Weekly Meeting 2-7-11

This weeks meeting we had several new members attend. We showed a powerpoint explaining ham radio and operating on it. We may meet at surge facility 1 to say goodbye to our shack and show new members how to make a contact on the radio.
Check your email next week for the meeting place. We will probably meet in Engineering room 127 and then walk up to SF1 together.

Taking Down a Tower

This past weekend (Sept 18th) the club helped a local ham take down his 130 foot tower. This ham wanted to donate the tower to the club because he is moving and cannot take it with him. Part of the package included us helping him (and some skilled climbers) take it down. Unfortunately, we can’t put up all of the tower sections, but we should be able to use at lest 2 of them to put up in the backyard.

I took lots of pictures while we were there as I had never seen a tower taken down before. I also had the climber get a few shots from on top of the tower. You can see all the way to campus and get a great view of Baltimore! The link to the album is below. Enjoy!

Tower Taking Down

Last meeting of the semester and other happenings

Hey hams!

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve last posted something, but things have been busy with the end of the semester creeping up. Last week we talked about a few important things that everyone should be aware about:

-The last meeting of the semester will be held on the last day of classes, May 13th, at 7PM in Surge Facility 1.

-We will meet over the summer on Thursdays at 7PM beginning on June 3rd. We may change the day/time once people figure out their summer schedules.

-Field Day 2010 is June 26-27th. Tom and I will be out of town that weekend, but if anyone in the club is interested in participating, we can set up times for the shack to be open. If there is not enough interest, then we will not participate.

-We decided on a QSL design that we will send out. I will try to get the design posted soon. We are in the process of getting them printed, and will be able to respond to the multitude of QSL cards that we received from the School Club Roundup.

That’s all for now. Don’t forget that we have a meeting tonight at 7PM! See you all then!

–

Josh KB3QNA

New Student Orientation

Yesterday was New Student Orientation day for students that were admitted into UMBC. Part of this event was an activities fair (similar to Involvement Fest) where the newly admitted students could visit the tables set up by various student orgs and learn about the various clubs on campus. We (Tom, Josh, Carlos and Jorge) decided that this would be a great way to recruit new students and help bolster the club’s membership.

There were a lot of interested students, and we got quite a few people to sign up for our mailing list. If all goes well, we just might have a few more members in the club next semester.

If you’re a newly admitted student reading this blog post, thanks for visiting! If you have any questions about the club, just leave a comment below or email one of our club officers listed on our homepage.

QSL Card Design

Hey guys!

I’ve been working on some designs for QSL cards. Since the School Club Roundup, we’ve received three QSL cards from hams we contacted during the event. We’ve been meaning to create some cards to send out, but we haven’t gotten around to it – until now. I made up three designs and I want you guys to vote on them. In the end, we can use all three designs, but I thought I would get the public’s opinion. The poll is located on the right navigation bar and the images are posted below. One of the images is of the rear of the QSL card. You can’t vote on that since it is pretty standard, but if more info needs to be added or changed, we can do that.

If you have another design that you want posted, email me jknep1 – at – umbc.edu. Let me know your thoughts!

School Club Roundup Final Tally

Yesterday marked the end of the school club roundup contest and it looks like we didn’t do too bad! Our final tally is 12,320 points. A full list of our contacts can be found on our website arc.umbc.edu/SCR.

We had a few interesting voice contacts on the 20m band yesterday. We talked to at least 2 other schools, one of which we had trouble hearing and almost didn’t make the contact. Most of our contacts were made through PSK, and we reached some people in a lot of different countries, some of which we had never heard of!

Over all, the SCR went very well this time around. The yahoo email reflector for the contest was buzzing with activity this past week. It was nice to see so many schools participating and hopefully next year we can contact more of them.

Until then, stay warm and have fun in the snow!

73,

Josh KB3QNA

SCR Third Day

Hi all!

It’s our third day of operating for the School Club Roundup and things are looking pretty good! We currently have over 6,000 points, almost triple what we had yesterday! The 20m band was buzzing with activity today and we were able to make a few more voice contacts. Hopefully tomorrow a few other club members will be able to make it out here, provided the roads are OK.

You can see a cumulative recap of our contacts and daily score on our website: arc.umbc.edu.

There’s only one more day left of the SCR and we’ll try to make the best of it!

–

Josh KB3QNA

SCR 2010

Hi Everyone,

It’s that time of year again — time for the School Club Roundup! Recently, the mid-atlantic region has been hit with several snow storms, but that didn’t stop Tom and I from making some contacts today during the SCR! We made most of our contacts via PSK, but we also snuck in a few voice contacts. We worked 20m today, but we will try 40m tomorrow for both PSK and voice.

You can check our website for a list of the states and schools that we have contacted as well as our current score. I’m not sure how we rank compared to other schools, but compared to our progress last year, we are ahead of schedule. There are also a few pictures of the shack and the 2 feet of snow that we had to trek through to get to the shack.

We were planning on having a club wide operating event on Thursday, but from the looks of the weather and the fact that our parking lot is not plowed, the event might be canceled. But keep checking your email and our website for updated info.

If you are from another school, please let us know via a comment if you will be on the air in the coming days. 73 and hope to see you all on the air!

–

Josh KB3QNA

Spring Semester 2010

Tonight was our first meeting of the Spring semester and it looks like there is a lot planned! Here’s a quick run down of things that were decided at the meeting:

-We are going to keep the same meeting times as last semester – 7PM Thursdays at the shack

-We will be participating in the School Club Roundup next week, 2/8-2/12. We will have an open house type event again on Thursday from 1-7. Everyone is invited.

-Involvement Fest is this Weds in the Commons Mainstreet. Stop by and see our table and learn a little more about amateur radio. We are also looking for people to help staff the table. Email Tom if you are interested.

So far that’s all we have going on. We tested the radios and antennas for the SCR tonite, and everything is in working order. If all goes as planned, we will have another successful contest and might even earn more points than last time. Well, that’s all for now.

73,

Josh KB3QNA

Back from Winter Break

Hey everyone! We’re back from Winter break and ready to get back into the swing of things! Tom and I have been busy lately, but we’re working on some exciting things for the club for the Spring Semester. Here’s a preview of some upcoming events. If you want to help us plan events, send an email to Tom or Josh. Coming up this semester:

Feb. 1 – First Meeting of the Semester

Feb. 3 – Involvment Fest on Maintstreet in the Commons from 11-2pm. We need people to help man our table and talk to interested students.

Feb. 8-12 – ARRL School Club Roundup. We will be doing something similar to last semester with pizza, etc.

March – possible inter-club event. Details still pending.

If you have any suggestions for activities, leave a comment below. The UMBC ARC is always looking for ways to get involved with other groups and organizations, so drop us a line if you have ideas!

73,

Josh KB3QNA