CW: May 25-26, 2013

Starts: 0000 UTC Saturday
Ends: 2359 UTC Sunday

The post CQ WPX Contest – CW appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

This was the 15th annual Flying Pig weekend, and the weekend has grown this year to include a Friday night event, the Little King’s 1 Mile, which is part of the Cincinnati Beer Series races (there were amateur radio ops along the course for that, but none from MARC).  These races have brought together the best amateur radio ops in the region to help monitor the course and has continually received accolades from other emergency services in the tri-state area.

The post Five MARC Ops Helped with the Flying Pig Marathon appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

The next meeting on May 7 will be back at our regular location (Faith Church on Price Rd), testing at 6pm and meeting beginning at 7:30pm. The presentation for May will be by Brendan Beresford (KD8RAP) on “Working Satellites; hardware and software”. This topic has never been covered, so it should be very interesting.

We are making further improvements to www.w8mrc.com by Steve Friebele (K8JI) this month. We are now able to book licensure candidates “On line” to capture who is coming and their contact information. We are also putting the final touches on accepting PayPal for club payments on our website for membership, social events and donations. This will provide a convenient alternative for payments to the club. We will still accept checks (by mail and in person) and cash (in person). Our website IS and continues to be the main communication vehicle for the club.

We have a responsibility change voted at the last meeting, Andrew Rohne (KE8P) will be taking on the “membership” function as part of the club Secretary office. Andrew will be maintaining the “membership” list”, collecting dues and publishing club notifications to the membership.
Looking forward to seeing everyone at May’s meeting!

The post MARC Presidents Letter for May appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

The PhoneSats started as a project among young engineers working at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. Jim Cockrell, the project’s manager, says it began as a hallway conversation. One noted that smartphone microprocessors are cheaper than those in satellites. So why not just use a smartphone as a satellite?

“It was sort of a whimsical notion,” Cockrell says. But it also made sense. Modern satellites are used for communication and navigation, and so are smartphones. And the phones have things that satellites have, too, like accelerometers, gyroscopes and cameras.

At 53 years old, Cockrell is the self-described “graybeard” of the small team of 20-somethings. With decades of experience, he had good reason to think the project might not work. The phones would have to survive the violent shaking of their launch into orbit. Once in space, they would need to withstand extreme temperatures and intense radiation that doesn’t exist on the Earth’s surface.

“I was really skeptical at first, because I said, ‘OK, there’s a reason why NASA develops these expensive satellites and tests them extensively,’ ” he says.

But the team’s younger members were more optimistic. “The mobile phones are designed to be thrown around the room and for people to drop them in water. They’re really robust bits of technology,” says Jasper Wolfe, a 22-year-old engineer on the project.

Wolfe, Cockrell and the rest of the team got a couple of Nexus smartphones from Amazon. They added extras, like plus-sized batteries and a powerful transmitter. They put it all in a metal case about the size of a Kleenex box. But the phones were still ordinary smartphones; they still had games on them. “We played around with Angry Birds on the ground,” Wolfe says.

Read More

Source: NPR
Source: PhoneSat

The post Smartphone Satellites – PhoneSats appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

I am aware that your group has not been involved with our ride for a few years, and that the assistance has been missed. I was asked to contact you as we are still experiencing spotty cell phone coverage for our SAG drivers along the bike routes.

Please let me know if your group is interested in providing communication assistance for our event.

If you have questions concerning this please call me at (513) 742-2411.

Thanks, Jim Lindner

The post Volunteers Needed – Chili Ride – Goshen appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

If you can volunteer, please go to the signup and get registered.  In the signup, use the group “Queen City Emergency Net” and the password ”ham”.

We already have several MARC members helping, including N8JMV, WS6K, N8DLS, KE8P, and KD8MKP (these are those that I know of… if I missed anyone PLEASE LET ME KNOW!).

And you get a free T-shirt for volunteering.  Last year’s even had some CW on the back!

Note: if you still want to help, but you can’t do Sunday, email Steve (his call @one.net).  There may be needs for the 10k and 5k races on Saturday morning or the Little Kings 1 Mile on Friday evening.  There are some club members, including N8JMV that are helping on those days, and you’ll get the bonus of seeing me either attempt to run fast (something I just do not do very well) or run my first 10k (I could use some crowd assistance to help me through the last 1.25 miles)

73 and hope to see you out there!

– Andrew KE8P - MARC secretary

The post Flying Pig Volunteers Needed! appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

Eastside Christian Church
5874 Montclair Blvd
Milford, Ohio 45150

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The Faith Church had an emergency that has closed the wing of the building where we meet.

**WE NEED A PROJECTOR!  If you have one, please contact Mike Kieffer KD8OUT or Andrew Rohne KE8P

The post IMPORTANT 4/11/2013 MEETING LOCATION CHANGE appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

We had an excellent speaker on the “History of the Cincinnati Subway system” at the MARC birthday party 3/9/13. The food was excellent and a good time was had by all.

The April meeting (4/11/13) presentation will be “Shorten your Dipole” by KD8OUT. The presentation will go through the various methods of making an 80 meter dipole fit in your yard by making it shorter, but still effective.

As always, the February meeting minutes and financial report are in the member’s only section (Club/Member’s Only). If you need the password, contact any club officer. The website calendar (Club/Calendar) is also up to date with club activities and contests.

The post MARC President’s Message for April appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

The 6m sprint is 2300Z May 11, 2013 – 0300Z May 12, 2013

The 2m sprint is 7PM – 11PM Local Time on April 1, 2013

The 1.25m sprint is 7PM – 11PM Local Time on April 16, 2013

The 70cm sprint is 7PM – 11PM Local Time on April 24, 2013

The microwave (900 MHz and up) sprint is 6AM – 1PM Local Time on May 4, 2013

The exchange is simply your grid square (6-character is preferred).  Don’t know your grid square?  Click this link to go to a Google Map and click on your QTH and a popup will tell you the grid square.

For the full rules, click here to go to the Spring VHF & Up Sprints web page.

The post Central States Spring VHF Sprints appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

Photo’s provided by Rob, N8JMV

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