Albemarle Amateur Radio Club

Roanoke Hamfest Saturday 2014-08-02 http://w4ca.com/page.php?5
Berryville Hamfest Sunday 2014-08-03 http://www.shenvalarc.org/hamfest

The Albemarle Amateur Radio Club has established an Awards Committee to
oversee the development and presentation of Club awards. The Committee
is particularly interested in awards that recognize and thereby foster
operating by new hams, encourage participation in Club activities, and
increase the fun of amateur radio. The Board of Directors will approve
all awardees proposed by the Committee.

The Awards Committee currently includes Michael KA4JJD, Dave K4DND, and
Bob K4DU, but other interested club members are invited to join. 
Suggestions for additional awards would be much appreciated.

Opinion and correspondence regarding the Awards Committee should be
sent to Michael KA4JJD: mfr6t[at]virginia[dot]edu, 434-977-4281, 109
Sturbridge Rd, Charlottesville, VA 22901-2113

Read below the fold for details of the available awards...

Ed N3US at home station
Photo by AK4OL
CC-BY-3.0-US

Meeting starts at 7:30pm and ends at 9PM. Board meeting starts at 7PM.
Presentation: Ed Berkowitz N3US will present on DXing (long distance radio contacts).

Meeting is in the NRAO auditorium, 520 Edgemont Rd, Charlottesville, VA
Lat/Long: geo:38.036817,-78.518115
google map

Public is welcome to attend. Wheelchair accessible.

Update: slides from the presentation have been attached.

Dreamhost has helped to upgrade the hosting software version for security fixes.

AARC 2013 Field Day Station Morse Code (HF CW) Station
Photo Credit: Mark Whitis AK4OL, License: CC-BY-3.0-US
Scan this QR Code with
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http://www.albemarleradio.org/field_day_2014/

Click on this button
now to add this event to your google calendar (operating hours only, see below for a link which includes setup and teardown).

The public is invited to visit the Albemarle Amateur Radio Club (AARC) Field Day Station From 2PM Saturday June 28 until 2PM Sunday June 29, 2014. The AARC will be operating this temporary station and camp as an emergency communications exercise and public outreach event as part of the ARRL Amateur Radio Field Day 2014, the biggest ham radio event in the US. The station will be setup in the lot behind the:
Earlysville Volunteer Fire Station
283 Reas Ford Rd, Earlysville, VA 22936
http://www.earlysvillefire.org/
google maps
Latitude/Longitode: geo:38.144678,-78.491183.
Maidenhead Grid Locator: FM08SD14BR
Talk in: 146.760Mhz, Transmit Offset -600Mhz, CTCSS tone in: 151.4Hz,
CTCSS tone out: none, Modulation: FM

See CBS19 TV Coverage of last years field day.

This page is still under construction.
Permanent URL: http://www.albemarleradio.org/field_day_2014/

More info below the fold.

AARC is once again providing communications support for the Bike MS Tour De Vine (formerly known as the MS-150) which is a two day bike ride on Saturday June 14 and Sunday June 15. AARC has supported this event for decades.

More details below the fold.

We invite you to join us for the next step in this exploration, a ?Digital EmComm Summit,? to be held on Saturday, 31 May 2014, from 9am until noon at the Dunlora Community Clubhouse, 1195 River Oaks Ln., Charlottesville, VA, 22901. There is no charge for participation in this event, and there is ample free parking next to the clubhouse. I will be sure that coffee and donuts are available to fuel creativity! :-)

RSVP to KQ9P so he knows how many donuts to bring.

Signup for operating shifts is now available! Click on the big green button to go to the VolunteerSpot Web site:

More details will be available soon...

Meeting is at 7:30PM EST.
Presentation: Dave Damon K4DND will be talking about IRLP

Meeting Location: NRAO Auditorium, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA.
Lat/Long: geo:38.036817,-78.518115
google map

Board Meeting is at 7:00PM, same room. There may be an ARES meeting at 6:30PM in the Parking Lot.

There is a meeting from 4:30-6PM EST of the field day committee at Zoe's Kitchen, Barracks Road Shopping Center between burger king and McDonald's.
973 Emmet Street North
Charlottesville, VA 22903
(434) 995-5334
zoeskitchen.com‎
geo:38.051280,-78.501083
google maps

Photo: Mark Whitis AK4OL, CC-BY-US-3.0

The grand opening for the New Fontaine Ave Fire Station is Saturday from 11AM to 3PM, Rain or Shine. Be prepared for rain as the hourly weather forecast on weatherbug has 50% chance of rain during the event hours. This is a rare chance to tour the facility. Several members of the club will be working the event through CERT, including Jim Wilson K4BAV, Mark Whitis AK4OL, and Anita Web. Parking is at two off-site locations, with shuttle buses provided (two full size buses and one handicapped shuttle). There will be food, speakers, ribbon cutting ceremony, etc. Speakers at 11:45AM, Ribbon Cutting at noon.
Press Release

Waypoints

• Fontaine Ave Fire Station, 2420 Fontaine Avenue , Charlottesville, VA, (no parking) geo:38.025943,-78.520200
• Fontaine Research Park, Ray C Hunt Dr, Charlottesville, VA, (Parking): geo:38.025521,-78.525082
• Trinity Church, 3101 Fontaine Avene Extended, Charlottesville, VA: (Parking) geo:38.024616,-78.534654

Google Maps.
Waypoints are attached in KML format for google earth, KDE marble, and similar programs and GPX format for GPS receivers.

