Annual Armed Forces Day Crossband Test, May 13, 2023

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From ARRL.org:

The US Department of Defense (DoD) will host this year’s Armed Forces Day (AFD) Crossband Test on May 13, 2023. This annual event is open to all licensed amateur radio operators and will not impact any public or private communications. For more than 50 years, military and amateur stations have taken part in this event.

The AFD Crossband Test is a unique opportunity to test two-way communications between military communicators and radio stations in the Amateur Radio Service (ARS), as authorized in 47 CFR 97.111. These tests provide opportunities and challenges for radio operators to demonstrate individual technical skills in a tightly controlled exercise scenario.

Military stations will transmit on selected frequencies and will announce the specific ARS frequencies monitored. All of the times are Zulu (Z), and all frequencies are Upper Side Band (USB) unless otherwise noted. The frequencies used for the test will not stray outside the confines of the exercise.

A complete list of frequencies, time periods, QSL cards, and other information can be found at DoD MARS – Armed Forces Day.

AFD is a time of honor. It will be celebrated on Saturday, May 20, 2023. The first AFD was celebrated with parades, open houses, receptions, and air shows. Today, many events and activities take place and may include multi-service military displays in areas open to the public, various educational activities that teach children about the armed forces, and large parades with local celebrations.

The longest running AFD parade in the United States is held in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Certain types of music will be played at AFD 2023 events to show respect to those in the armed forces who died for their country.

 

Port City ARC to Activate USS Albacore and USS Thresher for Museum Ships On The Air Event, June 3-4, 2023

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Dave Taylor, N1FCC, writes on the Port City ARC mailing list:

[The Port City ARC] plans to activate two stations for the [Museum Ships On The Air special event, June 3-4, 2023].  We will operate from the USS Albacore museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as NM1JY and from the USS Thresher memorial in Kittery, Maine, as W1WQM.

Please reach out if you have any questions 

Dave Taylor N1FCC

Port City Amateur Radio Club

 

W1AW/1 Rhode Island VOTA Operation, July 26-August 1, 2023

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VOTA logoWe’re still looking for Rhode Island operators to help put W1AW/1 on the air [July 26-August 1, 2023]. You don’t have to be a big gun DXer or contester, or have the best station, to be an operator – just be on the air from Rhode Island. You can operate from home, a club station, or maybe from a friend or fellow club member’s station.

If you would like more information on participating as an operator for W1AW/1 Rhode Island, please contact Mike Corey, KI1U at mpcorey@gmail.com. You can also fill out this form to sign up as an operator: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3bm7fcV_4wdXE77A2Eeq2bG20g_VhpsYK0Nmy-xSHlNZvQA/viewform

 

CQ Foxhunting Weekend, May 13-14, 2023

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Joe Moell, KØOV, writes:

The annual CQ Foxhunting Weekend is coming Saturday and Sunday, May 13-14.  If your club hasn’t had its spring transmitter hunt, now is the time to plan it.  We’re not picky about the actual date—any weekend in the spring is fine—but it’s time to get the ball rolling.

There have been some changes at CQ Magazine in recent months, but it’s still being published.  You can read more information about Foxhunting Weekend, including results, stories and photos from last year, in the February 2023 issue.  There’s also lots of foxhunting information at www.homingin.com, including news of the USA ARDF Championships.

I look forward to receiving your Foxhunting Weekend reports and photos.  It will help spread the word about the fun of transmitter hunting, both mobile and on foot.

