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  • WN1E brings home the HCRA Plaque for NEQP 2012!

    Putting in a major effort last year Dave ‘brings home the gold‘ (or at least the plaque) for High Score, Single Operator in Hampden County. Battling it out with eleven other entries Dave’s 31,850 points almost doubled the next closest score of the W1NY club call operated by Ed/KB1NWH. Here’s Dave’s soapbox comment:

    WN1E – Had a great time doing the contest this year.  Decided to put more effort into making cw contacts.  This really helped with the final score, and I was glad I put in the effort.  Thanks to all who were patient with me on the cw side.

    Well said Dave and we hope you have a nice spot on the wall for your plaque!

    Other HCRA highlights from last year’s NEQP:

    1. HCRA came in fourth in the club competition. If you look at club logs submitted we came in third. Nice work folks.

    2. HCRA’s WB1Z team achieved fourth place in the multi-single category. Operating from AA1YW’s vacation home in Vermont Dave/AA1YW, Matt/W1MSW, Frandy/N1FJ and Jim/KK1W racked up 120,428 points also landing them the highest score in Vermont.

    3. The WB1Z team won the New England County Expedition Award.

    Click here to see all the results from NEQP 2012. How did your score stack up?

    What are your plans for NEQP 2013? It’s easy, it’s fun and since the contest takes a night time break from 1:00 AM to 9:00 AM Sunday morning you can actually get some sleep too! Take a few moments out of your busy schedule, get on the air and hand out some New England QSO’s. Like Matt/W1MSW said at Friday’s meeting, “we’re the DX for a change and other stations will be looking for us”. Click here to read the rules for this year’s contest.

    Good luck and imagine how nice that HCRA plaque will look in your shack!

    Jim/KK1W

  • Live Stream Of April 2013 meeting

    Were trying out a new thing. We’re trying to broadcast out meetings live. Give it a shot, We should be live right now (4/5/2013 @ 7:00pm)

    Presenter this month is Doug Grant (K1DG) talking about WRTC 2014


    Video streaming by Ustream

    Thanks!

  • K1DG to speak tonight at HCRA meeting!

    On hand, all the way from New Hampshire, is Doug Grant/K1DG. Besides being as close to ‘professional’ as an amateur radio operator can get Doug is also the president of WRTC2014. That’s the group that is responsible for bringing the “Olympics of Amateur Radio to New England in 2014. Doug will give us a brief history of WRTC (World Radiosport Team Championships), enlighten us on the many details his team is working on to make it an exceptional event AND let us know how we can be part of this exciting event.

    Besides his WRTC responsibilities K1DG is an avid contest operator, author and an extremely ‘radioactive’ ham. Here’s a brief bio to get you familiar with the experience tonight’s speaker brings to our group tonight.

    Doug Grant received his first ham-radio license from the FCC in 1967 and his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Lowell Technological Institute (now the University of Massachusetts—Lowell). He has more than 30 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry, mostly at Analog Devices, where he worked in engineering; marketing; and product-line management for analog, mixed-signal, RF, and wireless products. He has logged close to 500,000 contacts with other radio hams in every country in the world. Grant is now an independent consultant specializing in semiconductor and wireless technologies.

    Don’t miss it, see you tonight at 7:30 sharp!

    Jim/KK1W

  • Zero Beat Archives Updated (1991-1998)

    ZBbann

    Thanks to the efforts of John Balboni (AC1T), we now have issues of Zero Beat from 1991 through 1998 and some of 1999 and 2001. You can take a stroll down memory lane or see what HCRA was doing during the 90’s.

    Please check out our Zero Beat Archives page to see all the action

    Ty,
    NT1K

  • Next meeting is this Friday, April 5th!

    Only two days until the April HCRA meeting.

    It’s no April fool either. Our special guest speaker is Doug/K1DG. Doug is traveling all the way from NH to chat with us about the World Radiosport Team Championship coming to New England in 2014. There are a lot of moving parts to hosting an international competition here on New England soil and Doug is just the guy to show us how it’s done. You’ll learn about WRTC, its history and most importantly how you can be part of a perhaps ‘once in a lifetime’ operation.

    See you Friday night!

    Jim/KK1W

    http://www.wrtc2014.org/

  • April 2013 Zero Beat now available

    Here is the link to the April issue of Zero Beat.
    Lots of good stuff this month, enjoy it and see you at the meeting Friday night!

    Zero Beat Apr 2013

  • I need articles and photos for Zero Beat!

