10th Annual Montague Sawmill River 10K Run

The Franklin County Amateur Radio Club will again be supporting the 10th Annual Montague Sawmill River 10K Run this year.  The event wil be on January 1, 2020.

For this event, FCARC’s Leyden repeater (146.985 MHz, PL 136.5) will be used.  Due to the nature of the course, volunteers should strongly consider using mobile radios with 10W or more to ensure they can get into the machine reliably.

More details on the race itself are available at the race’s participant registration website.

Due to some of passing of a few SKs that normally volunteer at this event and a couple others that moved, a few more new volunteers to this event would be helpful.  Please contact Richard KB1NOX if you can help or for more details.

New Amateur Licensees – November 2019

Congratulations to the latest new hams of Western Massachusetts:

John P Swienton, KC1MCU
444A N Main St
# 335
East Longmeadow, MA 01028-1812

Peter K Lindenauer, KC1MCT
21 Roe Ave
Northampton, MA 01060-1635

Michael R Kuehl, KC1MDR
1778 Parker St
Springfield, MA 01128-1286

Benjamin D Greenfield, KC1MFQ
58 Linden St
Williamstown, MA 01267-2512

Colleen R Ahlquist, KC1MEV
327 Bridle Path
Worcester, MA 01604-1306

Nicolas X Machado, KC1MCO
100 Institute Rd
# 5458
Worcester, MA 01609-2247

Norman W Hansen, KC1MCW
39 Janock Rd
Milford, MA 01757-2130

Walter L Weber, KC1MDA
5 Wales St
Milford, MA 01757-3827

Section Manager Report December 2019

Hello all! The silly season has descended upon us once again! I trust each of you will have a very joyous Holiday Season with family and friends. Be safe as well.

With the weather approaching tomorrow take extra care to be prepared in case something was to happen. Even an HT with your local repeater or the 146.520 frequency can always help. With the weather, remember Dec 7 th is the annual Skywarn Recognition Day. This will be the 20 th year of doing this. They will be on HF and various other modes. More information can be found on the NWS SKYWARN Recognition Day website or on our own website post about it.

Two weeks ago, we found out about the distracted driving bill was revised and put on the Governor’s desk later for signature which created a flurry of concern to the Radio community. Tom Walsh, K1TW our Eastern Section Mgr. who has a section Government Liaison, alerted me of the nature of the changes and together we put out an announcement to tell our political leaders our concern for the wording and we received assurances that we are exempt from the law. The response was huge and we received assurances from them that this indeed was the case. Thanks to all who assisted in this effort. This also underscores the need to have our own Government Liaison. I have mentioned this a number of times and still have not been able to fill this. Please consider this or other open positions available in our section.

January 1 yours truly will begin his second term as section manager. I hope you feel the same as I do in that we made some significant improvement to our section and that I have been living up to the promises I made when I started. Has it been easy? Oh, heck no! Kind of tough talking to crickets sometimes. There were times of frustration and a handful of people stepped up and now working together we now have forward momentum. My plan is to build on this and continue doing what I’m doing. I am always open to your suggestions. If I was to ask anything of you is to promote the website, the section, ARES, and also to volunteer. It’s not about me, it’s about Ham Radio! Keep that in your radar!

Happy Holidays and very 73!
Ray, KB1LRL