73,
Joe Moell K0OV
CQ Foxhunting Weekend Moderator
www.homingin.com

 

Providence (RI) Radio Association Holds Boy Scout Radio Merit Badge Class

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PRA Foundation logoThe PRA Foundation, the educational outreach arm of the Providence Radio Association, W1OP, presented a Boy Scouts of America RADIO Merit Badge class for members of Troop 2, Central Falls, RI.  Over the course of 5 weeks, Foundation Director Dom Mallozzi, N1DM, and President Dave Tessitore, K1DT, taught in-person classes at the PRA Clubhouse / W1OP station following the K2BSA Amateur Radio curriculum. Instruction was augmented with lab demonstrations, on-the-air experiences using HF and VHF, as well as CW and several OSCAR Satellite and ISS repeater contacts. The Scouts were thrilled and encouraged when, by sheer coincidence, we worked a young Ham on 20M SSB who had just become an Eagle Scout! Upon earning their Merit Badges, the Scouts and Scoutmaster were each presented with FRS handheld radios courtesy of the Foundation, along with an invitation to return for a Technician License Class.

Coming up in May, Dom and Dave will be joined by PRA Secretary Dave, W3DRE, and member Thomas, KC1QYD, as they present an Introduction to Amateur Radio, the Ionosphere, and Orbital Mechanics to an assembly of 360 eighth-grade science students at the Alan S. Feinstein Middle School in Coventry RI.  KC1QYD happens to be a member of that class, as well as being the youngest member of the PRA. His classmates are aware of Thomas’ many contacts via the International Space Station’s crossband repeater.  The lecture will be accompanied by an OSCAR demonstration as well as a live “Parks On The Air” ® station operating from the school grounds.

For info contact president@w1op.com.

PRA Boy Scout Radio Merit Badge class photo
Three smiling Scouts from Troop 2 Central Falls RI pose with Dave Tessitore, K1DT (L) and Dom Mallozzi, N1DM (R) after just earning their BSA Radio Merit Badge.

New England QSO Party, May 6-7, 2023, How to Operate and Submit

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New England QSO Party logoKen Caruso, WO1N, writes on the Billerica (MA) ARC mailing list:

Hi all,

A few questions have trickled in. I sometimes forget I am one of those “Contesters” (aaacckk!) and I take a lot for granted because I’ve been doing it so long.

While many a contester was born on Field Day, in fact FD is quite a challenge because of the environment, unfamiliarity with radios and logging software, marginal antenna, noise etc. The [New England QSO Party] is a great opportunity to learn to be a proficient contester using your own equipment/home station that you are comfortable with.

You probably don’t want to be using your general purpose logging program for the event. A contest logger will help make contacts go much smoother. I can highly recommend N1MM+ (hint, this is what we have been using for Field Day logging). It is free and probably the most feature rich contest logging solution available. There are others like WriteLog ($), N3JFP (free), I am not as familiar with those.

A detail description of setting up N1MM+ is beyond the scope of this message. If you are new to it and have questions about its setup, drop me a note or give me a call and I can help walk you through it.

Anyone can call CQ and you can answer anyone calling CQ NEQP. Note there are at least two other QSO parties going on at the same time this weekend. Don’t sweat it, just log what they give you.

A typical SSB Exchange when you are calling CQ might go like:

  • You: CQ NEQP WO1N
  • Participant: WI1ZRD
  • You: WI1ZRD 59 MIDMA
  • Participant: 59 MIDMA
  • You: QSL, WO1N NEQP

If the participant is not in New England they will give their state, or possibly county+state (like we do). Just log what they give you.

If they are DX they might say their country but you would log as “DX”.

Club Competition / Submittal:

So, you have entered the contest using your own call and category. To support the Club Competition:

At the end of the event, the contest sponsors need a “Cabrillo” formatted file for your entry. Cabrillo is a standard format that all the contest sponsors have agreed upon.

Use your own call sign and after the event make sure the Cabrillo file that is generated calls out the Billerica Amateur Radio Society on the “Club” line. The header will look like this:

START-OF-LOG: 3.0
LOCATION: EMA
CALLSIGN: WO1N
CLUB: Billerica Amateur Radio Society
CONTEST: NEWE-QSO-PARTY
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-ASSISTED: ASSISTED
CATEGORY-BAND: ALL
CATEGORY-MODE: CW
CATEGORY-POWER: LOW
CATEGORY-STATION: FIXED
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
CLAIMED-SCORE: 24274
OPERATORS: WO1N

etc….

