News from the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)

SPARC held their monthly meeting on Dec 7th at the Eastern Loudoun Sheriff's Office. There were 19 members at the meeting.

We had a brief business meeting and finalized plans to activate the W&OD caboose in Herndon on Dec 10th. SPARC hosts visitors to the caboose and operates a 2-meter station in conjunction with the Holiday Model Train Show.

Preparations are continuing for the 2012 Virginia QSO Party. Don, K7CS, stated that he has received commitments for sponsorship of all of the plaques. Payments have started to arrive from the sponsoring clubs and individuals.

We had two excellent presentations at this meeting. Dick, W2YE, provided a briefing on the various options for sending and receiving QSLs. Although electronic QSLs are becoming more popular (through eQSL and Logbook of the World), there is still a lot of activity with paper QSLs. Outgoing QSL cards can be sent direct, and those for DX stations can be sent through the bureau with a significant savings in postage. Although the cost is less, cards sent through the bureau can take up to a few months to reach their destination. Dick manages the incoming bureau for the "4" call district (two-letter prefixes) and stated that we have processed just under 90,000 cards so far in 2011. This is lower than normal and it could be due to the growing use of electronic QSLs or the recent low in the sunspot cycle. The bureau has 1 vacancy for a letter manager; see Dick if you are interested.

Don, K7CS, presented an overview of band plans and how they are used. While only a portion of the band plans are mandatory, they do provide a common framework for use of the bands. Don reviewed and commented on several of the plans and showed how most of them allocate specific portions of the band for CW, digital, repeater operation, and DX contacts. An important point to note is that the band plans differ in other ITU regions. The band plans for the US (Region 2) differ from those in Europe and Africa (Region 1). The band plans can be found online and in many ARRL publications.

Our next meeting will be Jan 4th, 7:00 PM, at the Sheriff's Easter Loudoun Station. In addition to the business meeting, we'll have a holiday gift exchange and a ham show-and-tell. See you there.

73,
--MARK KI4OBT