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Posts published in “Operating”

Field Day 2020 – What’s in a Name?

As you may know, our normal Field Day at the fire training center is not happening this year. Many members are taking advantage of the rule changes to operate class 1D or 1E from home. One of the changes the ARRL made—for this year only—is the ability to aggregate our individual scores under one club name. Please note that you still just make contacts with your own call but when it comes time to send in your Field Day entry, in the spot for club name you can add a name and everyone that uses that same club name will see a single entry in the results for that club name. Your regular entry listing with your own callsign still appears.

This just gives a way for club members to all contribute to a single score—Field Day is not a real contest so it is not terribly important but in case you do, I wanted to send out some recommended names. The reason is that when all the scores are added up, it goes by the match of the club name. Hence, if I sent in my log with a club name of SPARC, a second member uses St. Petersburg ARC and yet a third uses St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club, those are three different names and three different club names would appear and the scores would not be added up.

To help alleviate that, I thought I would offer some club names to standardize upon to minimize this issue:

Since we normally operate Field Day as a joint club effort—and in respect of those efforts—I have opted to use the same club name I send when I submit the entry in a normal year: I use the following name (somewhat abbreviated for it will not fit on the QST listing:

Clearwater ARS / St. Petersburg ARC / Upper Pinellas ARC

If you want to use one of the specific club names, try one of these:

  • Clearwater Amateur Radio Society
  • St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club
  • Upper Pinellas Amateur Radio Club

I am also planning an after Field Day Saturday morning presentation to walk through the process of sending in your Field Day entry.  More info on that later but it is tentatively scheduled for 10:00 AM EDT on July 11, 2020.

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Saturday Presentation Series – Setting up N1MM and TR4W for Field Day

With more people opting to operate from home this year, this is a Zoom online session presented by Tom NY4I on setting up N1MM and TR4W for Field Day. Many people are not used to setting this up for at the shared Field Day event, this is usually done ahead of time by others. But with operating from home, you might find a local instance handy for logging your Field Day contacts. This session will cover downloading, and installing each program and we will look at operating them both if you have never done that.

Details for the meeting are as follows:

Topic: N1MM and TR4W setup for Field Day
Time: May 30, 2020 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7274372771

Meeting ID: 727 437 2771
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+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
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+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
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Feel free to share this link with others. We have ways to handle Zoombombers.

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SPARC in the Park Big Success

SPARC in the Park [Photo by Gerry WR6N].

Members of SPARC, UPARC and CARS came out to Lake Seminole on Saturday March 14 to enjoy the sunshine as well as operating HF and satellite portable. Patterned after other “in the Park” events put on by our clubs in the past, approximately 15 people came out to enjoy a day in the fresh air. Unlike Field Day, everyone is encouraged to bring their own radios and test their portable setup in the field. It also gives members a chance to see different portable HF setups. Given that many people cannot operate stations at home, operating in a park allows hams to still get on the air. Pat AA0O borough his gear which he uses in many parks around the state to make HF contacts.

Dee W4DCH and Lisa KC1YL [Photo by Gerry WR6N].

Dee W4DCH from UPARC brought his Icom 7300 and wire antenna system.

Portable wire antennas setup of Dee W4DCH [Photo by Gerry WR6N].
Icom AH-4 tuner for Dee’s Antenna [Photo by Gerry WR6N].
Tom at the Icom 9700 satellite station [Photo by Gerry WR6N].
Arrow antennas Satellite Beam [Photo by Gerry WR6N].

Tom NY4I operated his satellite station to make 5 QSOs on 3 different satellites. Lisa KC1YL operated as well even making a satellite contact with KP3A in Puerto Rico. All told we had around 15 people come out to play radio in a great day in the park.

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Winter Field Day 2020

Another Winter Field Day has come and gone (more than a few weeks ago due to my belated report). The weather was mild if not just a tad cold at night (for us Floridians anyway). The now annual combined Winter Field Day effort between the Clearwater ARS, St. Petersburg ARC and Upper Pinellas ARC took place the weekend of January 25 at the Clearwater Fire Training Center.

Antenna crew lifting the beam into place on the tall fire tower [Photo by Julie NF1T].
Ron KP2N at the CW station [Photo by ]
Rex KB8ESY and Glenn N4ESU operating one of the SSB stations. [Photo by ]
Tom NY4I at the satellite station talking to Charlie W4OQM. [Photo by ]
Club members working the off-center fed dipole. [Photo by ]
Pre-setup team meeting. [Photo by ]
Operating a SSB station [N2ESPhoto]

So how did we do?

Our total numbers of contacts was above 1200 making for the most we have made from this site in a Field Day (Winter or Summer). The total points of 19788 were sent in at the end of February with the results typically released about 4 months later. We had a great time, made lots of contacts including all possible bonus points and the satellite contact, tried some digital modes and had  a total of 21 operators make at least one contact. Getting new people to work stations is always one of our goals so it’s great to see new people working the radios. Hams making contacts included:

NE4C N4ESU N6MSA WA4OAB AA0O

WR6N KB8ESY KR4U K4OB N4EC NY4I

W4WYR KC1EMJ N4KIN N4GRC NB2G

N4BOZ KP2N WB9AZV KO4V NF1T

From the map below, you can see we worked all US sections and just missed two VE sections.

Dave KR4U operation the CW station while Ron KP2N looks on [N2ESPhoto]
Our hosts [N2ESPhoto]
Rich AA2MF “The Band Boss” talks with Dave KR4U and Ron KP2N [N2ESPhoto]
Tom NY4I operating the satellite station while Jeff NE4C looks on [N2ESPhoto] – Yes, the cigar makes it work better.
Front(l to r): Jack N4KIN, Scott XXXXX; Middle: Rich AA2MF, Glen N4GAC; Rear: Pat AA0O and Norm. [Photo by Julie NF1T]
The power behind it all. [Photoo by ]
Arrow antenna for the satellite contact [Photo by
Ron N6MSA working his Braille keyboard running stations on 80m. [Photo by ]
 

I have lots more photos and some videos to put together into an album. That will be forthcoming along with fixing the credit for some of these photos.

 

See you in June at ARRL Field Day.

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SPARC in the Park

On Saturday March 14th, 2020, SPARC is hosting a gathering for club members (and our north county CARS and UPARC friends) to setup in the park. This is an informal gathering so plan on bringing your own stuff to this one. The site is Lake Seminole Park (shelter # 6) starting at 8:00 AM. Grab your lunch, drinks, a radio and come out and play radio in park. More information is available at Radio Clubs in the Park ( https://www.sparc-club.org/event/radio-clubs-in-the-park )

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Winter Field Day Signup

Sign up for Winter Field Day (January 25/26, 2020) by clicking here.

Registration is over for guaranteed meals but feel free to attend

Deadline to signup for guaranteed meals is Wednesday at 7:00 PM EST.

Look here to see if you already signed up: Winter Field Day 2020 Sign Up Roster
More info available here…

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