The sponsors will take care of the rest, they will just group all entries with the same Club call out, total them up and that determines the Club’s standing. Your individual score will also be shown on the results page under the category you entered (Single Op etc.).

If you are using a purpose built Contest logger as I recommended, when you input your Station Configuration info there is the opportunity to define you Club name. Otherwise, you can edit the header after the fact and add the line shown above.

N1MM+, will generate the Cabrillo file for you (File à Generate Cabrillo) and store it on your disk as callsign.log (e.g. wo1n.log).

Use the sponsors log submittal page (https://neqp.contesting.com/neqpsubmitlog.php ) and follow the instructions. Upload your callsign.log You should be all set, you’ve entered the contest and supported the Club Competition effort at the same time.

Finally, to keep your logbook up-to-date, you would import an ADIF of the event log. N1MM+ will generate for you. (File à Export à Generate ADIF).

What happens if we win?

We all go to Disney!

Wait no, that’s a different competition….

The Club would receive a nice plaque. In this case the Yankee Clipper Contest Club sponsors the plaque. By tradition, the winning Club President gets to keep the plaque, displayed proudly on their contest Wall of Fame, forever.

73,

Ken – WO1N

Test of High-Altitude Balloon Repeater, Natick MA, May 7, 2023

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New England Sci-Tech logoFrom ema.arrl.org:

    Seth Kendall, KC1PZY, writes on the New England Sci-Tech mailing list:

We plan to hoist up our payloads as high as we can over [New England Sci-Tech] this Sunday (May 7th) at 1pm.  The payload will be running the full repeater setup and live video transmission for flight.

We’d like to invite anyone who might have line of sight with NEST to try calling in once we start the event to test the functioning and propagation.  Keep in mind, the repeater uses low power HTs with homemade Slim Jim antennas, so do not expect the level of performance achieved by the real NEST repeater.  It is also expected to get significantly better signal up in free space during the flight than it will on the ground.

We are putting out a call to see if anyone has a long, sturdy gopher pole or extendable mast that could be temporarily mounted on the roof and hold 5 lbs. up vertically without bending.

To participate, here is what you need to do:

  1. Set up your UHF/VHF radio to these frequencies:
    1. Uplink (your transmit): 446.05 MHz
    2. Downlink (your receive): 146.55 MHz
  2. Use the best dual band antenna you’ve got, or two single band antennas with duplexer.  Antenna height will help a lot.
  3. Write down your distance from NEST and include it in the exchange.
  4. We’ll try to have someone calling CQ as W1STR during the test and writing down contacts and distances.
  5. If you’d like to come join us at NEST during the event to help with setup and operation, come join us around noon.  We’ll either be in the makerspace or on the roof.  We can order some food as well.

We are also looking for a volunteer to try receiving the video signal from some place with direct line of sight that is further than right down the street.  Ideally 1-5 miles away (not expecting the kind of propagation we’ll get up in free space).

  1. If you’d like to volunteer, let me know. 
  2. You’ll need a laptop with Windows.
  3. You’ll need to come into NEST either on Saturday or Sunday so I can give you the receive antenna we are testing, the receiver hardware, and help you set up your computer to input and view the video feed.
  4. You’ll need to find a place with direct line of sight (that’s the hard part).

“Artemis 2 astronauts flying to the moon could phone home with ham radio”

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An illustration of the Orion spacecraft in orbit around the moon. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin) From Space.com:

“It’s been 40 years since the first astronaut called an amateur radio operator on Earth. Now the moon is in the community’s sights.

“Most of the astronauts aboard the Artemis 2 mission, which will send a quartet of people around the moon in late 2024, are certified ham radio (amateur radio) operators. There’s high hopes in the community that the astronauts may call home from deep space, the president of Radio Amateurs of Canada told Space.com.” [Full story]