02/27/2026
St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club
One of the first Field Days I ever attended (back in 1982) was at the Fairgrounds in Largo (home of the Renaissance festivals). At that event, the Clearwater Amateur Radio Society (CARS), the Metro Repeater Association (Metro) and the St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club (SPARC) came together in the spirit of inter-club cooperation to put on a huge ARRL Field Day effort. This was complete with a great location, good equipment, operators to man the stations, great food and loads of fun.
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] … Click for more
Every night on the net members and non-SPARC members check-in to just chat about their day after handling any NTS traffic. We also have a multiple choice question each night from the license pool. On your check-in you can give your best answer or just take a guess. We do it just for fun and to help those that are thinking of taking an exam.
We just completed the General class questions and are now starting the Extra Class questions. Even if you are studying for the General Class, many … Click for more
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 … Click for more
For the last few years, SPARC has held Homebrew Night in February. No, we are not talking about beer. In a long tradition, Homebrew in Amateur Radio is the things you craft yourself that you find useful in some aspect of radio. This is an evening where club members can show the projects they have built over the past year. The loose definition of 
homebrew equipment is something you built from scratch or a piece of gear you modified to suit your purpose. It can be an antenna project, a … Click for more
SPARC received word that we did well in last year’s RTTY Roundup, Multioperator Low Power category.
Operators enjoying this victory are: KA4IOX, KB8ESY, KP2N, KR4U, N2ESP, N4GD, N4KPJ, N4RI, NY4I, VE3XD, W4CU and W4TSP.
Not to be out done, the 2018 Roundup just ended. Some new antennas and software enabled the W4TA team to beat … Click for more