Operating

SPARC at the St. Petersburg Science Festival

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 10/27/2015

by Bob Wanek, N2ESP —

Not a bad place to spend a Saturday... — Not a bad place to spend a Saturday…

The weather was perfect with a cooling breeze blowing over our waterfront venue. The 20M vertical and VHF/UHF Yagi antennas rose above the tent that provided us shade from the Florida sun. Signage identified our mission as strange sounds emanated from the radios we had set up. This was the scene at the SPARC booth as the 2015 St. Petersburg Science Festival got underway.
Tom, NY4I was searching for satellites to work aided by the custom antenna … Click for more

Attracting New Hams with Bright, Shiny Objects

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 10/08/2015

As you may have read on this site, SPARC is setting up a display at the St. Pete Science Festival. This is the first year I have been in town to attend so I thought it would be a “cool” display to go “whole-hog” with the satellite demonstrations. One of the things that first drew me to amateur satellites was, believe it or not, the rotor turning automatically. I visited a ham in Salt Lake City and he had two beams (2m and 440) on a common boom and they … Click for more

QSLing Presentation from August 2015 Meeting

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 08/16/2015

Here is the presentation Tom gave at the meeting: QSLing by NY4I

Related Images:

Field Day – the President’s Perspective

By Bob Wanek N2ESP on 06/29/2015

First, I would like to thank our outgoing Field Day Chairman Dave, KR4U for his years of service and many memorable field days. Dave handed over the reins to this year to new chairman, Tom, NY4I. Thanks Tom for organizing a successful event.

In addition to a new chairman, lots of things changed this year’s field day. Our new location at DMI worked out well. While a true field day experience may not be air conditioned, our group has years of experience working under hot, humid, rainy conditions. Another year … Click for more

Who will copy the Field Day bulletin?

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 06/22/2015

We still need a volunteer to copy the Field Day Bulletin. This is an easy 100 points.

Here is a link to the schedule: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Field-Day/2015/2015%20w1aw%20sked.pdf

You can copy this from home on Friday night or if you are a purist, from the Field Day site. The radios should be setup by 11:00 AM for the phone bulletin on Saturday if you want to copy it from there.

Again, getting back to the stated purpose of Field Day, imagine we had to setup in the field for a communications emergency. Copy

… Click for more

Field Day Operating Signup

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 06/19/2015

For your review, here is a link to the sign-up sheet for operating at Field Day.

Note we have three stations: CW Only, CW/SSB/PSK and SSB Only.

The CW/SSB/PSK station will be on whatever mode we have the requisite operators. This way we can keep the station busy.

PLEASE NOTE…YOU MAY NOT SIGN UP YET.

I will post this sheet at the antenna setup on Friday morning at 10:00 and when we get to the site on Saturday at 9:00 AM. People that attend either setup can sign up at … Click for more

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