News from the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)

Hi,

Our very long time call sign trustee, Red, N3TG, needs to pass trusteeship to another person.  He is unable to continue fulfilling that responsibility.

Our club call sign is K4NVA.

We need a volunteer to be the new K4NVA club call sign trustee.

I believe the duties should be simple and probably not take very much time.
 
    Control the use of the call sign.

    Keep the call sign logs. For example, the logs from field day and any special event stations we operate.

    Upload the log information to LOTW.

    Respond to requests for QSL cards.

    Submit license renewals as required.

I suspect this takes less than an hour each month.

I believe that one more qualification is that the person should expect to be an active member of the club for a couple of years.

Transferring trusteeship is simple.  Fill out an ARRL form.  The new trustee and a club officer signs it. Mail to ARRL.  Get together with Red to get all the paperwork, QSL cards, LOTW password and certificate, etc..

Red, N3TG, can email back to all is I have missed anything.

We are looking for a volunteer.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

It is time for our monthly club meeting.  Tuesday, 5 May, at 7:00 PM.

This meeting will be a virtual meeting.  We will probably try to hold the entire meeting on WebEx.  Marty, NV3H will provide instructions in a later email. 

Refreshments will be provided by . I suspect the refreshments will be to your liking.

Marty, NV3H, has arranged for an interesting presentation.  Bill Morine, N2COP, the Roanoke Division Vice Director will talk about "The Importance of Public Relations in Amateur Radio - Why Every Ham Is An Ambassador For Our Hobby.”  You can see a short bio of Bill on the Roanoke Division web page at http://arrl-roanoke.com/home.htm.

If we have time we can also discuss a few items of club business. 

First is Field Day.  I am not sure if we should just cancel it now or plan on having it.  We will be interested in hearing comments.

Second is Nomination of Officers.  Ray, KD4RSL, our treasurer, has indicated that he has to give up being treasurer.  So we are looking for a prson willing to take this on.  I believe this does not take more than 1 hour per month and probably less than that on most months. 

We will close with a Tech-Ten-Talk.  Not sure what this will be yet, but we have time.

See you on Wednesday. 
73, Gordon, NQ4K

I am looking for a volunteer to do the 5 minute tech talk.  Any topic. Up to you.  Need a volunteer.

73, Gordon, NQ4K   

Hi,

We have almost completed the initial scoring of the logs from the Virginia QSO Party and have posted the meta data to our web site (https://www.qsl.net/sterling/VA_QSO_Party/2020_VQP/2020_VQP_Main.html).

We have received 612 logs.  This is a dramatic increase over last year with 449 logs.  Some increase is probably due to our normal growth.  Most is probably due to the new State QSO Party challenge and the coronavirus stay-at-home policies.  Regardless a big increase.

We owe a lot of thanks to Marty, NV3H, for developing the online log submittal portal.  This saved us a lot of effort.  Probably half the logs came in through the portal. 

We also owe a lot of thanks to Henry, K2BFY, who developed out log scoring program and scored the electronic logs. 

Dick, W2YE, picked up the paper logs at the post office and we are in the process of scoring these.

The Manassas Hamfest has been cancelled.  We do not know what we will do for the Awards Ceremony.  Suggestions include doing it at the Berryville ham fest, doing it online in Zoom, and not having an awards ceremony this year.  We have time to work this out.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

The 2M net last night went well.  We started at 7 and ended at 7:31. 

My count was 12 participants including me.  A good turnout. (WB2SAI, K2BFY, KN4BHG, KQ4CI, KN4BGW, N3TG, KJ4VTH, K4UW, KN4ZZI, K4SRX, K3SR(?))

It dawned on me that we are bumping into the NVTN which starts at 7:30 on the Bluemont repeater.  Not sure if that matters.

I think we had a good sequence for the meeting. 
   Open the net
   Check-ins with comment or story
   Short tech talk (5 minutes)
   Final comment by all with joke
   Close the net.

We will try again next week.  Need someone to be able to do the tech talk and if someone want to try net control, please let us know.

Also, we could do a concurrent Zoom meeting for those who cannot get on the air with their 2M rig.  Comments welcome.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

The virtual meeting we had last Tuesday was successful.  It was fun.  The repeater worked well.  We had good participation.

