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Posts published in “Contesting”

Argh Matey….Get yourselves ready for the Florida QSO Party…

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 02/26/2025

Before you think I have completely gone around the bend, this year’s Florida QSO Party has special event stations to spell out the word P-I-R-A-T-E-S. Stations around the state will be signing special 1×1 callsigns where the single letter suffix spells out PIRATES. 

The Florida QSO Party is both Saturday April 26th and Sunday April 27. It favors the daytime hours so you can still get your sleep. On Saturday, the contest starts at Noon local time and goes until 10:00 PM. Sunday morning we pick back up at 8:00 AM and go to 6:00 PM. All times local. 

There is a special award for those that sweep (work all) the “PIRATES” stations so people want to work us. That makes it more fun and it should keep the stations busy. But we need plenty of operators to work those stations looking for us as K4P.

The Florida QSO Party is always a popular event at the SPARC station. We run Phone (Voice/SSB) and CW (Morse code). We generally have at least three stations active so we need plenty of operators. There is no digital component so just SSB and CW. Our contest coordinator, Paul KA4IOX will no doubt have more information about this including the opportunity to sign-up but plan now to attend and fill in a spot. Remember that people want to work us for the sweep of the PIRATE stations so you can sit on one frequency and just call CQ. As mentioned, we can only so that with people. We never want to hear, “Hey, I could never find that K4P station“.

So save the date and plan on attending to take a shift. It should be a blast! Argh!!!

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Field Day – Late Lunch and Early Dinner for All Members

By Tom Schaeffer W4CU on 06/18/2024

Field Day Picnic for SPARC Members/Guests: A volunteer has been found to cater picnic food from 2:00pm to 6:00pm Saturday June 22nd. The menu includes hot dogs with all the fixins, potato salad, cold slaw and sodas. Given the weather forecast, food will be served inside DMI. Bring some chips or cookies to share if you can.

Your Help is Needed: One person can’t work alone. So we still need some volunteers to set up tables and chairs. Volunteers should show up around 1:15 – 1:30 pm and some evening eaters are asked to help put away tables and chairs and clean up a bit after 6:00pm.

Food for Operators: Additional food will be provided for operators. We will have drinks, snacks, sandwiches for the night watch and bagels for Sunday morning.

We hope to see everyone Saturday or any time Saturday and Sunday to operate or visit. Questions?: Email: tom_w4cu@yahoo.com

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Join Field Day at SPARC, June 22-23

By Ed NZ1Q on 06/08/2024
The St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club will hold its annual ARRL Field Day 2024 operating event from Saturday, June 22, 2024, through Sunday, June 23, 2024. The Field Day activities will commence at 14:00 local time on 6/22 and end at 16:59 local time on 6/23.
 
Field Day is an important and fun annual event for the Amateur Radio Community. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has been holding it annually every June since 1933. This will be the ARRL’s 91st Annual Field Day event.
 
Field Day is a 24-hour event that allows amateur radio operators to test their communication skills in simulated emergency situations. Originally, this was done without the luxuries of typical infrastructure (e.g., AC electricity). Some clubs and/or participants would actually participate in this activity in parks and campgrounds, where they would have to rely strictly on the bare minimum to power communication equipment. Some participants slept in tents during this event when they were not working the airwaves.
 
All amateurs, regardless of current license class and their families and friends, are invited to participate. Multiple modes will be used, like CW, SSB, and digital modes, to name a few. It is also a time to promote fellowship amongst the worldwide Amateur Radio Community.
 
All are invited to attend and encouraged to do so. The event will be held at our club station at:
DMI Research
6699 90th Ave. N.
Pinellas Park, FL 33782
 
Sign-up on SLACK or contact a SPARC officer. We look forward to seeing you there.
Pictures from SPARC FD last year.
73’s
Bruce H. Solov, KF4TYA

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Cancelled: October SPARC Operating Event: Makrothen RTTY Contest

By Tom Schaeffer W4CU on 10/02/2023

Unfortunately SPARC will not participate in theMakrothen RTTY event and the club station will not be open October 14 and 15

Makrothen RTTY  is a favorite operating event of SPARC and other RTTY operators because the score for a contact is the distance from you to the contact. Scores in the millions of points are routine. In fact, in 2017 SPARC placed Second World Wide with a score of 2,023,660. This year’s contest will take place October 14 & 15.

 

 

 

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North American QSO Party Side Band Results!

By Tom Schaeffer W4CU on 08/22/2023

SPARC had another successful effort in the August 19, 2023 NAQP SSB contest. The W4TA team worked a total of 873 QSO’s in 12 hours for a score of 136,118 points. The score was the second highest of Florida Contest Group Multi Two entries exceeded only by a group in the Virgin Islands. Looking at the 3080’s reported M/2 entries, W4TA was 11 out of 20 in the category.

SPARC operators were: AA2MF, WD8MIU, K04WPO, KQ4DVG, KQ4DXM, KA4IOX and W4CU. Special thanks to W7WFS who worked on raising the tower, and AA2MF for operating 6 hours filling in for missing operators as well as supervising, training, trouble shooting, and setting up the the station and necessary logging programs.

The station also had 3 visitors, one who tested a home repaired transceiver from the 1960’s on the club antennas before the contest, one who is working on his technician license, and one interested in amateur radio. Also Bob KD4QNS stopped by Sunday when the tower was being lowered and toured the station.

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