Congratulations Team RI for Outstanding W1AW/1 Results

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Team RI, managed by John, W1XX, of the CTRI Contest Group, posted a final QSO tally of 38,342 QSOs.  This puts RI in 11th place nationally, behind some huge large ham population states like PA and NJ.  That said we still completed more QSOs than NY, TX, or CA, so we have a lot to be proud of.

A total of 16 different stations were on the air (four of them were NCRC member stations K1SD, W1LY, K1JSM, and WB4SON), manned by 26 operators.  Several stations were large multi-op stations, including KI1G, who managed to rack up 17,203 QSOs (more than five states did).

RI will be back on the air during the November Phone SS contest, so the final QSO tally might be HUGE.

 

No Formal August NCRC Meeting – IOTA Meeting Aug 11

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Due to state holidays and other schedule conflicts, the regular NCRC meeting for August has been canceled.

We continue to need operators for the two Island on the Air events happening the weekend of August 16.  The first will be on August 16th only, at the Dutch Island Light.  The second will be at the Goat Island Light on both August 16 and 17.

As we are holding TWO events on that weekend we continue to need operators willing to help with the HF operations.  Our other activations have been wildly successful and have been a lot of fun for those involved.

To that end we will be holding an informal meeting on Monday August 11th at 7 PM outside on the patio at KVH.  This will be a short meeting intended to coordinate the Dutch Island and Goat Island activity.

Supporting NCRC when you shop using Amazon Smile

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John Mills, our ever-faithful treasurer, has registered NCRC as a charity with Amazon, which means that anyone who shops at Amazon, and elects “Newport County Radio Club”  as the charity of their choice, will have 0.5% of their purchase amount credited to NCRC.

You must do two things to take advantage of this:

1) You must visit smile.amazon.com.  The first time you do this you will be asked to select a charity.  Select “Newport Country Radio Club”

2) Anytime you want to purchase something from Amazon, go to smile.amazon.com rather than amazon.com.  When you do go to smile.amazon.com you will see something that looks like this (telling you the charity you support:

AmazonSmile2

 

DON’T FORGET STEP #2 — Amazon is pretty good about this and if you forget they will remind you that you probably want to go to smile.amazon.com

Details about the program can be found HERE.

 

 

NCECT Participates in Multi-Agency Shelter Communication Drill

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NCECTs John King, Ted Wroble, Rick Brendlinger, Dave Brown, Chuck Kesson, Dermid Gray and Bob Beatty, along with three other Red Cross hams planned for and participated in a multi-agency Shelter Communication Drill held this past Saturday at the Middletown and Jamestown shelters.  Willy MacLean was also instrumental in the planning process.

Communication facilities located at the Gaudet School (Middletown Shelter), Middletown EOC, Melrose School (Jamestown Shelter), and Providence Red Cross were utilized.  Participants were from NCECT, Middletown EMA, Portsmouth EMA, Jamestown EMA, and the Red Cross.

By any estimation, the drill was a great success.  It demonstrated an ability to develop and coordinate a multi-agency communication plan, and successfully carry out Shelter to EOC communications using four different communication channels (Landline, Red Cross Repeater, Ham Repeater, and Ham Simplex).  Despite three drill “failures” (Phones down, Red Cross Repeater Down, Ham Radio Repeater down), the plan proved to be resilient, and messages were successfully transferred using NIMS/ICS procedures.

The resourcefulness of Ham Radio was well apparent as one system after another “failed”.  The Ham’s technical skills, and frequency agility came to the rescue.

Hats off to our own John King for all his hard work in developing the plan and setting up the drill.  We know RIEMA was paying attention, and hopefully this sort of drill activity will spread throughout the state.

ChuckKessonShelterDrill

Chuck Kesson, KB1ZZX, passes a message at the Middletown EOC during the July 26 Shelter Communication Drill

Bye Bye Solar Cycle 24

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Sad but true, as of today, July 16, 2014, the sun is spotless.  The last time that happened was on August 11, 2011.  SolarHam.com even compared the spotless sun to an orange today!

ssn_predict_l

You can clearly see the double peak of Cycle 24 on the graph above.  Unless there is another outburst, it looks like the peak smoothed sunspot number of 75.4 was reached during November 2013, which was a first for solar observations (having the second peak larger than the first — the first being 66.9 in Februrary of 2012).

Cycle 24 remains the weakest solar cycle since Cycle 14 in 1906.  By the way, the expectation for the peak of Cycle 25, a decade in the future, is even lower than Cycle 24.

Time for 80 Meter DXing!