Technician Class & General/Extra Study Starts April 21st

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I’m happy to report that we have scheduled our next Technician Class to begin at 5:30 PM on Tuesday April 21st at St Lucy’s Church (909 W Main Rd, Middletown, RI 02842).  Classes will run from 5:30 PM until approximately 8:00 PM on six consecutive Tuesdays.  We will have the exam on June 2nd, same time and place.  There is a $10 fee for the student manual, if you need one (we use the Gordon West Technician book), and a $15 fee for the exam.

You can use the following link to register for the class:  https://forms.gle/2mTska1G33jwqPnZ6

The General/Extra Study Group will begin at the same time, and you can contact Paul Fredette  K1YBE@Yahoo.com

Meeting Reminder: Monday March 9 2020 at 7:00 PM

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Our regular NCRC business meeting will be held at KVH Manufacturing (75 Enterprise DR, Middletown) at 7 PM.  Following a short business meeting, we will be showing a 25 minute video that was presented at the Dayton Hamfest in 2015 on the Navassa Island DXpedition, an event that was more years in the making than the Apollo program.

Don’t forget that 2020 Dues are due.  You can pay by cash or check at Monday’s meeting, or you can pay online by going to the “Pay Dues or Donate” tab on the website.

Monday Meeting Feb 10, 7 PM, at KVH

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Our regular club meeting is Monday February 10th at KVH.  It starts at 7 PM.  After a brief business meeting, which includes results for Winter Field Day as well as the January Island Activations, there will be a presentation on the performance of the VHF direction finding antennas (tape measure antennas) assembled at the last Hand’s on Radio event.

Members are reminded to please use the “Pay Dues” tab to pay their 2020 dues, if they already haven’t done so.

Winter Field Day

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Winter Field Day has just a few more hours before it will be in the log, but it’s been a good event six years in a row for W1SYE.  The plan of using two ladder-line fed non-resonant antennas ran into a bit of a snag Saturday morning, as it was not possible to tune them using the Johnson Matchbox.  Some adjusting of the feedline length rectified that problem, and the two transmitter operation was underway by 14:00L.  The SSB tent would be on the air for 24 hours, while the CW station would be split between CW and Digital operation.  We also had a satellite station (Sunday morning) that made a single contact to obtain the 1500 point bonus.

Life was fine until Saturday night when storms came through the area with hard rain (a bit over an inch) and wind, but they cleared out before midnight At least that kept the temp in the 40s.  Also hard to believe that for six years in a row the weather has been warm and mostly sunny for WFD (easy for someone who didn’t show up until Sunday morning to say).  Winter is coming, for sure, but hasn’t arrived in Rhode Island yet.

The SSB Tent is in the center (you can see the feedline running up in the air  to one of the dipoles) with the all important Porta-Potty and CW station to the left

A view looking at the green-stick holding the end of the 2nd dipole. Taken from the location of the satellite station

The satellite station was on the air for 1 contact only — Computer for Doppler correction and rig are in the truck. Power is from a solar-charged Bioenno LiFePO4 battery.  The antenna, an Arrow crossed beam is visible outside the side window (mounted on a camera tripod)