PAMLICO AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY (PARS) Jun 25, 2022 MEETING NOTES
* Fifteen PARS members, visitors and guests attended the 9 am Saturday
Field Day breakfast meeting chaired by President Mike Marsh, K4NLC, at
Brantley’s Village Restaurant.
* No awards or upgrades were reported. Rick Simpson, NN2S, having
recently retired to Oriental was recognized as our newest member.
* Mike presented Wally’s treasurer’s report. The club is solvent.
* The club has juiced up the monthly meeting door prize. Bruce, K4ONC,
announced starting in July attendees will have chance for a $20
Brantley’s Restaurant gift certificate. This month there will be 3
winners, each getting an ARRL Field Day mug.
* Paul, K4MMB, reported hits on the website slowed in June. There have
been 119 visitors so far with about 200 pages visited. Most visitors
were from the US.
* Propagation Report: Jim, AI4WL, ran through the numbers in
preparation for this Field Day Weekend. Unfortunately, activity has
slowed during the past week with fewer sunspots, lower solar flux
numbers. Expect poor daytime and fair nighttime on 40, good conditions
night and day on 20, fair on 15, but poor conditions on 10. There is a
chance for activity on 6 Meters, Europe was active this morning.
* Bruce, K4ONC, our county AUXcomm lead, announced the next PCT meeting
will be on August 5th at the Oriental VFD Station 19 on Straight Road.
At their June meeting, the group reviewed the May 24th EHPC
Communications Functional Exercise. This group focuses on emergency
communications planning and training.
* Field Day. This year PARS members will operate from home and combine
their scores for the club total. Bill, WM3X, will not be able to open
his shack as planned, but hopes to do so for coming contests. Jim,
AI4WL, ran over some of the important rules and the various ways to earn
bonus points. A short Q&A session followed.
* Charlie, WA4GSI; Bill, KR4LO; and Jim, Ai4WL won the drawing for the
Field Day hot/cold insulated mugs.
* There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 09:50 am.
* The meeting was followed by a most fascinating presentation by Dick
Goodwin, K4JJW, on Morse Code Keys, specifically his “Pandemic Project”
first to restore, then learn the provenance of, a 1921 Vibroplex “Bug”.
This particular key for most of its life belonged to a Beth Rosenberg
(and her husband Ray) who shared the Ohio call W8NCJ for many years.
Beth was a keen high speed 35 WPM CW operator who led the way for women
amateurs in the the late 1930’s and early ’40’s. Interestingly, she was
not licensed but operated as a “guest” until her husband Ray passed in
the early 1990’s. Only then did she get her own call… The 100 year old
key passed through several more hands before Dick’s beautiful restoration.
ON FIELD DAY SCORES
From WM3X: I operated Field Day from my home station using the club
call, N4PRS. (I was not able to host any guest operators as I was still
in isolation due to having covid. I’m happy to say I tested negative
this morning). For PARS members who operated from their home stations
using their own calls and who wish to submit their scores to be added to
the aggregate club score, it’s easy to do. If you used a logging
program just follow the instructions for score submission as described
in Section 8 of the Complete Field Day Package, available at
www.arrl.org. Be sure to mark the box to have your score added to the
club aggregate score. IMPORTANT! Use “Pamlico Amateur Radio Society,
Ltd.” as the club name. Be careful here. If you don’t include the
“Ltd” part your score will not count. If you used a paper log, make a
copy and send it to me. I will put it into computer log format and
submit it for you. Either way, do it soon. The deadline for submission
is July 26. I know that seems like a long way off, but it isn’t. Bill
Michne, WM3X, drmichne73@gmail.com, 252-671-6703.
BIT BUCKET
* Rumor has it that the “PARS Tractor” will be a featured entry in the
2022 Croakerfest Parade. With Paul, K4MMB, at the wheel and HT in hand,
listen for parade progress over the N4ONC Oriental Repeater. Following
the parade look for an antique rebuilt 197? Jeep CCJ operating near-dX
on or near the festival grounds.
* PARS may end up with a good cumulative score from the Field Day
contest. PARS stations heard or reported included KR4LO, K4HPS, KI4NSP,
KO4MHM, KA3PCX, K4ONC, AI4WL. Others that planned to play or at least
make a few contacts included under-the-weather WM3X, K4MMB, WA4GSI, and
K4JJW. There were probably more. Let us know. Better yet, let Bill
Michne know.
SOLAR NUMBERS TODAY
NOAA reported that solar activity was low during the 24 hour period
ending yesterday at 5 p.m. local. There are 2 numbered sunspot regions
on the Sun facing Earth this morning. There were 7 last Monday. The
Prediction Center expects solar activity to be very low through
Wednesday with a slight chance for C and M-class flares.
At noon yesterday, the observed Solar Flux Index (SFI) at Penticton was
- Last Sunday it was 144. The index is predicted to measure 100 at
noon today, 95 Tuesday and 95 Wednesday. The SFI 90 day trailing average
is holding on at 129. Bottom line, HF propagation is not as good as last
Monday.
The Earth’s geomagnetic field reached minor storm levels yesterday. NOAA
expects conditions be quiet to active today and Tuesday, then quiet to
unsettled Wednesday. The estimated Kp-index of 3 reported at 5 a.m.
local this morning indicates current quiet geomagnetic conditions.
