A million points, that is… As a tune-up for the CW contest part of Field Day, several operators of the SPARC Contest Group fired up the W4GAC station to have some fun in the CQ WPX CW contest. This is a 48 hour event where we try to contact as many other stations anywhere in the world. In this contest, the goal is to work as many unique prefixes as possible. To make ourselves sought after in this contest, we opted to use NY4I as the club call (there are … Click for more
SPARC
SPARC Field Day 2015
Field Day is an ARRL operating event where amateurs setup portable stations using temporary (non-fixed) antennas and radios. Field Day is a test to allow us to establish emergency communications. The contest part of Field Day helps train operators on handling a high volume of messages that would be required during an actual communications emergency. It is also a time to have fun, socialize and learn something new about amateur radio.
This year SPARC will conduct Field Day at the DMI Facility where SPARC normally holds … Click for more
Doug Mills, AG5I says hi from his new MI QTH. Click on card to enlarge.
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Due to the severe intermodulation problem experienced by our 440MHz repeater, the engineering team has determined we need to add a Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System (CTCSS) to the repeater input. CTCSS, also knows as a Private Line (PL) tone will prevent the repeater from re-transmitting signals that do not contain this tone.
Once activated, all radios desiring to access the SPARC 440MHz repeater MUST transmit a 146.2Hz tone to activate the repeater.
Repeater tone access will be added in the near future, so program your radios now to be ready … Click for more
A few SPARC members has the pleasure of visiting with Jerry, WB9Z and Valerie NV9L over breakfast recently. Jerry has been on numerous DXpeditions, while his fiancée Valerie is a host on the ham radio webcast “Ham Nation.”
After a filling breakfast, we took our visitors on a tour of W4GAC. There we presented Jerry with a donation from SPARC for the K1N Navassa DXpedition. Jerry was one of the many operators that put this rare entity on … Click for more
Field Day
The 2015 ARRL Field Day weekend is June 27-28, 2015.
“But, Tom, I’m a new ham and I have never heard of Field Day. What’s that?” I am so glad you asked. Field Day is an amateur radio exercise where we setup temporary antennas in a portable operation to test our ability to create functioning amateur radio stations without using established communication equipment (fixed antennas, stations, etc). This event combines an emergency preparedness exercise with a contest and a fun club outing to spend the weekend hamming.
Yes, … Click for more