Serving Radio Amateurs in Michigan's Washtenaw & Wayne Counties

Category: Events Page 4 of 9

UMARC/ARROW ARRL Field Day 2019 (June 22 – 23)

The University of Michigan Amateur Radio Club and the ARROW Radio Club invite the public to attend the National Amateur Radio Field Day at the Ann Arbor Airport.

When: June 22, 2 p.m. to June 23, 2 p.m. (24 hours)
Where: Ann Arbor Airport Soccer Field, 801 Airport Dr, Ann Arbor, MI (W. Ellsworth and Airport Blvd.; Across from Costco)

This annual 24-hour national open-house event gives the public an overview of amateur radio and also helps amateur radio operators prepare for emergencies and develop radio communication skills. You will get a chance to meet experts, ask questions, learn how radio operators help local governments in times of need, and even operate the station, under supervision.

Free and open to all ages, amateur radio or ham radio is a hobby where licensed operators use radios to communicate with people all over the world and even with astronauts in space. Please do drop by and experience the amazing world of ham radio and don’t forget to bring along your kids as Amateur Radio might be a stepping stone for them to get involved in STEM-related activities and careers.

More information about Field Day can be found here: http://www.arrl.org/field-day

#ARRLFD #ARRLFD2019

First ARROW Winter Field Day a Success!

Our first Winter Field Day was a success!

We made 251 Qs, operating for 16 hrs of the 24 hour contest on 20/40/80 SSB.  The Wegwaas cabin at Brighton Rec Area was a great location with plenty of room for two antennas on the ladderball posts that were off to the side.

The propane heat in the cabin eventually got us up to sweltering temps, and had a nice table for operating from.  Icom 7300 at 100W, LDG Z11Pro 2, Heil HM-12, everything on battery power, and we even brought the foot pedal & boom mic setup!  Big thanks to W8TAM for putting together this portable++ setup!  The 80m inverted V doublet performed very well, as expected.  It is our favorite antenna for portable ops.

W8TAM making Winter Field Day contacts as W8RP.

The Spiderbeams both stayed up throughout the contest and came down easily.  That is not always the case with this piece of kit!  We used the new-to-us technique of taping each joint with 3M Super 88.  Very impressed with this performance of this tape – expensive but worth it for this application.  I am very proud that W8TAM and I were able to install these antennas in the dark in below freezing conditions safely and quickly.   #beastmode

  • Claimed score: 4255
  • Our multipliers:
    • 3x for SSB Qs on 3 bands
    • 2x for 100w or less
  • Bonuses:
    • 1500 pts not at home
    • 1500 pts no commercial power

From the WFD Rules:
QSO Points: 1 point per Phone QSO, 2 points per CW & Digital QSO… Busted exchanges will be penalized by 1 additional point for each missed exchange or call sign. Duplicate contacts (same call, band, and mode) will not be counted, but will not be penalized.

Mode and Band Multipliers: Count 1 multiplier for each mode operated per band. For example, operating CW and Phone on 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters, CW and PSK31 on 20m, FM on 2meters and 440 would be a total multiplier of 12x.

So you can see that we definitely left some points on the table.  Next year we will be soliciting CW ops and we’d also like to nab the 1500 bonus for a satellite Q.

Thanks to Dinesh AB3DC, Gayathri N8GRU and Dave N8SBE for coming by to make some see our setup and contacts.  Mitch, K8UCH we are so sorry we missed you!    Also thanks to John WA8TON for arranging for the space.  It was great!

I had a caller that knew Roy Purchase, and he said how nice it was to make contact with W8RP.  I told him our club was honored to hold the call – always a thrill to call whiskey eight romeo papa.

Take nothing but Qs leave nothing but footprints!

73 Julie K8VOX

October General Meeting: FT8

This month, we will hear from Russ Dwarshuis, KB8U about FT8. FT8 is the hottest new digital mode in amateur radio world and is developed by Nobel laureate Joe Taylor, K1JT. It is a fast mode and very easy to setup and is a lot of fun. Learn more about it from Russ.

Date/Time: Wednesday, October 10 at 6:45 pm.

Location: Rm #2424 Space Research Building
University of Michigan
2455 Hayward St
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

The doors at UM automatically close at 7:00 pm. So please plan to arrive 5-10 minutes early. If you are locked out please give a call on the 146.96 (-ve) repeater frequency.

Maps and Parking info: https://w8rp.org/news/change-in-generalmeetinglocation-for-march-2017/

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

ARRL Field Day 2018: June 23 – 24

The University of Michigan Amateur Radio Club and the ARROW Radio Club invite you to attend the National Amateur Radio Field Day at the Ann Arbor Airport.

When: June 23, 2 p.m. to June 24, 2 p.m. (24 hours)
Where: Ann Arbor Airport Soccer Field, 801 Airport Dr, Ann Arbor, MI (W. Ellsworth and Airport Blvd.; Across from Costco)

The public is welcome and admission is free!!!

This annual 24-hour national open-house event gives the public an overview of amateur radio and also helps amateur radio operators prepare for emergencies and develop radio communication skills. You will get a chance to meet experts, ask questions, learn how radio operators help local governments in times of need, and even operate the station, under supervision.

Free and open to all ages, amateur radio or ham radio is a hobby where licensed operators use radios to communicate with people all over the world and even with astronauts in space. Please do drop by and experience the amazing world of ham radio and don’t forget to bring along your kids as Amateur Radio might be a stepping stone for them to get involved in STEM-related activities and careers.

More information about Field Day can be found here: http://www.arrl.org/field-day

Amateur radio well-represented at Ann Arbor Maker Faire

By Garry, W8GMD

Jerry Anderson, WB8FXY, and I manned a table at the Ann Arbor Creativity & Making Expo (formerly known as the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire) in the downtown library on Sunday May 20th while everyone else was basking in the warm sunshine in Xenia, OH 😉 .  We had a fair number of visitors with most of the younger children having fun with the Morse Code keys. There was some interest in the remote demonstration of FT-8 on 40 meters until the band washout around 3:00 pm. I did make a few contacts at the beginning of the day but nothing later in the afternoon. To make these contacts, I was remotely controlling my ICOM 7300.  Everything else went well and we also talked to a couple of inactive hams and others concerning what Amateurs do, and have done  in times of need. 

I was told that we would be outside but as is seen in the pictures we were not.  I’m thinking they think of the area we were in as “outside” the general library area.  It was good that we were inside since it did rain a bit at the end of the day.  Jerry and I were also going to demonstrate 2-way communication on 2 meters but were not able to make it to any of the local repeaters in the location we were in. 

We were also helped by the AACME committee by making us one of the stops the kids had to go by to get their cards stamped.  This did generate interest in some that I think would not have stopped by if it wasn’t for that.  They got some sort of prize or something for having all the things stamped.  So all in all, I’d say everything went well and Radio Amateurs were well represented at the Expo.

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