Saturday, March 30, 2019

International Museum Ship Weekend - June 1st and 2nd

In anticipation of the International Museum Ship Weekend Event on June 1st and 2nd, W2LGA will be setting up a special event station at the H Lee White Maritime Museum in Oswego, NY.

The station will be set up at the LT-5 WWII tugboat. This tug was used during the Normandy invasion of June 6, 1944. D-Day! It is the last remaining, fully restored tugboats that were used during Operation Overlord.



All amateurs are welcome to stop by and ragchew or try to make a contact or two!! Questions or inquiries can be made via Fred Legawiec, W2LGA or by viewing the H Lee White Maritime Museum website. link: http://www.hleewhitemarinemuseum.com/

Hours of operation are planned to be from 8am until 5pm daily. All plans should be finalized by mid-May.

from Fred Legawiec, W2LGA

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Spring 2019 SkyWarn Training


The National Weather Service (NWS) in Binghamton has started spring SkyWarn training. They have both on-line and local training classes available. I can personally speak of the great job the NWS Binghamton office does with this training. (Buffalo and Albany offices are also doing spring training - see their websites for details)

What is SKYWARN?
The effects of severe weather are felt every year by many Americans. To obtain critical weather information, NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, established SKYWARN® with partner organizations. SKYWARN® is a volunteer program with nearly 290,000 trained severe weather spotters. These volunteers help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service.


More on SkyWarn and Amateur Radio      here:  http://www.upstateham.com/p/skywarn.html

See the BGM NOAA-SkyWarn Training schedule here: http://www.weather.gov/bgm/outreachSKYWARNtraining

Friday, March 22, 2019

Geomagnetic storm warning - Saturday 3/23/19

From Spaceweather.com,  link: http://spaceweather.com/

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WARNING: NOAA forecasters say there is a 75% chance of geomagnetic storms on March 23rd when a coronal mass ejection (CME) is expected to sideswipe Earth's magnetic field. Storm levels could reach category G2, which is moderately strong. During G2-class storms, auroras may be seen in northern-tier US states as far south as New York and Idaho. Aurora alerts: SMS textemail.
BIG CRACKLING SUNSPOT: A few days ago, sunspot AR2736 didn't exist. Now, the rapidly-growing active region (movie) stretches across more than 100,000 km of the solar surface and contains multiple dark cores larger than Earth. Moreover, it has a complicated magnetic field that is crackling with C-classsolar flares. The sunspot is inset in this magnetic map of the sun from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:



Ham Radio for Kids - Newark NY - March 23rd


Wednesday, March 20, 2019

‘Light up 2 Meters Night’ – an FM simplex event - March 24th


by W5KV

It’s time for ‘Light up 2 Meters Night’ – an FM simplex event that encourages ham radio operators to get out portable or operate from home and light up the 2 meter airwaves with some FM Simplex! Taking place on March, 24, 2019, from 6-8pm local time. This event encourages new & seasoned ham radio operators to enjoy a band that is all too often left quiet and to encourage communication within your community.

Learn more at: http://www.w5kv.com/light-up-2-meters-night-an-fm-simplex-event-2/


(forwarded from Barry; KD4MCB - Thanks Barry! )

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Mentors Needed for New ARRL Emergency Communications Course

More Mentors Needed for New ARRL Emergency Communications Course Sessions

(From the ARRL 03/11/2019)

High interest in the recently announced updated ARRL Introduction to Emergency Communications (EC-001) course is prompting a call for additional class mentors to help meet the demand, which ARRL Lifelong Learning Manager Kris Bickell, K1BIC, says “exceeded our projections.” As Bickell explains, the course is designed to be interactive, with volunteer mentors guiding each session.

“We appreciate the work of the mentors to make EC-001 an interactive experience for the participants. The real-world emergency communications experience they bring to the course is very important to the learning process,” Bickell said. “We look forward to bringing in more mentors to help ARRL expand the reach of this valuable emergency communications training.” Bickell has developed a waiting list for prospective EC-001 students, who will be notified as additional sessions are scheduled.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Why Radio Amateurs are called Hams


(Original story from Florida Skip Magazine - 1959) 

Have you ever wondered why radio amateurs are called "HAMS?"

Well, it goes like this: The word "HAM" was the station CALL of the first amateur wireless station that was operated by some amateurs at the Harvard Radio Club. They were ALBERT S. HYMAN, BOB ALMY and POOGIE MURRAY. In the early pioneer days of unregulated radio amateur operators picked their own frequency and their own call-letters. At first they called their station "HYMAN-ALMY-MURRAY". Tapping out such a long name in code soon became tiresome and called for a revision. They changed it to "HY-AL-MU," using the first two letters of each of their names. Early in 1901 some confusion resulted between signals from amateur wireless station "HYALMU" and a Mexican ship named "HYALMO." They then decided to use only the first letter of each name, and their station CALL became "HAM" Then, as now, some amateurs had better signals than commercial stations. The resulting interference came to the attention of congressional committees in Washington and Congress gave much time to proposed legislation designed to critically limit amateur radio activity.

Friday, March 8, 2019

Balloon tracker - falling near Utica NY (3/8/19 - 11:30am)


(a message from our Balloon enthusiast friend Jim....if you are near Utica please keep an eye (or ear) out for it)

Launched a experimental balloon this morning and appears to have failed and is dropping near Utica,NY. Seen here as U3S29 - https://tracker.habhub.org/#!mt=roadmap&mz=8&qm=1_day&f=U3S29&q=!RS_*;

Balloon is large and shiny,maybe someone will find it?

Tracker uses 20m band WSPR / QRSS @ 14095.60 mhz USB.

Maybe someone will see it in a tree somewhere.. :)
Jim,N2NXZ

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

RARA Workshop - Electronic Components — March 9th


RaRa Academy Workshops

Electronic Components

March 2019 — Electronic Components — March 9th (10AM to Noon)
For the March Academy we will have a jam-packed discussion of the basic properties of common electronic components.
The goal is to give participants a basic understanding of common parts for kit building and basic repair.
We will cover the basic components, their characteristics, schematics symbols, uses, how to read them and how to test some of them. Types will include:
•   Passive Components such as: resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, relays, lamps and indicators, wire gauges & ratings, connectors etc.
•   Active Components such as: transistors, ICs, tubes, opto-couplers etc.
•   Assemblies and Modules, such as: displays, controllers, RF modules, etc.
•   Basic Testing of Components - Using DVM, LCR Meter and Transistor Testing Techniques
This Session will be hosted by Scott Theis, W2LW, with Karl Heinz Kremer, K5KHK assisting.

You can sign up for Academy Workshops by emailing education@rochesterham.org. You can also sign-up at the General Meeting on March 6th.
Please take advantage of the RaRa sponsored training and operating opportunities.
Timothy Brown,
FCC Callsign: WB2PAY
RaRa Education Coordinator