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Posts published in “Public Relations”

St Pete Science Fest 2023

The St Petersburg’s Science Fest returned to Poynter Park on the USFSP campus in downtown St Pete this past weekend.  It was a rare chilly morning but with a clear sky it made for a very nice day.  SPARC members Bob N2ESP, Dee N4GD, Charles W4BPP and myself Pat AA0O ran the booth.  I brought my Parks on the Air mobile HF setup, Yaesu FT-891 with 20m wire dipole on a 40ft Spiderbeam mast.  This weekend was ARRL Int’l DX CW contest so we found a very strong signal from 9A1A in Croatia and turned that up to attract folks to the booth.   Most were very surprised to find we could receive a signal on a wire from that far away.

Many of the kids that came by had never heard CW before and were very interested in trying it out on our straight key code oscillators.  One boy came back around 4 times, he couldn’t get enough.  Another YL and her mother came back and her mother said it was the only booth she wanted to revisit.  

AA0O and N4GD warming up in the sun

 SPARC Science fest 2023 booth setup

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Virtual Science Festival 2019

Since the weather caused the Sci Festival to be canceled a few weeks ago, the Festival Committee has provided a Virtual Science Fair as mentioned in their note below. SPARC’s video was included near the beginning as you scroll down their web page – leave time for downloading as you scroll.

“Dear Valued Exhibitors,

We are proud to share a Virtual Science Festival with you! We are so grateful for our sponsors and exhibitors preparedness and wanted to show off what would have been an amazing Saturday event.
We compiled photos and videos from this years’ Friday School Day event, previous years photos, and your videos and websites to create a virtual experience. Please enjoy and share! Click this link to the Virtual Festival

Thanks again for all you do to promote science!
Sarah Weatherbee, Mad Scientist
Program Co-Chair

Program Committee
St. Petersburg Science Festival
www.stpetescifest.org
Email: program@stpetescifest.org”

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Help Support SPARC at Science Fest

After a year absence due to station relocation, SPARC will again be exhibiting at the St. Petersburg Science Festival on October 19th. This event is designed to provide children hands-on access to the wide world of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math).

We need your help. We will be demonstrating “Worldwide Communications over Amateur Radio,” and will have an HF station running. We need CW and phone operators to man the station. We also need folks that can explain the excitement of our hobby to the public. If you are interested in being part of SPARC’s ham radio demonstration team, please contact Bob, N2ESP by clicking here.

If you like to chat with people, (after all we are communicators) this a great place for eyeball QSOs with potential hams. It’s also a lot of fun to watch the kids quickly associate the dits and dahs of CW with the alphabet and subsequently tap out their name on one of the code practice oscillators. Hopefully we can plant the ham radio bug in one or two visitors and will see them on the air in a few years.

The festival runs from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM along the waterfront campus of the University of South Florida St. Petersburg so drop by anytime. Additional details on the festival can be found by clicking here. Hope to see you, the kids and grandkids at this fun event.

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SPARC club brochure, latest update – rev 13

This is revision 13, the latest release of the SPARC’s brochure used at meetings, events and VE exam sessions.  One address received minor clarification.  Prospective members are encouraged to take a look,  print it to review or present to other prospective members.

2019_Sparc_3-fold r13

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Morse Code – Who Had A Clue?

Another interesting email arrived at SPARC this week. A lady had “received” a message in Morse code she couldn’t decode. Strange you ask? True. She asked us for help in decoding the message. Forwarding the request to a few SPARK members, Ed NZ1Q, stepped up to the challenge.

Ed was given a phone number that connected him to the recorded CW message. Thirty seconds later, the message was decoded. It turns out that sender of the email was involved in a “learning challenge that involves solving [a series of] ciphers.” The result of solving the previous clues hidden in a series of movie clips, was the phone number given to Ed. Dialing the number, Ed heard a CW recording which contained the next clue. Ed decoded the message and relayed the clue (contents of the message) back to the originator. We received a quick thank you email for our timely response, and was off to solve the next cipher.

It was fun adding a link to the message chain. Where will the chain will lead? We may never know, but we may have found another way to promote ham radio to the public.

 

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All Hams on Deck

As president, I get a lot of emails from folks who search on Google for the terms “ham radio” and “St. Petersburg.” Recently I received an email from a boat owner who lives in Seminole. He was having VHF radio issues on his sailboat, and was not sure what or where the problem was. Sailors, like hams are resourceful folks, resulting in the email to me. I forwarded the email request for help to the SPARC membership via the SPARC email reflector.

Within hours SPARC member Jack, W4GRJ, was making arrangements to meet with the boat owner. As an experienced ham and licensed charter captain, Jack was the ideal person to respond to this request for help. Jack was able to quickly identify and correct the problem.

Situations like this are familiar to Jack as he often solves similar issues for members of the St. Pete Yacht Club and Coast Guard Auxiliary. Jack noted that many yacht club member’s boats are equipped with marine SSB radios, and thanks to Jack, the owners now have the knowledge to properly operate them. As a result of Jack’s enthusiasm, some of his “customers” have developed an interest in ham radio, and ultimately attended a SPARC VE team test session.

I received a nice email from the boat owner thanking us for relaying his request for help to our membership and for Jack’s timely response. Jack has agreed to be listed on the SPARC web site as an Elmer (mentor) for maritime ham radio. Thanks Jack for all you do for our hobby.

 

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