Blog

Bob DeMattia, K1IW, Northeast HamXposition 2020 Chairman writes:

Large indoor gatherings such as our convention are currently prohibited by Massachusetts state law. This is highly unlikely to change by November. Unfortunately, we will not be able to hold a physical convention this year.

However, we do plan some virtual activities, all free. We are currently working on the details for these and will keep you posted as they develop:

We plan to the operate the W1A special event station over the weekend of October 31st – November 1st. To avoid a conflict with the November Sweepstakes, we moved this to one week earlier. W1A will be operated from the operator’s home stations. Dennis, W1UE, is coordinating the schedule. If you would like to be a W1A operator, please contact W1UE by email at w1ue@hamxposition.org. For those who would like to work W1A, we will be posting the operating schedule once it is ready. Note that this will give regular attendees the unique opportunity to work W1A (something which would have been more difficult for many to do operating portable from a hotel room).

We will also be hosting a Saturday evening virtual banquet on November 7th, featuring a guest speaker. There will be no charge for this event. Order your favorite take-out or delivery, pull up a chair to your screen and join your friends for an interesting presentation. After the talk, virtual break-out rooms will be available for you to converse with your “table”.

The Nashua Area Radio Club will be running an online version of the “Ham Boot Camp”. This is a multisession program for hams young and old to learn about the various activities they can do with their license. Details to follow.

From the entire HamXposition committee, we wish you good health, be safe, and we look forward to seeing everyone in person at our 2021 convention on July 23-24-25, 2021.

73,
Bob – K1IW
Chairman, HamXposition 2020

In preparation for “WARA Field Day 2020 – Alone Together”, the club will hold two online training sessions.

• Wednesday, June 17, 2020, 7:30 – 830 PM: N1MM Logger
• Wednesday, June 24, 2020, 7:30 – 8:30 PM: FD 2020 Q&A

The links to these online sessions will be available by the same methods used for our May 27 online meeting.

It would be helpful if you install the latest version of N1MM Logger Plus before the June 17 session, or at least try, so that you will know what you don’t know. If you are new to N1MM, be sure do the “Full Install” and then the “Latest Update”.

Prior to the June 24 meeting, K8GT’s excellent presentation about FD 2020 is highly recommended: tiny.cc/fdsd

The Waltham ARA, along with many radio clubs around the country, will help slow the spread of COVID-19 by operating “alone together”. The ARRL has made two FD 2020 rule changes to aid in such efforts:

1. Individual entries can include the name of their favorite club. The ARRL will sum the individual scores for each club and publish these Aggregate Club Scores.
2. Contacts between home stations using regular commercial power (FD Class 1D) will be counted in the score.

Field Day 2020 will be on June 27 & 28. For more information, see the ARRL FD Page, and a great presentation by K8ZT at tiny.cc/fdsd. And stay tuned to the WARA web site for updates.

This presentation by Eliot Mayer, W1MJ, will include contesting basics, the age-old question about whether ARRL Field Day is a contest, some training for popular logging program N1MM Logger Plus, and some thoughts on goals for FD 2020.

Monthly meeting are now being held online. In order to receive emails with the meeting links, do one of the following:

1. If you are not already signed up on the WARA Yahoo Group, you may do so by sending an email request to wara64-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
2. If you only want the meeting link emails and not any other email that might be distributed to the Yahoo Group, send a request to Ron, KG1T, with this form: http://walthamara.org/contact/contactform-president.

The New England Division ARRL Convention, branded in recent years as the Northeast HamXposition, is leaving Boxboro. Starting this year, it will be held at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel & Trade Center, 181 Boston Post Rd., Marlborough, MA. The “regular” date has also moved, to the 4th full weekend of July. However, the 2020 convention has been delayed until November 6-8. For more information, see https://hamxposition.org/.

Monthly meeting are now being held online. In order to receive emails with the meeting links, do one of the following:

1. If you are not already signed up on the WARA Yahoo Group, you may do so by sending an email request to wara64-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
2. If you only want the meeting link emails and not any other email that might be distributed to the Yahoo Group, send a request to Ron, KG1T, with this form: http://walthamara.org/contact/contactform-president.

Are you a Waltham Amateur Radio Association supporter, but don’t have the time or ability to make it to an in-person club meeting? Fear not, for we now have a solution.

We’ll be running a WARA “meeting on the air” on Wednesday evenings to bring together WARA supporters for connection, conversation, updates and revelry. We’ll discuss topics that might be of interest to Waltham supporters, along with member health and welfare updates, needs for support, or general communication.

All licensed hams are welcome to join the net, regardless of whether they’re up-to-date, club members.

Details:

Wednesday nights, other than in-person meeting nights, at 7:30 PM Eastern Time.

On the 449.075- MHz WARA repeater (88.5 Hz sub-audbile tone)

Email me with any questions or suggestions.

See you on Wednesday, April 8th for the inaugural meeting.

Christine
N1AUP
cshustak@hotmail.com

Check https://walthamara.org/meetings/ for updated information. We will look to have online / virtual meetings and will post info once available.

WARA member Eliot Mayer W1MJ had his article “Batteries for the Elecraft KX3 and Other LowPower Radios” published in the March 2020 issue of QST! It was made the free QST article online, so you can read it here. Congrats Eliot!