SPARC

WRMI Field Trip

By Charles Adkinson on 08/11/2022

Howdy All SPARC members. On Saturday, September 10th at 11:30am we will be getting a tour and behind the scenes visit to WRMI in Okeechobee, FL. we will depart the St Pete area at ~8:30am to ensure plenty of travel time.

if you aren’t familiar with WRMI they are an international shortwave broadcast station, transmitting dozens of other “stations” worldwide (for example, maybe you heard radio france, or maybe NHK Japan really well one time? probably because it was actually coming from WRMI!), they have more than a dozen 100k … Click for more

SPARC August Operating Event – North American QSO Party SSB

By Tom Schaeffer W4CU on 07/28/2022

SSB Operators needed: The SPARC Club Station at DMI will be fired up for the SSB edition of the North American QSO Party (NAQP) on August 20th. The contest starts at 2PM Eastern Time and runs for 12 hours. The North American QSO Parties are favorites of beginners and seasoned operators alike. Everyone is invited to participate. We would particularly like to see newly licensed hams and new club members get involved or just stop by to see what’s going on.

Details of the event can found at: https://ncjweb.com/NAQP/… Click for more

SPARC July Operating Event – North American QSO Party RTTY

By Tom Schaeffer W4CU on 06/30/2022

Following up on a successful Field Day, SPARC is planning to participate in the July North American QSO Party (NAQP). The NAQP takes place 6 times a year with 2 RTTY, 2 CW, and 2 SSB. events. The upcoming RTTY event will be held Saturday July 16 starting at 2PM Eastern Time and lasting 12 hours.

Details can be found at: https://ncjweb.com/naqp

Experienced operators and anyone wishing to learn more about RTTY or improve their skills are encouraged to contact either Rich AA2MF at: rcariello49@gmail.com or Tom W4CU at: tom_w4cu@yahoo.com.… Click for more

Field Day 2022 Wrap up

By Pat AAØO on 06/28/2022

SPARC’s 2022 Field Day was a successful one. We had 40 people on the sign-in sheet and 21 operator callsigns made QSOs in the log. After removing duplicates we made 1,455 QSOs (statistics breakdown below). Band conditions made for slow going on Saturday but things really picked up Sunday morning.

Overall the stations worked well, having the same radio at each station made it easy to transition between them. We had some issues with the stats screen not keeping up with the QSOs, FT8 locking up N1MM occasionally, and sorting … Click for more

Field Day 2022 Signup

By Pat AAØO on 06/14/2022

SPARC Field Day will be on June 25-26th at our club station location, DMI Research, 6699 90th Ave N, Pinellas Park, FL. We’ll start at 9am Saturday with setup, the on-the-air operating event starts at 2pm Saturday and runs through 2pm Sunday.

We’ll be operating as 3-Delta with 1 station each on SSB, CW, and Digital(FT8, etc). We’ll be using Yaesu FT-1000 radios. Operation will be indoors with Air Conditioning.

If you are planning to attend, please fill out the form using the link below so we know how … Click for more

Mike Scott K4ZPE, SK

By Charles Adkinson on 06/05/2022

The SPARC club is sad to share that club member Mike Scott is now a silent key. Mike was a long-time SPARC club member, long-time member, and webmaster of the W4ORM club and by all reports a terrific person. Also, Mike designed and published this website for SPARC. Many of the original pages were authored by Mike.

Please keep Mike’s spouse and family in your thoughts. More information will be posted as it becomes available.