Franklin County Amateur Radio Club The home page is now also the place to find the latest club news. Click here for general information about the FCARC. News items below are posted with newest items at top of page. Old items will be moved to the News Archive page.

Some events on the horizon:

• FCARC Club Breakfast, Saturday 2/13 (see below)
• Amateur Radio License Exams, Monday 2/22
• Mt. Tom ARA Electronic and Ham Radio flea market Saturday 3/6
• FCARC program meeting, guest speaker N1BAA 3/15 (more info soon)

The next club breakfast will take place starting at 8 a.m. Saturday, February 13, at Denny's Pantry, 469 Bernardston Rd in Greenfield. (Click here for a map.)

All are welcome, but please let Betty, KB1DCG, know by Friday whether you are coming so she can alert the restaurant about how many of us to expect.

Cindy Dickerman, KB1IAE, will be ordering a new batch of club T-shirts from Valley Tees in Greenfield. She plans to place the order after our March club meeting. Anyone attending the meeting can order there. Or call Cindy at 413-498-0166

The shirts are crew type, forest green color, with the FCARC logo on both front and back.

Cost-$10.00 for sizes small, medium, large and xlarge. $12.00 for sizes 2XL, 3XL

This is extracted from a message posted to the Western Mass Amateur Radio yahoo newsgroup 12/26/2009 by Joe, KA1HSP (jcp1965@netzero.net):

Last June I requested permission from the Commonwealth Of Massachusetts to position a packet station up at the Quabbin Hill D.E.P. Shelter in Ware, MA. I was given the green light with the understanding that any interference to official equipment will require the packet station to shut down.

This is a stand alone basic Kantronics KPC-3+ positioned to hopefully fill in some shadows on the traditional WMA packet frequency of 145.050 MHz. The beacon is set for packet text followed by CW "de KA1HSP" at the top and bottom of each hour.

Click here for station details, and here for photos from the project history.

CONGRATULATIONS . . .To both our license examinees at the November 23rd VE Examination Session. Andrew Rogers, of Northfield, passed his Technician Exam for his first ticket. John Berrigan, KB1NOH, upgraded his ticket to a General License one day before the last class he was attending for a General License upgrade. John says he "felt pretty good" going to the last class session with his General License exam results already in the bag! [From December FCARC Communicator]

Update 12/2/09    Andrew's new call is now listed on QRZ.com. It is KB1TKB. Say hello to him if you hear him on the repeater!

An article on the Computer World website begins, "Abundant spectrum resources and an engaged research community are drawing wireless experimenters back into a hobby that many had forgotten".

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139771/Want_to_bone_up_on_wireless_tech_Try_ham_radio

Thanks to N1KXR's WesternMassAmateurRadio yahoo group for bringing this to our attention.

The western Mass. Section of the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) invites hams who wish to be considered for possible deployment in a radio emergency to register with a new internet based data base. This database will allow Section leaders to quickly find hams with the skills needed, and located nearest to the areas where emergency deployment is requested.

As with any volunteer emergency group, you are not committed to respond to any particular call. Registration simply means a willingness to be called and asked to help. The registration form has numerous questions about an individual's training and equipment. Answering these questions is voluntary. You may even answer the questions but mark the answer with a DONT LIST check. This means that only the section leadership will have access to those answers.

To register yourself for possible future emergency radio work, go to the Western Mass. web page at: ARRL Western Massachusetts Section Website

On the upper left corner of the page is a menu which includes the item "WMA ARES Registration". Click on this to go to the Registration and Record System. If you are not yet registered, click on the "New Application" item on the menu at the top. Once you have registered, you can come back to this page to update the information in your data page by clicking on "Member Login". You will set your own password the first time you register, and will need to remember it to make changes subsequently.

For more detailed information, you may want to view the Membership Manual : WMA ARES Member Registration System Member Manual

The FCARC VE team held an Amateur Radio license exam session on Monday, August 24. We had one candidate, Bradley Pratt, K1QLW, who came down from New Hampshire to successfully take the test and upgrade to an Amateur Extra class license.

The FCARC's next exam session will be held on Monday, November 23. For more information click here.

Finally, some pictures from our June 2009 effort have been posted... See the photos page for a link.

We have widened the text area -- please send comments to the webmasters.

You'll notice a new look to the FCARC website. We are trying to do the change over this weekend (Feb 28 - March 1). For more info click on this link.

The FCARC For Sale page on this website has been updated. What do you have to sell or trade? Contact the webmasters to have your item listed.