Don, AC8TO, gave us a great presentation on FT8 at our online meeting Wednesday evening. Here are his slides, if you missed it:
This really has nothing to do with this post. I found it while Googling for an “amateur radio roundtable” image and thought it would be amusing. 🙂
You may be sheltering in place or self-quarantining, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be out of touch with your fellow hams. For the foreseeable future, ARROW members will be congregating at 10 am and 7 pm on our 2 m repeater (146.96 MHz), and at 2 pm on the Brandmeister MI Talk Group (TG 3126).
Please feel free to join us, even if you’re not an ARROW member. The nets are conducted in a roundtable format, with one of the participants (often Jay, WB8TKL) acting as the ringleader. We babble on about how we’re coping with this situation, including what projects we’re working on and what bands and modes we’re operating.
STAY SAFE AND JOIN US!
We would like to inform you know that the following ARROW Events and Meetings have been canceled due to COVID-19.
ARROW VE Session – March 14 & April 11
ARROW Egg Chew – March 21 & April 18
ARROW Monthly General Meeting – April 8
ARROW Hamvention Bus Trip – May 16
We are currently evaluating the Hamvention Bus Trip and are waiting to hear from the Hamvention organizers. Hamvention has been canceled. We will work on issuing a refund to all our registered bus riders ASAP. We have processed all Hamvention bus trip refunds as of March 16, 2020 if you paid using PayPal. Checks will be in the mail soon.
The ARROW Board meeting will be held via a conference call in April at which time we will decide the future of the meetings.
73, ARROW Board
Tucked away in a small cabin (right) at the Brighton Recreation Area, our Winter Field Day team battled poor band conditions, but still managed more QSOs than last year, reports Thom, W8TAM.
Despite an urgent call for operators early Sunday morning, Thom, Dinesh AB3DC, and John WA8TON bested our 2019 by 2 contacts. Thom said, “253 QSOs after dupe checking. 2 more than last year. I think that’s a good result. The solar conditions this year were worse than last year. Good effort by all!”
While the weather outside was frightful (see below), inside it was delightfully warm. As you can see, Thom is in short sleeves. I’m impressed that they even had a boom mike.
Thom W8TAM, Dinesh AB3DC, and John WA8TON setting up the Winter Field Day antenna.
At this fall’s TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC), held here in the Detroit area, our own Jay Nugent, WB8TKL, talked about packet radio. His talk was titled “The Homogenous AMPRnet Data Network.”
Jason, KC5HWB, of Ham Radio 2.0, has taken over the video taping of the TAPR DCCs. Click here to see all of the videos he recorded this year.