Meetings: 1st Sat ea. mo @ 1-3:00 at TKD
ALL TKD Ham Students are invited.
(followed by General Class @ 3:00-5:00)
Some Good Resources:
- MorseWave.com (my morse code generator)
- The American Radio Relay League Radiogram – Fillable PDF
- PDF of RADIOGRAM via Amateur Radio (with ARL Numbers)
- Popular Q Codes, Morse Code, and Common Abbreviations
- Radio Manuals:
- CT Spectrum Management Association (band plans)
- Pixie QRP Transceiver
- HOW TO SOLDER! (Beginner’s Guide)
- W2AEW’s Smith Chart YouTube Playlist
- W1AW CW Practice Operating Schedule
- A Beginner’s Guide To 18650 Battery
Announcements:
2023-12-04: BEARS Foxhunt Details
BEARS Foxhunt January 1, 2024 1PM
| Greetings Foxhunters, Keeping with tradition, I will be hosting a Foxhunt on New Years Day at 1pm. This hunt will be conducted in the same manner that we have previously conducted live foxhunts. The hunters will assemble at the 91 Ayers Road in South Windsor, CT, home of the old Wapping Elementary School, be set up and ready to start by 1pm. The fox will take a roll call at 1pm on the BEARS repeater, 145.110 MHz, PL tone is 77.0 Hz. This hunt will be conducted using the repeater for all communication and information sharing. I encourage communication between participants and any base stations that can supply helpful information to the hunters. Once you have spotted the fox you should stop all transmissions. Pay attention, if someone says they are going to check an area and you never hear from them again, that might be a clue. Remember not to hunt the repeater output frequency as that will just lead you to the repeater. I will not be there. You will want to listen on the repeater input frequency, 144.510MHz. That is the frequency the fox will be transmitting on. The fox will be located within 20 air miles of the starting point and not within Hartford or Springfield. The fox will be on publicly accessible property that will not require anything other that a standard passenger car for access. The fox will host a “tailgate” party at the end of the hunt at the “den”. If this is your first hunt, I would recommend riding along with someone who has done this before. Dress warmly as you will be outside at the end for the party, the rest of the time you will be in and out of the car taking bearings etc. Experience has shown that hunters will start arriving in the den about 1 hour after the start. The event has a two hour time limit not including socializing in the den at the end. Current information regarding this and other foxhunts in Connecticut are on groups.io. If you are not already a group member, you may want to consider signing up for the groups.io CTFOXHUNTER so that you do not miss any important foxhunt related news. |
2023-11-14: BEARS Fox Hunt Announced for
MONDAY JANUARY 1 @ 11am-2pm
- Put this on your calendar now. We can plan to meet at the school and perhaps a parent or two will also help us drive around to find the “fox”. I’ll bring my directional 70cm antenna, but you may want to build/bring a 2m (3 element?) yagi for the event.
- More details from the bears will be forthcoming which I’ll post here or you can see on &ctz=America/New_York&pli=1">their calendar.
2023-11-04: November’s special event will be the ARRL November Sweepstakes Contest.
- We’ll meet at the school on Sun Nov 19 @ NOON, and plan to stay until around 5:00. Each person should feel free to come or go as they like. If we’re having a good time, we can stay later. If not we’ll leave earlier. Feel free to bring snacks. Close friends or family are also welcome.
- I’ll get the logging software prepared and ready for the event. We’ll operate under my license so we can use more bands.
- Please be sure to read up on these details regarding the event/contest prior Nov 19 at https://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes
2023-09-18 Youth Nets:
Check out ARRL’s nice, diverse list of Youth Nets: arrl.org/youth-nets
2023-09-15 From the BEARS. Contact Phil at if you’d like to participate:
The BEARS of Manchester has provided communication support to the Manchester Road Race for almost 30 years. I coordinate the communications efforts for the BEARS. We have close to sixty amateur radio operators staffing various positions around the course. As a recent addition to our (the BEARS) membership I am writing to see if you would be interest in participating.
The race takes place Thanksgiving morning starting on Main Street in Manchester. There are 12,000 runners and nearly 30,000 spectators so it is exciting and noisy all around the course. Start time is between 7am and 8am depending on assignment. Everyone is headed home by noon.
For first timers I try to team you up with someone else. I will also be conducting a training session (probably via Zoom) for new people in late October or early November.
Let me know if you’d be interested in helping out.
Phil, K1XFC
Amateur Radio Communications Coordinator
Manchester Road Race
2023-09-13 Excellent video about Antennas!
2023-09-09 CONGRATULATIONS ON PASSING YOUR TESTS!!!
Some ideas of what we could do as a club:
- Prepare for Licence Upgrades (General? Extra?)
- Teach the next Tech class to other TKD, friends, & family students
- Participate in some Contests (i.e. Field day, November Sweepstates)
- Practice making contacts on the HF radio at school
- Build and play with electrical (digital? RF?) circuits
- Learn/practice morse code together
- Build and experiment with our own antennas
- Visit the ARRL
- Do our own Parks-On-The-Air (POTA) or Summits-On-The-Air (SOTA)
- Create own circuit, prototype, PCB designs with EAGLE/KiCad
- Experiment with design & modelling programs like:
- Set up a TKD Ham Radio Club, Packet Station, Repeater, etc.
- Other public services/events
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