In honor of Valentine’s Day, we will not be holding our meeting on its usual 2nd Monday date, instead the meeting will be on Thursday Feb 17 at 7 PM.
The presentation for this month will be given by Bob WB4SON on using some of the many Amateur Radio Satellites in orbit. This is something that can be done by any licensed Amateur (Technician included).
John Vecoli KC1KOO will be holding a Winter Field Day (Jan 29 & 30) training session via Zoom tomorrow, Wed Jan 19 at 7:30 PM. You will receive an invitation via email.
Due to increased concerns over the pandemic, and after consulting with many of the potential operators, NCRC decided it was not safe to hold an in-person Winter Field Day activity this year. That said, Winter Field Day continues as an individual activity, and club members are encouraged to participate any way they feel comfortable: From a home station (1H), in another building like an ECO (1I), or even outdoors at a park (1O). All of those activities continue to be possible with participants operating using their own call signs. The club can receive points for an aggregate score of all participating individual stations simply by specifying “W1SYE” as the “CLUB” in the individual log submission. Speaking of logs, John has kindly agreed to act as a coordinator/consultant for log submissions to verify that everything is OK prior to submitting the log.
Several club members will be standing watch on 146.55 MHz FM listening for folks calling CQ WFD, and responding. This can produce a bunch of points for the club, even as a single contact, and can be done by our members who hold a Technician License . There are bonus points for being outside (at least 30 feet from your house), using alternative power (like a battery in a HT), and remote (not on your own property). So a single 5 watt HT contact would produce a score of 1504 points – not bad for 3 minutes of activity from the street in front of your house!
If you decide to make lots of contacts, that’s great, but keep in mind that the category you choose to operate must remain the same for all the contacts – for example, if you are going to be (1O – 1 Outdoor), then all contacts must be made outdoors. If you made some outdoors and some at your home station, then all of them must be considered 1H (1 Home), and the Remote and Outdoor bonus will not apply.
Rules for Winter Field Day are here: https://www.
John has provided this presentation that will be used during the training: Winter Field Day 2022 Team Brief
Hi everyone!
NCRC will have a Zoom meeting on Monday January 10 at 7 PM. Invitations are being emailed Sunday afternoon.
In addition to our short business meeting, we will discuss Winter Field Day, which will no longer be at Glen Park due to the COVID outbreak in RI – Anyone can use their home station, or setup an outdoor station using their own call and still give credit to the club aggregate score (set the “CLUB” item to “W1SYE” in your log submission).
We will also experiment with a new Zoom feature that allows us to break into small groups – exactly what happens during a physical meeting so that we can get to know each other and discuss our goals. And we will introduce a new interview segment that we will have from time to time so that members can get to know each other better.
Happy New Year!
The gathering was a great success as an in-person club event. We set up and operated two stations; HF and D-Star. This was a great display of HAM radio resilience operating off battery in less then desirable weather.
We successfully activated POTA Washington-Rochambeau Mutli-state Trail(K-4582) and Case Mine (MOTA) for the first time. We also completed an IOTA (NA-031), on Aquidneck Island. Being 2540m from Hog Island Lighthouse doesn’t meet the 1 km rule but so what. More event pictures at:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q5T7
V-2jkHIkSMYzSCoM4dyw_soltvpV
Thanks to Nancy (KC1NEK) Austin, for making this event happen despite the rain and an unexpected family emergency. Great teamwork everyone! Thank you, Ted (W1GRI) & Mike (AA1XQ), for bringing your radio gear out in the wet WX. Thank you, Bob (WB4SON) Beatty, for the spot that got the frequency going. As a group we made 65 contacts total in just over an hour (16:46-17:49 UTC).
Stayed tuned for more events like this.
GREAT JOB TEAM!
NCRC had an in-person get together at Lehigh Grove in Portsmouth on Saturday December 18th from 11 AM until 1 PM. Since the weather did not dampen our intrepid members from participating on Saturday, we will NOT use the rain date on Sunday.
A more complete report on the event is being prepared but we did make 30 contacts on 40m.
This was the club’s first MOTA (Mine on the Air). It also qualifies as a US Island on the air, International Island on the Air, Lighthouse on the air, and Park on the Air – more events than you can shake a stick at!