I propose we do a 2M net every WEDNESDAY at 7 PM.  Call it the SPARC Net.  We do check-ins, All all to make a comment.  Have a short, 5 min, talk ( a mini-Tech Ten Talk), and then close the net. 

Evan, KQ4CI, volunteered the use of the 2M repeater (145.310 (-)  PL77).

We can try it this coming Wednesday and see how it goes. 

I can be the net control for the first meeting.  After that we could pass net control around to give all a chance to learn how to do it.

We need a volunteer to do a 5 minute talk.  Please email back if you would like to give a short talk.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi Everyone -

 For those who weren’t able to attend Tuesday’s video conference from FlexRadio live - or if you just want to see it again - our speaker Mike, VA3MW, posted it on Vimeo:

  https://vimeo.com/405441890/5f892481ed

You can stream or download it from there.

       Marty

Hi,

This evening is the first of two pre-meeting check-ins to verify communications.

At 7:00 PM,  Check-in on 2M repeater.  145.310 -  PL77  This is the Dulles repeater in Ashburn.  I will open a net for 20 minutes to enable all to check in and verify that our radios are working.

At 7:30 PM.  Join the meeting on Zoom.  This will verify we can all get Zoom to work.  Notice that Zoom released an update within the past two days.

If you do not have a microphone or camera on your computer, you can still join the Zoom meeting and watch the video and hear the commentary (via your computer speakers just as if you were watching a video).

See you this evening.
73, Gordon, NQ4K 

Hi,

The April meeting of the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club is rapidly approaching.  Tuesday, 7 April, at 7PM.

This meeting will be held on-the-air and on-line.
 
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM. Meet on Dulles/Ashburn repeater 145.31- PL77.  Evan, KQ4CI, who runs the repeater, was kind enough to ensure the repeater was available for our use at that time.

Gordon, NQ4K, will run the net. It will be run in a manner similar to our normal meeting. We will open the net, welcome all, and go over the agenda. Then we will accept check-ins.  When net control calls your call sign, please give your name, call sign, and a brief summary of your ham radio activities during the past month. We will close the net at 7:50 to allow all to get on Zoom.

8:00 PM.  We will meet on Zoom to hear a presentation by Michael Walker, VA3MW, from Flex Radio on "Flex Radio products and Station Improvements."  Some people heard this presentation at Dayton and enjoyed it.  We will send out the Zoom link next week.

9:00 PM or so.  We will have the Tech Ten Team Talk. Not sure yet how we will do this.  Either on Zoom or the 2M repeater.  We will let you know later.


To prepare for the club meeting, we will host two informal 2M and Zoom meetings to allow you to verify you can access the repeater and access Zoom.
  Friday, 3 April.
     7:00 PM on the 2M net.
     7:30 PM on ZOOM. We will send out the Zoom meeting link later in the week.
  Saturday, 4 April.
     7:00 PM on the 2M net.
     7:30 PM on ZOOM. We will send out the Zoom meeting link later in the week.

In preparation for this, I personally have ventured further into the 2M world by putting up a 2M antenna. Usually I do not work 2M so I have never had the need before for anything more than my handheld. I made a very simple 2M coax bazooka dipole. Pulled it up into a tree and it seems to work well. We will see if it lasts long enough to get through the club meeting next Tuesday.

Zoom is an easy application.  The link for the Zoom meeting will be sent to you in an email.  You click on the link.  You can either open the link within your browser (where you will be able to see and hear the presentation) or with the Zoom application (where you will also be able to talk to or chat with the presenter, and if you have a computer camera, broadcast your video).  I took the option of downloading the free Zoom application and created a login id and password.

Marty, NV3H, coordinated all of the above.  We owe him thanks for doing this.

That is all for now.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

Bill, KJ4VTH, emails that the town of Herndon has cancelled Herndon Festival. 

https://www.herndon-va.gov/departments/communications-economic-development/covid-19-updates

This means no SPARC booth at Herndon Festival and no radio support to the Herndon 5/10K races.  Maybe next year.

Thanks to Bill for keeping bringing this to our attention.

73, Gordon, NQ4K