Many have asked about Skywarn training. The following classes are scheduled. Some of these say there is no registration required, but I would encourage you to track down someone to confirm date and time. See www.weather.gov for your local office. In Norwalk, our local office is http://www.weather.gov/okx/
Listed below are the Basic Spotter Training Sessions that have been scheduled so far for the spring of 2015. Nothing has been scheduled yet for the southern counties covered by NWS New York, (Upton). When they are they will be announced.
Litchfield County Monday April 13th 6:30PM Warren Fire Dept 2nd floor 11 Sackett Hill Road Cornwall Bridge Pre-registration required but the registration link has not been set up yet at the NWS Albany webpage www.weather.gov/aly
Tolland County Thursday May 7th 7:00 PM Andover Firehouse 11 School Road Andover Pre-registration required contact rmacedo@rcn.com
Windham County Tuesday May 12th 7:00PM Ashford Town Hall Room 104 lower level 5 Town Hall Road Ashford No Registration required
Hartford County Monday June 8th 7:00 PM Granby Senior Center 15 North Granby Road Granby (Behind Town Hall) No registration required
See this link, or the Comm Center menu for the current to do list! Please help!
Over a dozen members turned out to operate, talk radio and generally have a good time! Dan made a lot of CW contacts on 15m, several people brought their DMR radios to talk about programming, a new member needed some help with his Yaesu 7900, and a couple of dead HF radios were brought in for others to help fix.
Coffee and bagels were on hand as well. A great radio morning.
Here is the presentation given by Steve, K1RF at the February 11, 2015 GNARC meeting.
Many hams turned out for the first operating event at the GNARC communications center.
Winter field day contacts were made to over 30 states and 36 sections. 20m and 40m were the bands we used. Much food was consumed, and a good time was had by all. Several new members visited the facility for the first time, and got to see it in action. Other hams brought kids to show them a little about the hobby.
Thanks to Sam NV1P for getting this going! See a few pictures below.
For those who haven’t heard, The Society for the Preservation of Amateur
Radio (SPAR <http://www.spar-hams.org/
winter field day every year. It’s a wonderful opportunity to operate in one
of the more relaxed contests, as the bands are far less crowded (there were
55 logs submitted last year), and there can be some back and forth
conversation besides just a signal report. Most of the time you first have
to explain why you’re calling CQ field day 6 months early, but it leads to
some interesting comments.
This year GNARC will be running a field day site at the comm center, and
everyone is invited. Just like the summer field day this won’t be all about
radio. Did I mention we have a commercial kitchen? Bring your friends and
family for a day (and night) of radio fun and non-radio food. You’ll get a
chance to operate great equipment into a great antenna on HF, and enjoy the
benefits of a “Winter picnic” without having to freeze.
We’ll be running from noon on Sat, Jan 24 to noon on the 25th, though it’ll
be appreciated if a few show up a little early for setup.
73,
Sam
2014 has been a great year for GNARC. We had a fantastic summer picnic at Paul’s (WB2JVB) house, Field Day had great food and great DX, and most recently we had the holiday party.
But, while these events are fun, we do them every year. Starting in January 2014 we changed our meeting place to the brand new emergency operations center at the Norwalk Fire Headquarters, which was a huge step up from Stop and Shop or Shop Rite. We finally had a room where there was a place to project presentations, and have the seating for people to see it! Not only that, but we weren’t freezing while doing it! We were finally able to hold meetings without having to hear “cleanup, Aisle 3”. As if that wasn’t enough, after many years of being a wandering club, in September we acquired a new place to call home. The new Emergency Communications Center at 100 Fairfield Ave. is the permanent official home of the Greater Norwalk Amateur Radio Club.
Prior to this, the only physical place where the club existed full time was a P.O. box and a storage trailer, and neither one of those places is very inviting for a prospective ham. We only had a tiny 2 hour window each month with which to introduce someone to our club, after which all we could do was point them to a website. Even then, all they were able to experience was a business meeting and a presentation where (with a few exceptions) a radio was never even keyed up. I recall one meeting where I had invited a friend, whose impression of it was “Where are the radios? You’re a radio club, right?” Which leads me to another point; through the hard work and dedication of a group of members, we now have a station that can be used to show prospective and new hams what our hobby is all about.
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