I've successfully built Stephen Ong's ViewRF RTL-SDR Spectrum Analyzer. If you are interested in cool things that you can do with these little devices check out Stephen's YouTube demo and my project page.

73, Mike KQ9P

The Dayton Hamvention, the largest hamfest in North America is coming Friday 2014-05-16 through Sunday 2014-05-18. Although it is 7 hours away, a number of AARC members will be attending.

Website: http://www.hamvention.org/

Add this specific event to your calendar:

Note that there are one or more hamfests listed on the club calendar in Virginia or neighbouring states almost every weekend for the next 3 months, except for field day and independence day. Of particular note are Manassas (2014-06-08) and Berryville (2014-08-03). The Roanoke hamfest is also the day before Berryville, and the sponsoring group has reached out to our group to encourage attendance (they schedule it when they do for the convenience of vendors, though it is inconvenient for attendees). Also, the Virginia Beach Hamfest is 2014-09-14 and the Mid-Atlantic States VHF conference (PackratVHF) is a 3 day event in PA starting 2014-09-26.

UPDATE: Kicksat has successfully launched.
Sprites will be deployed around 2014-05-04 15:45 EDT.
Kicksat orbit is predicted to decay around 2014-05-14.
Frequencies: https://github.com/zacinaction/kicksat/wiki/Radio-Info

Technical difficulties aside, there is a 40% chance weather will permit kicksat to launch Friday and a 36% chance it will launch saturday for a total probablity of 76%.

The probability of launch on saturday is lower than that on friday, even though the weather is more likely to permit launch; this reflects the possibility that it may have already launched on friday.

Bob Pattison, K4DU, writes:

For quite some time now the Earlysville Volunteer Fire Department (EVFD) has supported the Albemarle Amateur Radio Club (AARC) by hosting our annual Field Day station. At the most recent AARC meeting it was suggested that we, the members of the AARC, should support the EVFD by attending their Spring Barbecue. At that time we did not have the date and time. Today I received information about the event in the mail. I share it now with you.

"Our launch is officially on for tomorrow (April 14th) at 4:59 PM EDT. "
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zacinaction/kicksat-your-personal-s...
Kiscksat (the cubesat) should be transmitting tomorrow evening.
Sprites will be deployed 16 days later.

There is also a lunar eclipse late monday night, early morning (roughly 1AM-5PM) Weather conditions: partly cloudy (wunderground hourly forecast).

UPDATE: Rocket was on the pad but launch was scrubbed due to helium leak. Next launch opportunity is the 18th.

There will be a skywarn class in Charlottesville on Tue 2014-04-24 from 6-9PM in the City Council Chambers. This class will teach you how to spot and report severe weather events to the National Weather Service, which relies on a nationwide network of Skywarn weather spotters. Many skywarn spotters are ham radio operators and skywarn nets are organized to relay skywarn reports when phone service is down. Last local class was 2 years ago (apparently 10 years ago in the valley); otherwise, area hams and other interested people need to drive to Dulles/Sterling to take classes. After you take the class, in person, you will be issued a skywarn spotter id.

This class is open to the public; You do not need to be a ham, to take this class.
please RSVP through this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GQQ7DV3

Skywarn is supported by AARC, the ARRL, Charlottesville CERT, TJMRC, etc.

About Skywarn: http://skywarn.org/about/

Many AARC members are skywarn spotters.

The Charlottesville/Albemarle area, and surrounding counties, get severe thunderstorms, microbursts, derechos, tornados, hurricanes, snowstorms, blizzards, sleet, hail, freezing rain, torrential rains, flooding, flash floods, and mudslides. The majority of deaths from Hurricane Camille where in adjacent Nelson County.

Due to the seating configuration (no tables), you might want to bring a clipboard.

The AARC monthly meeting will be held at 7:30PM, Tuesday 2014-04-08. Ed Berkowitz N3US will give a presentation on Contesting. The public is welcome to attend. The board meeting is in the same location at 7PM.

Click this button to add to your google calendar:

Meeting Location: NRAO Auditorium, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA.
Lat/Long: geo:38.036817,-78.518115
google map