The Splatter
The Splatter is the on-line newsletter of the York Region Amateur Radio Club. First published as a printed newsletter in 1973, it contains club news, meeting minutes, announcements, and articles of interest to members and all Amateur Radio Operators. York Region is situated immediately north of the City of Toronto and includes the municipalities of Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, King, Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill, Vaughan and Whitchurch-Stouffville
Monday 3 January 2022
SSTV from the International Space Station
Sunday 2 January 2022
Local Nets for YRARC Members
YRARC-Sponsored Nets
- YRARC Health & Welfare Net: On the VE3YRA/V (145.350-, 103.5 Hz CTCSS) and VE3YRC/U (444.225+, no CTCSS at present), every evening from 8:30 to approximately 9:15 except on club meeting nights (first Tuesday of month September to June). This net requests the status of the participants with respect to COVID-19 and the operational state of their radios, and asks a single "10 second question" on a variety of topics.
- YRARC 6m net: On 50.135 MHz upper sideband horizontally polarized from 8:00pm to 8:25pm Mondays and Wednesdays. Moderated discussion on recent activities by participants or anything else of interest.
- Ragchew Ramble Net: On VE3YRA/V and VE3YRC/U from 4-5pm Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Moderated by Joseph, VE3FMQ, on topics of interest to the participant, which are usually related to amateur radio.
- New: YRARC "Fusion Friday", will run every Friday from 8:00 to 8:25 PM on the VE3YRC/V Fusion repeater on 147.225MHz. VE3YRC repeater is also connected to the VE3YRC-ROOM, so can be connected through WIRES-X or directly through the repeater. This will initially have no net control and will run as a round-robin net.
- New: YRARC "Simplex Saturday", every Saturday from 10 to 11AM, on 146.550MHz (YRARC channel #24) and see who you can contact. This will initially have no net control and will run as a round-robin net. Please keep a record of who you can hear and or manage to connect to. Commences 2022-01-08.
- New: YRARC Winlink Wednesday, every Wednesday at any time. Use the Check-In template form to report how you have connected, e.g. Telnet, Packet, VARA, HF, ARDOP, the equipment used, the radio, TNC, Soundcard, band, mode, operating system, software client, the RMS gateway if used, and the Winlink client program. Send the email to Mike Crabtree, VA3MCT, the York Region Emergency Coordinator, who will report the results the following day.
Other Nets
- ONTARS: None of our members is currently a net controller, but several have been in the past and several current members participate in this net which runs on 3.755 MHz (80M) lower sideband every day from 7AM to 6PM. See their web site for more information
Monday 15 November 2021
Edward Rogers Sr. 100th Anniversary
The 1921 Transatlantic tests, sponsored by the ARRL, used wavelengths around 200 metres. This is still quite low by amateur standards. It wasn't until several years ago that the lowest frequencies in use by amateurs were in the 160 metres band, although now we have small 630 and 2200 metre for experimentation at low power. The tests proved that long distance communication was possible with a tabletop station rather than a building full of equipment.
Edward made this historic transmission from his lodgings at Pickering College, on Main Street in Newmarket, Ontario, right in the centre of York Region using a 500W spark set and call sign 3BP. He was heard by Paul Godley, operating a receiving station in Ardrossan, Scotland, using a Beverage antenna. Rogers was the only Canadian station to be heard during that weekend of testing.
The York Region Amateur Radio Club is celebrating the 100th anniversary of this event by running station CF3BP. Club members will be operating on various bands and modes from November 13th to December 12th. Logs will be uploaded to LoTW, qrz.com, and others. We are also in the midst of designing a QSL card for anyone in our logs. Canadian amateurs can send us an SASE. Outside Canada, please send $3 or equivalent to cover postage.
Edward went on to found Rogers Majestic, a very successful radio manufacturing company, a vacuum tube company, and AM radio station CFRB, located in Aurora, Ontario (also in York Region and the city that I live in). CFRB was heard all over North America and exists to this day. Edward's son, Edward "Ted" Jr., founded Rogers Communications in 1960, which is a principal player in the Canadian telecommunications industry.
See you on the air!
73,
Chris VE3NRT
President, YRARC
Update - the first electronic QSL has been received. Thanks Marcel!
Saturday 19 June 2021
N1MM Logger for ARRL Field Day
It seems that the two most popular logging software programs are N1MM Logger+ and N3FJP Logger. Both operate only on Microsoft Windows, so if you're using Linux you either need to use Wine or a different logging program.
I've used N1MM for contest logging for a long time, but I feel I've only scratched the surface of its capabilities. It has hundreds of features designed to shave fractions of a second from the contest exchange and logging process. Calling it a logger is an understatement, as it can also control and operate the radio by sending CW or recorded voice messages. It also knows how to interoperate with WSJT-X or JTDX for use with FT8/FT4 and other modes.
N3FJP is also very popular. It is simpler than N1MM+ and has fewer features, although its capabilities have been increasing steadily. Most of our operators on Field Day use it. It costs around $10-20 for a perpetual licence including updates.
Let me give an example of shaving fractions of seconds from the exchange. The CW in N1MM+ messaging facility will send CQ for you, as well as the contest exchange (e.g. "5A GTA" that the club station uses on field day) and the final thank you at the end of the exchange as well as messages like "AGN?" which can be useful from time to time. The CW can be tailored to speed up when there's something that is totally expected by the other station, like his own call sign, then slow down again when the exchange information is sent. Another example is that the spacing between CW characters can be changed from the standard 7 dits to 6 dits. That might reduce the message time by 50ms or so, which might add up to 5 or 10 more contacts over a 24 hour contest.
Learning N1MM+ can be daunting, but well worth the the time invested. The first time I used it I had it set up for RTTY in a hour or so. Support by N1MM himself and the team is excellent on the Google group and the program is free-of-charge (but not open source). I don't use N1MM+ for my general logging but after the contest I can produce an ADIF format file for upload to my regular logger which I then use to confirm the contacts in ARRL Logbook of the World.
It is truly an amazing and comprehensive tool to make your contest experience fun and productive. Here's a link to a video by the RATPAC team (who have lots of great videos) on using N1MM+ on ARRL Field Day.
Topic: N1MM Logger for Field Day
Speaker/Presenter: Anthony Luscre, K8ZT
View Video: https://vimeo.com/561658305
Download Video: https://vimeo.com/user107547861/download/561658305/d3de10fd9e
Documents: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1mvexqaudmkd4jc/AABgFaleuXUzwDVtiK8XZek0a?dl=0
Friday 18 June 2021
Field Day is Coming
International Space Station to be in Cross-Band Repeater Mode for Field Day
Copyright © 2021 American Radio Relay League, Incorporated. Use and
distribution of this publication, or any portion thereof, is permitted for
non-commercial or educational purposes, with attribution. All other purposes
require written permission.
Saturday 10 October 2020
Pablo VA3HDL Tower Project
Tuesday 29 September 2020
YRARC General Meeting, 7:30pm EDT Tuesday October 6th, 2020
Until further notice we are meeting on-line to comply with COVID-19 regulations and recommendations.
The meeting link and other access information will be sent to the membership email list. If you do not receive the message by the morning of Monday, October 5th, please contact our club secretary (secretary@yrarc.org) to register. The meeting is open to club members and everyone with the genuine interest in ham radio (just like our in-person meetings).
The speaker this month will be Pablo, VA3HDL, with a presentation on the tower project he completed this summer.
Look forward to seeing you on-line!
73, Chris