I want to thank all our followers and subscribers for making stationproject.blog a useful and popular resource for the Amateur Radio community. We’ve hit a significant milestone of late – we’ve surpassed 1 Million views. We very much appreciate your support for our site!
Fred, AB1OC
February 2021 Tech Night – Understanding and Using Radio Propagation to Work The World
Anita, AB1QB, recently did a Tech Night Program on Radio Propagation as part of the Nashua Area Radio Society’s Tech Night program. I wanted to share the presentation and video from this Tech Night so that our readers might learn a little more about propagation and how to use it to facilitate contacts.
Anita, AB1QB provides a comprehensive overview of HF and VHF/UHF propagation and how to use it to Work the World. Topics include the many online tools to help one determine and measure propagation conditions. VHF+ modes such as Meteor Scatter, Tropo, EME, and Satellite paths are also covered.
You can view the Tech Night presentation by clicking on the video above. Here’s a link to the presentation that goes with the video. You can learn more about the Nashua Area Radio Society’s Tech Night program here.
Fred, AB1OC
The Nashua Area Radio Society’s activities and projects were featured on HamNation last evening (Wednesday, November 27th). Bob Heil’s, K9EID interview covered activities and projects of the Nashua Area Radio Society. The interview began with Bob sharing a clip from a previous episode that we did a while back… →
Source: Nashua Area Radio Society Featured on HamNation
Anita, AB1QB and I did a segment on HamNation last evening (Wednesday, November 27th, 2019). We spoke about the work that The Nashua Area Radio Society is doing to bring new Hams into the Amateur Radio Service and to provide skills development for all Hams. You can view our interview on HamNation below.
Ham Nation Episode 430 Featuring The Nashua Area Radio Society
Fred, AB1OC
Jamey, AC1DC Presenting in the ARRL Forum at Dayton 2019
The ARRL gave the Nashua Area Radio Society a Forum at the Dayton Hamvention(R)this past year to talk about how we approached Growing and Modernizing our club. The ARRL has produced a video of our Dayton Forum presentation. You can view the Video along with a copy of the presentation via the link which follows…
Dayton Hamvention(R) 2019 ARRL Forum – Growing and Modernizing Your Amateur Radio Club
The Nashua Area Radio Society has grown from about 35 members to over 225 members in less than 4 years. The presentation contains ideas and programs that have worked for the Nashua Area Radio Society’s (NARS) as part of our efforts to modernize and grow our club.
We have been sharing this presentation via the Internet with other Amateur Radio Clubs. All that is required is an Internet connection capable of streaming video and an associated computer with a projector and speakers. We would like to invite our readers who might want us to do a similar presentation at one of your club meetings to reach out to us via an email to ab1oc@arrl.net.
Fred, AB1OC
July 2019 Tech Night – Putting Up A Tower
We recently did a how-to presentation on Putting Up A Tower at a Nashua Area Radio Society Tech Night. The video from this presentation can be viewed above.
Putting Up A Tower Video – Topics Covered
We covered a variety of information related to planning, building and integrating Guyed and House-Bracketed towers. You can view the accompanying presentation materials here.
The Nashua Area Radio Society produces similar how-to training materials on almost a monthly basis and we make these materials available to our Members an Internet Subscribers (folks that live too far from our location to be regular members) for a small cost which supports our new Ham development programs and covers the production and storage costs associated with the video material. Here’s a list of the training topics that we’ve produced to date:
You can gain ongoing access to the full library of Amateur Radio Training and How-To materials by supporting our work to bring new people and young people into the Amateur Radio Service as a Nashua Area Radio Society Internet Subscriber. You can learn more about how to become an Internet Subscriber here.
Fred, AB1OC
Students and Teacher Ready To Launch Their High-Altitude Balloon
We are planning the fourth launch of our High-Altitude Balloon (HAB-4) this Sunday, June 9th between 10:30 am and 11:30 am ET. We will be launching locally from the Hollis-Brookline HS here in Hollis, NH. Read on to learn more about our HAB projects and how to track our HAB while it is in flight.