We can expect poor day and fair nighttime operating conditions today on
80 to 40 meters, good day and good night on 30 and 20, fair on 15.
Conditions should be fair to poor on 12 and 10.
As we expected on Saturday morning, a good plan for Field Day was to
head for 20 Meters Saturday afternoon and stay late, then move to the
lower bands, 40 and even look at 80 at night, stick with 40 in the early
morning then back to 20. Twenty meters stayed open very late Saturday
night so would have been a good choice too. Six meters, at least for
those of us in the Southeast, was pretty much dead over the
weekend–unfortunate for those running a VHF rig for Field Day. Ten
meters, like six, was basically dead for the contest.
For an explanation of the numbers used in our PARSgram, see the
excellent article written by Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA at
http://arrl.org/the-sun-the-earth-the-ionosphere.
DX CHALLENGE
Extracted from ARRL DX News ARLD025-
- PIERRE AND MIQUELON, FP. Eric, KV1J will be QRV as FP/KV1J from
Miquelon Island, IOTA NA-032, from June 28 to July 12. Activity
will be on the HF bands with a focus on 60 and 6 meters. QSL to home call.
MACQUARIE ISLAND, VK0. Matt, VK5HZ is QRV as VK0MQ and will be
stationed here for a few months. Activity is in his spare time on
the HF bands using SSB and FT8. QSL via LoTW.
HAM EQUIPMENT FOR SALE, TRADE, OR WANTED
For listing in the PARSgram send me your amateur radio related items
that are for sale, trade, or wanted. PLEASE let me know when you have
have sold your item or your listing is no longer needed. Listings will
EXPIRE AFTER 90 DAYS unless I hear otherwise.–Jim.
Help Wanted: If anyone knows how to reprogram a Kenwood TK-7150 please
shout out. All I need is to tweak the new tones etc. on it for our
Oriental repeater. Please contact K4MMB at davitbay@gmail.com. (20220620)
For Sale:
* Icom IC7600 with 125 power supply and sp23 speaker. This speaker has
filters in it. With hand mic, $1000
* Tentec Jupiter green screen with ps963 power supply and Heil desk mic.
$500
* Second Tentec Jupiter with desk mic and 963 power supply, $500
* Heathkit solid state transceiver built by Yaesu. Heathkit SB-1400 same
as FT-747 but better looking. Has matching power supply, speaker combo,
clean $300
* MFJ 40 mtr QRP CW rig with matching tuner and battery pack. With
chargers and flat key, model num 9040 tuner is 971 power neat late
model. Look up MFJ prices abt 600 for all, my price is $100
* MFJ model 949c manual 300 watt tuner ..clean $75
* Alpha 76ca amp 160-10 meter Peter Dahl trans super clean, $1000
* Acom 1000 amp.. 160-6 meters at 1000 watts built in tuner 3 to 1, $1000
* TE Systems model 0552g ss amp mobile. Needs to be fed with 50 amp
power supply. 20 watts in, 350-400 out, $350
Have other equiptment for future listings. Thanks guys. All of this
equipment is clean and works perfect. Can demo here at home.
Contact Don Smith, KJ4RB at kj4rb@embarqmail.com or 252-568-4011 (If no
answer please leave message). (20220613)
For Sale: Hy-gain AV-18HT vertical antenna. Covers 80, 40, 20, 15, and
10 meters. See full specs at dxengineering.com. Antenna is
disassembled and can be delivered within 100 miles or so. $500 OBO. A
portion of the proceeds will go to PARS. Bill Michne, WM3X,
drmichne73@gmail.com, 252-249-1175 or 252-671-6703.(20220404)
PARS CALENDAR:
* Jul 30, PARS MONTHLY MEETING, Saturday, 9am, Brantley’s Village
Restaurant, Oriental. For more info, contact Mike Marsh, K4NLC,
252-636-1257 or mike@MarshConsulting.org
* Aug 6, PAMLICO COMMUNICATIONS TEAM MEETING, Saturday, 9am, Oriental
VFD Station 19 on Straight Rd vic. NC-55. AUXCOMM & ARES–All are
welcome. For more info, contact Bruce Perkins, K4ONC, 252-626-2730 or
K4ONC@aol.com
* Aug 27, PARS MONTHLY MEETING, Saturday, 9am, Brantley’s Village
Restaurant, Oriental. For more info, contact Mike Marsh, K4NLC,
252-636-1257 or mike@MarshConsulting.org
LOCAL NETS OF INTEREST TO PARS MEMBERS:
* Wednesdays,”Pamlico Communications Net”, 7:30 pm local, N4ONC
(Oriental) Repeater, 147.210 + (CTSCC Tone Squelch 88.5).
* Thursdays, “DownEast/Pamlico Six Meter Net”, 8 pm local, 50.200 MHz,
USB. A non-directed open net to promote operation on the ‘Magic Band’.
(For more nets see www.arrl.org/arrl-net-directory-search )
PARS WEB SITE: https://www.n4prs.org/
Our Web Master is Paul Jodoin, K4MMB, 561-308-3456, PARSwebman@gmail.com
73, Jim AI4WL
——–
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