prizes being given out! Dozens of speakers in four different tracks over two days! Vendors!!

These folks are attempting nearly everything a “brick & mortar” hamfest does, but their attempting to do it virtually. No, it’s not a replacement for everything we lost this year via our normal way of interacting with each other, but if anyone can deal with virtual communication, it’s us Amateur Radio Operators.

Visit the website. Register. Let’s give this a try!

The QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo!

2020 New England Division Convention – CANCELLED!

ke1ml Announcements
2020 New England Division Convention – CANCELLED!

The news we were all dreading was made official a few days ago: the 2020 New England Division Convention has been officially cancelled. While distressing, on a personal level I applaud Bob, K1IW, and his team for making the hard, but right call.

All we can now hope and say is, “Next year, at Marlborough!”

I’ll let Bob take it from here.

==========================

Large indoor gatherings such as our convention are currently prohibited by Massachusetts state law. This is highly unlikely to change by November.  Unfortunately, we will not be able to hold a physical convention this year.

However, we do plan some virtual activities, all free.  We are currently working on the details for these and will keep you posted as they develop:

We plan to the operate the W1A special event station over the weekend of October 31st – November 1st. To avoid a conflict with the November Sweepstakes, we moved this to one week earlier. W1A will be operated from the operator’s home stations.  Dennis, W1UE, is coordinating the schedule.  If you would like to be a W1A operator, please contact W1UE by email at w1ue@hamxposition.org.  For those who would like to work W1A, we will be posting the operating schedule once it is ready.  Note that this will give regular attendees the unique opportunity to work W1A (something which would have been more difficult for many to do operating portable from a hotel room).

We will also be hosting a Saturday evening virtual banquet on November 7th, featuring a guest speaker. There will be no charge for this event.  Order your favorite take-out or delivery, pull up a chair to your screen and join your friends for an interesting presentation.  After the talk, virtual break-out rooms will be available for you to converse with your “table”.

The Nashua Area Radio Club will be running an online version of the “Ham Boot Camp”. This is a multisession program for hams young and old to learn about the various activities they can do with their license.  Details to follow.

From the entire HamXposition committee,  we wish you good health, be safe, and we look forward to seeing everyone in person at our 2021 convention on July 23-24-25, 2021.

73,
Bob – K1IW
Chairman, HamXposition 2020

Clear Your Calendars!!

ke1ml Announcements, Meetings
Clear Your Calendars!!

This Thursday evening, LIVE, on your computer – the Boston Amateur Radio Club’s July Meeting!

Again, due to COVID, etc, we’ll be meeting as we did last month via Zoom. Not only will we be able to check in with each other and share what we may be doing during this odd time, but we’ll be having a speaker, Charles Bures, WA3ITR, talking about FT8.

There seems to be a new digital mode nearly every month on HF (and they’d work on VHF and UHF as well!), and FT8 has proven itself to be among the most popular. We’re looking forward to this talk since the last time I was active before I moved to MA, FT8 didn’t even exist!

Club members will be getting an email with the Zoom Meeting ID that you’ll need to have to get into the meeting.

For those of you for whom this is new, check out zoom.com to download the free software available for Windows, AndroidOS and iOS, as well as extensions for Firefox and Chrome (if you want to try coming in from a Chromebook!).