On Saturday September 21st, 2019 starting at 9:00AM, several Pinellas County clubs will host “Pinellas Radio Clubs in the Park” This will be held at the centrally-located Eagle Lake Park at 1800 Keene Road in Largo. The general idea is setup of portable equipment, make a few contacts, visit with friends —old and new —and meet members of some other clubs for a picnic. This follows a tradition started by the Upper Pinellas ARC to get into the field each month for fun out in the open air full of radio related activities . There will also be a transmitter fox hunt so bring your 2m HT and antenna. All are welcome. More details will be available but for now, please save the date of Saturday September 21, 2019.
SPARC
The following information may be useful for those attending the 2019 Field Day at the Clearwater Fire training Center, especially if this is your first Field Day.
As you may be aware, the radio room is inside, but setup will of course be outside for antenna work. You may want to bring a change of clothes/shirt, etc. The facility has showers and locker rooms if you so desire but you may want to bring your own towel/toiletries. Setup starts at 8:00 AM Saturday morning. We will have coffee and doughnuts available. We will be eating inside too in another adjacent classroom. If you would like to stay overnight, we have a room dedicated to sleeping. For your comnfort, please bring a cot or sleeping bag. Note the room gets cold with the AC so plan accordingly.
PLEASE BRING HEADPHONES. Many of us use boom microphones and we do not share headset microphones for hygienic reasons. All operators will be using headphones for sound even if you are using a desk or hand microphone. As we are operating 3 radios in one big room, we cannot use the speakers (unless we are demonstrating the radios to a group of people). If you do not have a set of communication headphones, at least bring earbuds. We have adapters for both 1/8” and 1/4” headphones to match the radios but please bring something as we will NOT share headphones. Also note if you have a Heil headset, we have adapters to connect to the radios. For RadioSport users, we have the interface cables to the Elecraft K3. Just check on site if you need bias on the mic element or not.
For CW ops, we will have a paddle hooked up to a WinKeyer. If you have a paddle you prefer (for sending manually), please bring it along. The computer will send CW—-copying is with the software between your ears. Our paddle has a 1/8” stereo plug so please adapt accordingly. We can plug a straight key directly into the K3.
You may want to bring a more comfortable chair. The classrooms we are in have chairs that may not be that comfortable for hours of sitting. If you prefer chairs without arms or ones that have more room, definitely bring your favorite folding chair or camping/beach chair.
If you are attending dinner on Saturday evening, please bring a dish to share. We ask that this be actual food versus stopping off for a bag of chips on the way. Your dish to share can be dessert as the only desserts available will be those that people bring.
While we are operating inside, you may be outside for parts of the event. We have access to an outside pavilion. Please bring sunscreen or a hat if you are planning on helping with antennas setup. You may also want to bring insect repellent for times you are outside.
We also have to ask that you do not plan on bringing any radios to operate independent of the main stations. We have carefully coordinated the station layout to minimize interference between stations. Another station on the site would compromise the main stations so operate our stations as long as you are able, but please; no independent HF stations. We do not need radios or computers, etc. We have all the parts planned ahead so we need you, your dish to share and your desire to have fun. The rest we have covered.
For software, we are using TR4W as it proved to be easy for new people to pickup at our last event and the networking is very solid. That program is free if you want to try it out. It is available at www.tr4w.net (Select Download link).
Please bring a handheld 2m radio (HT). It is a big site and using a radio will make it much easier for us to talk with one another. The main organizers will have HTs to be reached on a simplex frequency to be announced on site. Let the HT save you running back and forth on site to ask questions, etc.
Please ask if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you there and to make this a Field Day for the ages.
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Last Day to Signup to be Guaranteed Meals: Monday June 17. Click here to sign up…
Hang around any group of hams in the springtime and eventually the subject of Field Day will come up. New people must be absolutely bewildered trying to understand this thing others speak of so fondly. So for those that may be new, or even those that know about Field Day but have not made it out to one in awhile, here is an overview.
Just Announced
We will be conducting an education activity for bonus points as a hands-on session on antenna analyzers. If you want to try a variety of different analyzers and see how making changes to antennas affects their measurements, drop by the session at 4:00 PM on Saturday the 22nd of June.
Field Day is a combined event to test our ability to setup radio communication under less than ideal conditions–think temporary antennas, generators and radio gear. As with last year, our event this year is a combined event with three clubs—the Clearwater Amateur Radio Society (CARS), the St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club (SPARC) and the Upper Pinellas Amateur Radio Club (UPARC). The date is June 22nd starting at 2:00 PM until Sunday June 23 at 2:00 PM. Setup generally begins in earnest at 9:00 AM on Saturday morning. The location for all of this is the Clearwater Fire Department Fire Training Center at 1716 Belcher Road in Clearwater. Click here for a map.
The operation is comprised of 3 HF stations (a Kenwood TS590SG and two Elecraft K3 radios). We also have a 6 meter station as well as a satellite station. For modes, we run SSB (voice) and CW (Morse code). We will also have FT8 capability, as that is a new Field Day mode this year so even if you are a strictly digital operator, there is something for you. No experience is necessary beyond a willingness to learn and try something new. If you have never operated a radio, we have plenty of people to help you out to show you how to make a contact. In no time, you will be working stations all over the US and Canada.
We have the equipment all arranged as well as food and drink. We do ask two things related to food. One, we need to know you are coming so please sign up so we have an accurate count of thee people attending so we do not run out of food. We also ask that if you are coming for dinner on Saturday, bring a dish to share with everyone. The public is welcome as one of the purposes of Field Day is to introduce Amateur Radio to new people.
To register, please go to this link and fill out the requested information: https://forms.gle/65ti2G1GARMMiEpv7
Field Day is the premiere event on our club calendars and we hope to see as many club members and guests as possible. Remember, Saturday June 22 rain or shine at 2:00 PM with setup starting at 8:00 AM.
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Here are the slides (.pdf) that Pat presented on Friday, May 3 at the SPARC meeting. It contains some great info for those who want to get started with Parks on the Air.
POTA Presentation – SPARC 20190503
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Pat, AA0O will present Parks on the Air (POTA) this Friday night, May 3 at the SPARC monthly meeting.
The presentation will explain the POTA program and Pat will bring along some of his equipment used in his quest to activate as many parks in the area as possible as well as tips on activating and hunting other activations.
AA0O will tell us about some of the local parks and his experiences. The presentation will include pictures from his activations and other participants around the country.
Learn how you can get active in POTA too. See you at the meeting.
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Building on our half-time report, we completed the 2019 Florida QSO Party under very tough 40 meter conditions with 1185 QSOs. Our goal was to defend our 2018 Club win and get some new operators on the radios. We ran two stations—20 and 40 meters. 40 meters during the day was quite challenging as 10 and 15 meters are not much use nowadays. We had 630 CW QSOs and 555 SSB QSOs. Dave KR4U had the high QSO count with 324 contacts followed closely by Tom NY4I with 317 QSOs. As usual, we balanced our desire to get as many contacts as possible with working with new ops. Glenn N4GRC sat in with us for a bunch of contacts as did returning op Pat AA0O.
As usual we had the regular assortment of contesting accoutrements such as all the drinks you can handle. Sunday morning coffee and bagels combined with lots of discussion of yesterday’s progress fueled the early morning conversation.
The online QSO score board was active to on the station so those keeping score at home could track our progress. Check into our club web site during our next event to follow our progress.
