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
The Nashua Area Radio Society (NARS), will be hosting a Ham Bootcamp on Saturday, September 7th from 9 AM until noon at the Northeastern HamXposition at Boxboro. Ham Bootcamp includes a series of hands-on activities designed to help newly licensed Technician and General class license holders get on the air and use their amateur radio license. It is also a great opportunity for prospective hams who are interested in seeing what the hobby has to offer….
Ham Bootcamp activities will be provided in two tracks – one for Technicians and prospective hams and one for General class licenses and higher.
Technician Track Activities
Putting together a Station for Repeaters – how to pick an HT and antenna
HT Programming Tutorials and Help
Getting Started with EchoLink
Making a Contact, joining a Repeater Net
Fox Hunting Demonstrations
Making contacts through Amateur Radio Satellites in Space
General Track Activities
Putting together an HF Station
Putting up a simple HF Antenna including coax and grounding choices
Software for your HF station
Operating on the HF bands using voice, morse code, and digital
Putting together a portable HF Station
How to find and work DX and QSL
… and more!
We will also be providing discount coupons for a kit build and for purchases at HRO to Ham Bootcamp participants.
Ham Bootcamp is free and it is available to all HamXpositon 2019 attendees. Participation in the hands-on training is limited to 100 people maximum and will be on a first-come, first-served basis, so arrive early to get a seat. Registration begins at 8 am.
If you are planning to attend the Northeastern HamXpostion 2019 @ Boxboro on September 7th, don’t miss this once-a-year opportunity to learn more about Amateur Radio, improve your station, expand your skills, and get on the air. See you at Ham Bootcamp!
It seems that Hams struggle a bit to get their HTs programmed with the right set of repeaters and other memory settings. The Nashua Area Radio Society will be offering a custom HT Programming Clinicat HamXposition @ Boxboro 2019 to help hams get their HT’s programmed…
I’d like to invite our readers who are planning to attend the Northeastern HamXposition 2019 @ Boxboro on September 7th and 8th to bring their HT. We will be providing an HT Programming Clinic at the show and we’d be happy to create a custom program for your HT and location. Our custom programs can also include FM Satellites, Foxes, and more!
You can learn more about HamXposition and our activities there at the HamXpostion website.
Ham Bootcamp
A First HF Contact at Ham Bootcamp
We have created a program that we call Ham Bootcamp. Bootcamp to helps recently licensed and upgraded hams to get on the air. We are making this program available to up to 100 HamXpostion attendees on a first-come-first-served basis.
Our Bootcamp program will run from 9 am to noon on Saturday, September 7th in the Federal Room. Bootcamp will feature tracks for both Technician and General class license holders. It is also a great place for folks who are not yet licensed to learn more about Amateur Radio and how to get on the air.
Our Bootcamp program will include:
How to make a contact and join a repeater net
Putting together an HF station
Radio, antenna, and feed line choices
Getting started with FT8 and digital modes
Exchanging QSL cards
Learning Morse code
Tips on upgrading
Introduction to ham radio kit building
Handheld radio programming tutorials
Ham Bootcamp is free. Participants will receive discount certificates for a kit build at the show and for purchase of Ham Radio Gear from Ham Radio Outlet.
I wanted to share our plans for several hands-on activities at HamXposition @ Boxboro in September. We hope that Ham Bootcamp will be of particular interest to folks getting into Amateur Radio. You can learn more about Ham Bootcamp and all of our planned activities via the link above. We hope to see some of our readers at HamXpostion next month!
Dave, K1DLM recently prototyped a simple Raspberry Pi Video Player for use in our Ham Exposition Displays. We’ve built a number of these players to play video content at our upcoming Ham Expo Display at HamXposition at Boxboro in September. The article below shares information on the hardware and software we used to put these players together. The information should provide a useful start for many other Raspberry Pi projects.
Simple Raspberry Pi Computers have many useful applications in Amateur Radio. They can also be used to create a nice general-purpose computing platform for many applications.
The hardest part of using the Raspberry Pi video player is getting the basic hardware and software components together to create a working system. This article explains these basic steps for a simple video player application that we use as part of our Ham Radio Expo Displays. I hope that this information is useful to others who might want to use the Raspberry Pi.
Quite a few Nashua Area Radio Society members are headed for the Dayton Hamvention® this week. The theme of Hamvention 2019 is “Mentoring the Next Generation”. The Nashua Area Radio Society will be receiving some important recognition for our work to bring new Hams into the Amateur Radio service, for our Amateur Radio related STEM learning programs in local schools, and for our many Ham Mentoring projects. We will be recognized as the Dayton Hamvention 2019 Club of the Year. We will also be sharing The Nashua Area Radio Society Story as a forum presentation at Dayton. You can see our planned presentation at the link below.
We are also being recognized by the ARRL as a Spotlight Club for our Mentoring work. The ARRL has dedicated their “ARRL Spotlight on Radio Clubs and Mentoring” forum on Friday, May 17th at 11:50 am in Forum Room 3 to us so that we can share The Nashua Area Radio Society Story including ideas and programs that have worked well for us.
We hope that our readers who will be attending the Dayton Hamvention this year will join us for our Forum Presentation on Friday and will also stop by and see our display in the ARRL Booth at Dayton.
You can see more about what we are planning via the link above. Activities will include multiple GOTA Stations, a Kit Build, a Fox Hunt, Morse Code, and other hands-on activities. We will also be operating a Special Event Station as N1T.
The Nashua Area Radio Society put together a successful Amateur Radio Youth Exposition at the New England Amateur Radio Convention at Boxboro this year. Our exposition features over ten displays with hands-on activities…
Anita AB1QB and I are continuing to work along with the Nashua Area Radio Society to encourage young people to become licensed and join the Amateur Radio Service.
Anita and I have been working to grow the Amateur Radio Service through our work at the Nashua Area Radio Society. The Nashua Area Radio Society is a 501c(3) public charity whose mission is to:
Encourage and help people to become licensed and active in the Amateur Radio Service
Spark Interest among Young People in STEM Education and Careers through Ham Radio
Provide training and mentoring to enable our members to improve their technical and operating skills and to be prepared to assist in times of emergency
Sponsor on-air operating activities so that our members may practice and fully develop their operating skills and have fun with Ham Radio!
Students and Teachers Ready To Launch Their High-Altitude Balloon
The Nashua Area Radio Society has created many programs designed to provide STEM learning experiences and training through Amateur Radio. Some of these include:
Emergency Communications Training through our Field Day and other activities
Supporting Local Schools with ARISS Crew Contacts and other Amateur Radio activities
To carry out our mission, we have formed close relationships with several schools. This helps us develop and deliver effective, high-quality programs that bring learning through Amateur Radio to young people. You can read more about what we’re doing via the link at the top of the page.
We provide many of these services either free of charge or at a very modest cost. We count on the generosity of our members, friends, and the Amateur Radio community to raise funds to support our work.
We hope that our readers will consider supporting our work at the Nashua Area Radio Society by using Amazon Smile and designating us as your favorite charity and/or by making a donation to our current fundraising campaign (click on the badge below).
On behalf of the many young people and others that we help, thank you very much for your interest and support. We will continue to work hard to provide learning opportunities for young people through Amateur Radio and to continue to make the Amateur Radio Service the best it can be to benefit everyone.
Here is our report from the Dayton Hamvention, held May 18th – 20th at the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia, OH. We visited many vendor booths to see the newest items from each, bought a few new toys, and gained knowledge at the forums. You can read more about what we saw at Dayton this year via the link below.