    Anyone for dropping me an email with photos or articles of interest to HCRA members? If you are tired of seeing SOTA articles you should submit something to me for upcoming issues of Zero Beat — I would like material by early next week. (Sorry, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any more SOTA items!) An article doesn’t have to be fancy — I will take care of formatting, font selection and so on. Send text or .doc to n1fj@arrl.net

    73, Frandy, N1FJFrandy, N1FJ

  • 2014 Election draws near, nominations entertained.

    Hi folks,

    The 2014 Election will be held at our June 7th meeting. As in years past many board members have once again raised their hands to help guide HCRA through another year of fun and excitement. For many of them this will be another year of many serving HCRA. Wouldn’t it be great if YOU stepped forward and offered a little bit of time every month to ensure our club is the best it can be? Not only would it provide some ‘down time’ for a present board member – more importantly it is an opportunity to bring new views, different ideas and more exciting activities to our club. Are you ready to give it a try?

    Listed below is the slate as it stands right now. There’s only one position shown open but we are VERY open to nominations for all positions. As a team we are flexible, supportive and willing to move our present positions around to accommodate a new member. If it turns out we have more than one candidate for a position even better. We can hold a run off election in June, how cool is that?

    It says a lot about our present board and their effectiveness that there aren’t a lot of ‘willing volunteers’ for nominations. Unfortunately that’s a double edged sword. Although things are going well, if we don’t encourage new board members we’ll eventually stagnate and then comes the ‘upheaval’. HCRA has been through these in the past and we should attempt to avoid it in the future. Enough rambling on, here’s the slate as it stands on March 16th.

    HCRA Proposed Slate of Officers/Directors for 2014

    Directors:
    At large: John/Kx1x
    Membership: Rich/N1KXR
    Technical: OPEN
    Program: Matt/W1MSW
    Zero Beat Editor: Frandy/N1FJ

    Officers:
    Secretary: Dave/N1MFL
    Treasurer: Dave/AA1YW
    Vice President: Ed/KB1NWH
    President: Jim/KK1W

    Trust me, if you’re interested in making HCRA a better, stronger organization there is a place for you on the board. Contact Jim/KK1W and lets talk.

  • WRTC is coming in 2014 – are you ready to pitch in?

    WRTC is just around the corner. We’re looking to field (literally) a second station this year. Who’s game to give it a go? So what exactly is WRTC and more importantly WRTC-2014? Read on.

    In short you could consider it the ‘Olympics of Amateur Radio’.  Read all about the competition and its history here. The big news is WRTC is coming to New England in 2014. The WRTC-2014 committee is looking for hams throughout NE to help them setup, test and manage 59 operating sites (and 6 spares) for the competition in July 2014.

    Our location last year was the magnificent (?) Medfield State Hospital in Medfield, MA. It’s been said this retired mental facility was the ideal place to put the HCRA team and it they were right! We setup and operated the whole weekend and had a great time! We’re doubling our efforts this year and fielding two complete stations. We need YOUR support to make it happen! Follow this link to see a great WRTC presentation given at last year’s MTARA meeting by Dave/KM3T. Dave’s presentation is a good overview of WRTC, how much fun it is and why your help is needed.

    We’re working right now building our teams for 2013. Would you like to join the fun? Contact Jim/KK1W or telephone  at 413.237-4666 and he will get you started on the road to fun!

  • March Board Meeting Minutes

    HCRA Board meeting 3/5/2013

    Official minutes

    7:20pm

    Vice President report -KB1NWH
    KX3 Raffle won by K1MA
    234 tickets sold
    $1300 net profit

    7:30pm
    Treasurer Report – AA1YW

    Income
    silent auction – $40.00
    KX3 raffle – $1630.00
    membership – $105.00
    party – $731.67
    50/50 raffle – $34.50

    Expenses
    p.o. box -$86.00
    FD deposit -$50.00

    Total income – $2541.17
    Total expenses – $136.00
    Starting balance -$5804.69
    Ending balance – $8209.86

    7:45pm
    Secretary report – N1MFL
    p.o. box paid
    mail gathered

    7:50pm
    Director Reports
    Technical – W1MSW
    9 entries show/tell
    next year limit times for show/tell
    no snacks at meetings for lack of donations

    8:00pm
    zero beat – N1FJ
    zb cutoff 4/25
    discuused ways to get articles

    Membership – N1KXR
    Name badge/membership cards to be ready for sept meeting

    At Large – W1MJB
    nothing to report

    Program – KX1X
    April meeting – WRTC
    $25 visa card and meal for presenters

    8:30pm
    Old business
    Dunkin Donut cards for 10 meter contest winners for next meeting

    New business
    Foxhunts progress
    Discussed Dufresne park new alcohol policies
    June elections discussed