News from the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)

SPARC’s monthly meeting was held October 5th at the Eastern Loudoun Station of the Sheriff’s Office. There were 20 members present. This was our first meeting at the new location and many thanks go to Jim, KF4PQL, for making the arrangements. This is an excellent facility for our meetings.

Following member introductions, we discussed upcoming activities. It was confirmed that Chris Patton will provide a SKYWARN presentation at our November meeting. We also finalized plans for SterlingFest which take place on 8 Oct: the club will operate a battery-powered HF station to demonstrate amateur radio capabilities to the community.

The club also agreed on dates for licensing classes and exam sessions in 2012. The Technician level class has been scheduled for 11-12 Feb (exam on the 12th) and the General class will take place 28-29 Apr (with the exam on the 29th). A final location for the classes and exam sessions hasn’t been determined yet, but we will try to use the new club meeting location if it is available those weekends.

We had preliminary discussions on rules and possible revisions for the 2012 Virginia QSO Party. No specific changes have been proposed and discussions will continue at the next meeting. Presentations to other Virginia clubs are being scheduled and Gordon is seeking volunteers to help with the briefings. Don, K7CS, volunteered to manage the plaques and sponsors for this year’s contest.

Henry, K2BFY, provided a discussion of his scoring software for the VA QSO Party. He described the many conditions that need to be examined as the log files are processed. For 2012, Henry will be upgrading the scoring application to a database system. The system will provide more flexibility and improved accuracy and Henry showed some comparisons of scoring results with the previous software. Just for fun, Henry showed some recent photos he took at the WV Road Kill Cookoff and the Bikini Bike Wash.

The next meeting will be on Nov 2nd at 7:00 PM, in the Eastern Loudoun Sheriff’s Station (46620 East Frederick Drive, in Sterling).

73,
--MARK KI4OBT

Hi,

It is time for the November meeting. This Wednesday, starting at 7 at the Eastern Loudoun Station, Office of the Sheriff.

I had a great month. I thoroughly enjoyed the CQWW DX Phone contest this past weekend. I worked 15M only. Got 206 QSOs, 70 entities, 24 zones, for 54,896 points. 15M was really open. I got a few Japan stations for the first time in several years. It looked like several club members worked the contest also. I saw emails from Dick, W2YE; Don, K7CS; Bill, KJ4VTH and Kevin WB0POH.

Refreshments for this month are by Mark, KI4OBT.

Paul, K4PDF, arranged for a presentation by Chris Patton, W3CUM, Assistant Skywarn Coordinator, on SKYWARN. I do not know much about SKYWARN and so I am looking forward to this.

We have some Club Business to discuss after the presentation.

We should finalize the VA QSO Party rules. Anyone who has a suggestion should forward it to Dick, W2YE. Don, K7CS, volunteered to solicit donations for plaques this year. It will be interesting to see how that is coming along.

The Herndon Herndon caboose special event station is coming up on 10 Dec. Maybe Bill, WF1L, can say a few words about this.

If we have time, we can discuss the February Technician and General License classes and license examinations. We have already a few people (3) emails asking if they can be put on the class attendee list.

See you at the meeting,

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

Subject says it all.

http://www.qsl.net/sterling/Sterlingfest/2011_Sterlingfest/2011_Pics/2011_Sterlingfest_Pics.html

I had a good time. Nice to see everyone and have the opportunity to talk for a while.

If you have some more pictures, please send them to me.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

This is Sterlingfest today. We are putting up a special event station. One HF radio (from Dick, W2YE). We will be running off of batteries (from Ray, KD4RSL) under a canopy (from Mark, KI4OBT)and sitting on chairs (from Gordon, NQ4K).

Set up starts at 9, Fest starts at 11 and it is all over at 5.

This should be a fun time. We sit around and chat, work the radio a little, and talk to passers-by, some of whom are old hams and some who are interested in learning.

Come on out and join us for a while.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

http://www.qsl.net/sterling/Sterlingfest/2011_Sterlingfest/2011_Sterlingfest_Plan.html

Hi,

It is time for the October SPARC meeting. The month has gone by very fast. Since the last meeting, I have worked the Worked All Europe DX Contest (DARC-WAEDC-SSB), Scandinavian Activity Contest (SAC-CW) and the CQ WW RTTY DX Contest (CQ-WW-RTTY). I had fun in all of them.

Remember that this month we will be meeting in our new location. See our web page for the location.
http://www.qsl.net/sterling/Meetings/meetings.htm

Refreshments will be by Gordon, NQ4K.

The presentation will be by Henry, K2BFY, on "VQP Scoring, WV Road Kill Cookoff, and the Bikini Bike Wash." Henry sure gets around and this should be an interesting talk.

We have a few items of club business.

Sterlingfest is coming up next Saturday, 8 Oct. We went over the draft plan at the last meeting and the current version is posted on our web site.

Contest season is upon us. Maybe Dick, W2YE, can talk about the upcoming contests.

It is time to start working on the Virginia QSO Party. We are looking for some volunteers to help with organizing the event. In addition, we can start the discussion on any rule changes we may want to make for this year.

Finally, We can talk about when we want to schedule the General License Class. Currently the Tech License Class is scheduled for 11-12 Feb. Maybe sometime in April or May would be OK.

73,
Gordon, NQ4K