The WMA ARES Section is in the process of conducting simplex communications testing on 6 and 2 meters within the section.
At this point, we are looking to test 6 meter communications between Hampden and Worcester counties and need a few volunteers with good 6 meter capabilities, particularly in the Southern Worcester County area. Time involved will be short …. approximately 15 minutes at your station’s convenience.
Anyone wishing to participate can contact me directly on email at k1yo@arrl.net.
Hello and welcome to June…I think? I think we can safely say this is one year we would just rather forget, but history will not allow that sadly. Years past we would be coming off a fun time in Dayton and thoughts turned to tents, good BBQ, radios, mosquitos, and GOOD fellowship with one another: that of course is Field Day. Sadly, that will not be the case this year. Most clubs have decided to fold their Field Day this year and maybe a couple will go on with guidelines. One thing I wanted to highlight is the Hampden County Radio Association lost their site due to the virus and a ham couple in Wilbraham stepped up and offered their 10-acre field for their event. How cool is that!
As you know I go out on Field Day and tour the sites. With the situation, I decided to stay home and I am going to bust out the solar panels and batteries and set up in my backyard. This is good as I will be practicing my own field deployment and may try out some antennas to see how they perform. I do plan on being on 3944 kHz Sunday morning at 0830 for the WMA Emergency Net and will take traffic to get you credit for that. I will also be on the Central MA 2M Traffic Net on the CMARA repeater at 9 pm on 146.97 to receive any there.
On the ARES front, Section Emergency Coordinator Bob Meneguzzo K1YO has been busy with establishing training, protocols, standards and testing. He was also conducting Zoom meeting to get updates regarding the virus and what areas are doing what. Fortunately, nothing escalated to where we were asked to assist with communications. Things are still progressing nicely and we are moving to a more solid program.
Since February, (maybe earlier?) I have been participating via ZOOM with other section managers throughout our country and we have been discussing various topics which is been useful in a more effective communications path to the League. Some of the things discussed were the Field Day rules, band planning, remote VE testing, etc. Of course, if there is anything to relay, I will certainly pass it along.
That about wraps it up for this month. Hope you have a great field day and stay safe and enjoy the weather.
The 146.94 pl -127.3 Mt.Tom repeater has been experiencing technical problems. These problems appear to be more noticeable generally to the South and East of the Mt.Tom repeater location. Please note that stations generally North and West seem to be operating normally at this time.The tech folks at MTARA are aware of these problems and are working to fix them. Due to circumstances beyond their control, it may be some time before these problems can be alleviated.
In the interim, ARES net control stations that are having difficulty at this time with the repeater it is suggested that they transmit their nets on: 443.200 pl +127.3. During those nets if you encounter stations whose signals are not making the repeater suggest that they (a) up their power, (b) if portable move their position, (c) to try to change to 443.200 MHz pl +127.3.
If we determine that the above options are not adequate, we may have consider moving the nets to 147.000 MHz pl +127.3 Granville repeater until repairs on the .94 have been completed.
Skywarn Nets
Because most amateurs in this area are accustomed to tuning to 146.94 MHZ pl.-127.3 in times of severe weather emergencies to submit Skywarn criteria reports we will to continue to use that frequency. The .94 Skywarn NCS will advise any station that cannot make the repeater to try 147.000MHz pl+127.3 Granville repeater. A backup Skywarn NCS will be assigned to 147.000 MHz at all times during that event to monitor and take Skywarn criteria reports and pass them on to NWS via Whats App. The NCS on the .94 can view those Whats App reports so they may aviod duplicity.
We hope this email again finds you, your friends, and your family safe and in good health in this time of extraordinary challenge.
The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) has announced that the 124th Boston Marathon will be held as a virtual event, following Boston Mayor Martin Walsh’s cancellation of the marathon as a mass participation road running event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to prepare for this race. Our volunteers have always gone above and beyond and this year has been no exception. When the race was first delayed, almost universally we got feedback that you’d be there for the race whatever the date, whatever the format.
We expect that volunteer registration for 2021 will follow a similar schedule and process as past years. You can expect to hear from us once registration opens, most probably in January, 2021. If there are any changes we become aware of that you need to know ahead of that date, we will be sure to communicate with you. As always, we welcome your correspondence and questions on volunteering to our general mailbox: contact@hamradioboston.org.
This was posted today to the ARRL HQ website. Original posting can be seen here. We’re reposting it here as this is exciting information for all amateur radio operators looking at participating in Field Day this year.
With one month to go before 2020 ARRL Field Day, June 27 – 28, the ARRL Programs and Services Committee (PSC) has adopted two temporary rule waivers for the event:
1) For Field Day 2020 only, Class D stations may work all other Field Day stations, including other Class D stations, for points.
Field Day rule 4.6 defines Class D stations as “Home stations,” including stations operating from permanent or licensed station locations using commercial power. Class D stations ordinarily may only count contacts made with Class A, B, C, E, and F Field Day stations, but the temporary rule waiver for 2020 allows Class D stations to count contacts with other Class D stations for QSO credit.
