09/01/2024
St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club
This past weekend (February 10th – 11th, 2018), the SPARC Contesters activated the SPARC club station again to participate in the CQ WPX RTTY Contest. You may recall that in last year’s effort, SPARC achieved the highest score in our history and had the top score in the 4th call area. We also had the 7th highest score in the US in the Multi-operator, Single transmitter category.
The WPX RTTY contest, sponsored … Click for more
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.
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
SPARC members are all welcome and encouraged to assist at the assembly, repair and erection of antennas at W4GAC. 
Starting at 9:00AM on Saturday 12/16, the tower will be lowered to replace the rotator. At the same time, adjustments will be made to accommodate the center support for the new 80/160 dipole. The south end of the dipole will be attached to a tree near 90th Avenue. The north end will terminate at a new “tower” to be installed at the north end of the property. Finally, a new … Click for more
SPARC contesters enjoyed entering W4TA in the newly reestablished Makrothen RTTY contest. Makrothen is a Greek word meaning distance. In spite of poor propagation, the SPARC team made 541 QSOs with a claimed score of 2,203,706 points.
Besides this being the start of contest season, we also have some other events that you might want to check out.
On October 13 through October 15, there is the Makrothen RTTY contest at the club station. See here for more info….
On October 21, it’s the St. Petersburg Science Festival. Look for more info here and at the club meeting but this is a chance to spend a great day on the waterfront in St. Pete showing amateur radio to kids of all ages.
On October 28 in … Click for more