Clubs

PART of Westford (MA) President George Allison, K1IG, writes:

The Police Amateur Radio Team (PART) of Westford, MA, is getting ready for Field Day (only five months away!), and one of the things we’re doing is CW training. We’ll be running a course for CW newbies (probably using the CWOps curriculum), and our members show a lot of interest in learning.

We’ve also made a bulk purchase of Morserino kits for our members. If you haven’t seen a Morserino, it’s quite a gadget, incorporating a keyer, display, code reader, touch paddles, speaker, CW trainer, and LoRa transceiver. It’s about the easiest kit you’ll ever build; one hour is all it took me, and it worked the first time!

If bought individually through the Morserino website, these keyers are about $100 with free shipping (very slow, through the post office with no tracking), or about $130 with DHL shipping (about 5 days from Austria, with tracking). Since we ordered 20 kits, Morserino gave us a bulk discount, so the kits, with DHL shipping, cost $94 each. Shipping in bulk accounted for much of the savings: shipping one kit via DHL is $30, shipping 20 kits was $72. PART has a kit-building fund that subsidized some of the cost, so we offered the kits to members for $50 each, and they quickly sold. 

Other clubs may want to make a bulk purchase. It takes at least 14 to get a discount, and I found that corresponding directly with the head of Morserino (info@morserino.info) about a bulk purchase is more effective than ordering through the website. If one club can’t get enough orders, perhaps several clubs can get together.

I was surprised by the interest in CW, especially among the newer hams and the “no-code Extras,” and I’m looking forward to fights in the Field Day CW tent for operating time!

The Port City (NH) Amateur Radio Club is conducting a series of Amateur Extra study group meetings at the Piscataque Fish & Game Club in Greenland, NH. This past week, they met for approximately 1 1/2 hours. Students were asked to read several chapters from the ARRL Extra Class License Manual and come to class with one to two prepared questions for the group, “preferably a concept or idea with which you struggled during your reading.”

“The group is fortunate to have Dr. Mike Carter, K8CN, with us this week as their instructor,” writes Kirby Francis, KC1RWR. “Mike holds advanced degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Information systems, and is an Emeritus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UNH.  

“For those who already hold the Extra License, if you have ever wanted to really understand the principles covered in this chapter, you’ll never get a better chance.  Along the way, your attendance will encourage the students in the class to keep their resolve in face of some daunting concepts.

“We will then progress to students’ questions, and end each evening with a group trivia challenge taken directly from the exam questions on that week’s subelements!  Bring your cell phone to participate in the Trivia game.” 

According to KC1RWR, one of the goals of the study group is to “remove the apprehension and fear that may be preventing you from moving forward with your ham radio licensing, replacing it with a sense of community, fun, and self-confidence.”