2) In addition, for 2020 only, an aggregate club score will be published, which will be the sum of all individual entries indicating a specific club (similar to the aggregate score totals used in ARRL affiliated club competitions).
Ordinarily, club names are only published in the results for Class A and Class F entries, but the temporary rule waiver for 2020 allows participants from any Class to optionally include a single club name with their submitted results following Field Day.
For example, if Podunk Hollow Radio Club members Becky, W1BXY, and Hiram, W1AW, both participate in 2020 Field Day — Hiram from his Class D home station, and Becky from her Class C mobile station — both can include the radio club’s name when reporting their individual results. The published results listing will include individual scores for Hiram and Becky, plus a combined score for all entries identified as Podunk Hollow Radio Club.
The temporary rule waivers were adopted by the PSC on May 27, 2020.
ARRL Field Day is one of the biggest events on the amateur radio calendar, with over 36,000 participants in 2019, including entries from 3,113 radio clubs and emergency operations centers. In most years, Field Day is also the largest annual demonstration of ham radio, because many radio clubs organize their participation in public places such as parks and schools.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many radio clubs have made decisions to cancel their group participation in ARRL Field Day this year due to public health recommendations and/or requirements, or to significantly modify their participation for safe social distancing practices. The temporary rule waivers allow greater flexibility in recognizing the value of individual and club participation regardless of entry class.
This month’s Franklin County Amateur Radio Club meeting will be held online via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting will be on Monday May 11 at 7 PM. All are welcome to attend this online meeting.
FCARC President Aaron Addison KF1G will presenting on JS8Call. JS8Call is a digital mode built on the popular FT8 protocol, however, it instead offers real-time, keyboard-to-keyboard messaging as well as store-and-forward capabilties and other similar features.
Parts of this presentation has been developed as a part of a training that Aaron has been working on with Section Emergency Coordinator Bob Meneguzzo K1YO. The training is intended to be a part of a series to help WMA ARES members communicate in a variety of ways. Digital communications has proven extremely useful in emergency communications scenarios for transporting bulk data such as summaries of weather and infrastructure reports. All WMA amateurs are welcome to join the meeting and learn about JS8Call, especially those involved with WMA ARES.
Use this information to join the meeting via Zoom:
The Hampden County Radio Association will be conducting a Health and Welfare Net beginning on Tuesday May 5. The net will take place every Tuesday and Friday morning at 11:00 AM. We will continue the net for as long as there is support or need. The purpose of the net is to inform colleagues and friends of your health and welfare as well as to check on people you have not heard from recently due to social distancing. The net is open to all licensed amateurs regardless of affiliation and we encourage you to check in.
The HCRA Health and Welfare Net will be held on the Holyoke Soldier’s Home W1BR repeater on a frequency of 146.715 Mhz, PL of 100.0 and negative offset. This repeater was chosen to honor the memory of the veterans from the Soldiers Home who have passed from the corona virus. If anyone would like to become a Net Control Station on a rotating basis or even for only 1 time, perhaps to honor the memory of a family member or friend, please email: AA1WH@arrl.net
The saga continues, sadly, and they are still saying we are still not even nearly out of the woods. I truly hope everyone out there is safe, sane, and well.
I am currently in PA undergoing my training and I have been monitoring the situation and keeping up to date as far as ARES goes. SEC Bob K1YO has been really using his time to build up the staffing and getting the communications system worked on and soon will get some trainings started, especially with Winlink and another digital modes. The progress for an active ARES service here in WMA has been phenomenal. Bob has also been getting the staff together via Zoom for any status updates and I have been present at these meetings. Thankfully there has been nothing major and we are just in a monitor state.
We just launched our new Net Listings on the website. This was put together by John Nitzke, KF1KI whom I truly thank for the effort. I took the information that those of you sent to me and updated the list so it will be a fairly active and accurate listing. The EMA section will get a copy to post as well. EMA has one in a Google Calendar on their website. The plan is both sections will have a pretty good list of nets.
Now here’s the challenge……
Anyone who wishes to access one, more, or all of the nets, HF or on repeaters, get on and check in. Obviously location and propagation will play a factor. If you go to a scheduled net o the list and not hear anything, try again at another time, and once more. If after three times you hear nothing, report it to whomever, (me for this section) I will do my best to verify and if it does not exist, I will remove it. That way you can stretch your radio’s legs a bit and see how your station is performing. If you have a net you go to regularly and it’s not on the list send it to me to put in or if you can edit it in Word you can do it but keep it in the same format please. If there is great participation, we should have more net activity and a nice active listing to go to.
That should do it for now, Thanks to all who are doing their part in keeping the situation as safe and tolerable as possible. Especially those on the front lines who are facing it head on!
The WMA ARES Section is in the process of conducting simplex communications testing on 6 and 2 meters within the section.
Congratulations to the latest new hams of Western Massachusetts:
We hope this email again finds you, your friends, and your family safe and in good health in this time of extraordinary challenge. 
This was posted today to the ARRL HQ website. 
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