Monthly Archives: June 2023

Hello everyone, we now blinked our eyes and find that June and Field Day is done. I hope you and your respective club had a great event. I recovered enough to manage 462 miles in club visit traveling. Some of those Mass. roads made comfort a little interesting though. It was great to see everyone.

There was some rain that quite possibly impacted participation and I did observe participation was lower than previous years. Is this also yet an indication that we are aging out and not interested anymore? I hope not! I don’t have to tell you that Field Day is THE best opportunity to promote the hobby to others. Despite the participant level, most sites have been reporting good successes. Some of the highlights are:

• Hampden County RA had an opportunity to have an operator for GOTA but was more interested in the donuts on the table. This was a very large bear that found the tasty treat. You don’t see that often especially in Holyoke!
• Mt. Tom ARA had their own event this year at the Blandford Fairgrounds. This was very well received by both the club and the Fairground group. Congrats to them.
• Montachusett ARA helped out the Waltham ARA and joined forces this year at Wachusett Mountain. Both clubs were happy with the outcome.
• Franklin County ARC put a lot of emphasis on publicity and outreach to bolster membership. Le’s hope the effort paid off.

I did see clubs were not setting up with big hardware and worked with more wires and easier to manage equipment, even QRP. HCRA usually puts up 3 tri-banders on military masts but they ran end-feds also other light setups. No harm in that! It may help to mix it up and help cure possible stagnation of the same old stuff. Keep it different and interesting.

Ok, enough about field day. It is July and every two years the election of Section Manager arrives at WMA. Any member in good standing with the ARRL is welcome to get nominated. As usual, I do a lot of thinking for some time and there have been times I really questioned staying on. This year there is some momentum going on with some clubs trying a comeback, a new SEC in Chuck WS1L and ACC Larry W1AST. We now have the Big E. More license classes, etc. I guess I need to stick around and give it more of a push. I really would like to see the clubs in better shape, more active nets, more operating activity and the need for MORE MENTORING! One person cannot carry the burden alone. It does take a bit of commitment, effort, participation, a team effort, and sprinkle it with a little insanity and there may be some good things come out of it. But it takes a bunch of you to make it happen. If you are interested in trying to knock me off my soapbox, I welcome it. Go to https://www.arrl.org/section-manager for information on my position as well as others if interested. Email me also.

I truly hope everyone has a great summer! Enjoy yourselves. Operate VOTA, POTA, SOTA and let’s work towards making this hobby thrive even more!

73,
Ray-AA1SE

Guess what! It’s June and that means one thing to us hams…Field Day! We are out there checking radio’s, antenna’s generators, and all the other goodies we need to stuff in our vehicles and bring it to your home for 2 days. I hope everyone has a fun time. Remember to promote the hobby to all visitors. Myself, I will endeavor to visit all sites as I can. I have been improving since my surgery and hopefully by then I will be pretty much back to normal.

One of the project’s I have been involved with is the NTS 2.0 revamp of the Traffic System. This is something the League has unfortunately let fall into disrepair and Fred AB1OC has been spearheading along with a group of us updating the standards and bringing it up to modern times. There will be an article in July’s QST about it. We are working on developing documentation, presentations, and trainings that will be available for download and for your use. Promoting NTS to your club is another way to add activity for members and providing them with a new skill of passing messages “when all else fails” This is also something to add to your nets. Even if it’s for a birthday, congrats on a new license, etc., its good practice. It was surprising to me the network of national traffic nets that meets on VHF and also HF. There is a new Net directory in the works as well.

Just a reminder, June 30 is the end of the General class question pool and the new one starts the day after.

One thing I am seeing of late is as most clubs are wrapping up their seasons and having elections there is a lack of people willing to step up and take on officer or board positions and importantly president. I presently have a couple of clubs facing that situation to the point of extinction. There are many reasons why this is happening and you need to work on a fix for it. The one thing that needs to take place from my observations is the lack of getting new hams active in the hobby and part of a club. Don’t assume someone else is doing it! Look at the new ham listings and reach out to those in your area. Invite them and offer your assistance. The reason why I started my license classes is to educate and bring in new hams for your clubs. Don’t let the cricket’s get them! The next president could be on that list!

I hope to see you out there on Field Day. I always enjoy doing the tour visiting the sites.

73 de Ray AA1SE