Source: HAB-4 to Launch on Sunday from Hollis-Brookline High School
HAB-4 Flight Path Prediction
It’s to easy to track our HAB! All you need is a web browser and Internet access follow our HAB to the edge of space and back. Check out the article (link above) for more information about our HAB and how to track it.
Fred, AB1OC
K2K New Hampshire 2018 QSL
We have a live stream of K2K operations from our QTH (AB1OC/AB1QB) here going on Facebook. You can view the live stream video here or click to view us live below –
Fred, A
We have been working on project to scale our open house activities to provide an opportunity to learn about Amatuer Radio and to showcase some of the modern, “hi-tech” aspects of the Amatuer Radio Service. This project was debuted at the NETT event at NEAR-Fest. We used our Portable Satellite Station, Remote Operating Gateway, and our Mobile HF Stations as part of this activity. There might be some ideas here that you can use to create an exciting operating activity at you local club or Ham Fest.
Source: Sights from the New England Tech Trek (NETT) at NEAR-Fest
Fred, AB1OC
Is 20 meters open to the location of the latest DXPedition on the bands? When is 6 meters open for Sporadic E? Looking for a weak signal 2-meter contact with a specific grid square? There are websites you can visit that give you a prediction of whether the band you are on is open to a given destination.
N0NBH Propagation Widget
The simplest HF propagation prediction is the widget that is seen on many Amateur Radio Websites – QRZ.com, DXSummit.fi, and more. This gives you a rough idea of what bands are open day and night. Data is based on the Sunspot Number, A and K indices and other indices. But this doesn’t take into account many factors like your location, the DX location, the characteristics of your station and the DX station. Just because 15m says Poor doesn’t mean you won’t hear anything on the band.
VOACAP Point to Point Prediction
VOACAP, is the Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program, and provides detailed information about the HF propagation. You can choose transmitter and receiver locations from many cities around the world. It also provides choices of Antennas, Power, Mode, and more for each end of the contact. You can look at several different views of propagation. If you spend some time delving into the details of propagation visit this site.
VOACAP Prediction from DXSummit.fi
For a faster view of whether you will be able to contact a specific DX Station that is currently on the air, the DXSummit.fi spotting website has incorporated propagation predictions on their website. If you find a DX station spotted there that you contact, just right click on the DX callsign and select VOACAP from the drop-down. You just need to choose whether you are a Basic (100 watts and a Wire) or a Super station (Amplifier and Directional Antenna). You can also look at views of Short Path or Long Path. It will give you a good view of when you need to be on which band to contact the DX station.
DXMaps – 6 meter openings
The best website that I have found for 6 meters is DXMaps.com . It provides a map view of the world or you can select a continent. Based on spotting network data, it shows 6 meter contacts and color codes them by Sporadic-E, Multihop ES, Meteor Scatter, etc… even Aurora. You can also get a view of 10 meters, 2 meters or 70 cm. If you sign up for a free account, you can subscribe to real time notifications when there is an opening near you.
VHF Propagation Map
Looking for a tropo opening for a weak signal 2-meter contact? Visit the website http://aprs.mountainlake.k12.mn.us/ to see a VHF Propagation map. This shows tropo openings as color-coded clouds – with brighter colors for the longer openings. This is based on APRS data.
These are the websites that I like to visit to understand the propagation forecast for the day. If your favorite site is not on the list, add a comment so that the rest of our readers and we can check it out.
Anita, AB1QB
We flew our High-Altitude Balloon for the second time this past weekend. Our second High-Altitude Balloon Flight (HAB-2) was part of a STEM learning project that we did with STEM club students at Bishop-Guertin High School in Nashua, NH. The students did all of the flight prep and launched HAB-2 at approximately 11 am ET from a school in Winchester, NH. Parents, teachers and local students joined us for the launch as did several members of our HAB team.
Source: HAB-2 Sets Altitude Record! – Nashua Area Radio Society
Our students prepared, launched, and tracked HAB-2 this past weekend. Their HAB made it to almost 118,000 ft! You can read more about the launch and the flight on the Nashua Area Radio Society’s website via the link above.
Fred, AB1OC
