SECARS is off to a great start in 2025, and I am really impressed with how much we have going on across several different aspects of amateur radio.  Here I will touch on what was a very active month of January with our Winter Party and Winter Field Day events.  We also have new plans for our Spring Fundraiser and are making plans to refurbish our repeater site.  We are building an exciting program of speakers to present on various aspects of amateur radio after our business meeting.  Several of our members are hosting antenna build parties, and we are beginning to make plans for Summer Field Day – one of our highlights of the year.

We kicked off the year with our Winter Party, which was held at the Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Hall in Gales Ferry.  About 20 people attended our annual potluck winter event, and though there were some minor issues with the venue, it was a good time.  I unfortunately could not attend due to a temporary illness, but I look forward to next year’s event.  We are looking at alternate venues that might offer more flexibility for food and beverage service.  I thank Pete Obuchowski K1PTO for his help planning the event.

Winter Field Day was a great success, and I thank Doug Brush N2BTB for planning the event.  We had the CT ARES Region 4 Mobile Communications Unit at the event.  It was a real hit, and you can see views of the interior at this link: https://ctares.org/mobile4.php  We also had several HF stations set up inside the Uncasville Red Cross, which used the event to test the robustness of their emergency power generation equipment.  There were three stations running at a time – in phone, digital and CW modes.  Our final score was over 1700 points, and we made 174 contacts during the event – across 45 sections and every US region and Canada.    There were a dozen visitors during the day, including ARRL Section Manager Douglas Sharafanowich WA1SFH.  My thanks to all who participated.

 

Our Spring Fundraiser will be a little bit different this year.  Instead of running a live auction, we will have a flea market at the same venue – Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Hall in Gales Ferry.  We will have indoor and outdoor space for sellers and tailgating.  There will also be door prizes from ARRL.  Stop by and pick up some amateur radio gear!  This is also a great opportunity to clean out your shack and sell rarely used items.  We will resume with our live auction format in October.

Our repeater site will be cleaned up and refurbished this year.  We will finally get rid of the mice (and their droppings), have the contaminated insulation and wallboard removed, install better climate control (ductless splits), redo the roof, repaint the exterior and install keyless entry into the building.  We have begun a capital campaign to support this work and have already raised 25% of our $8K target.  If you wish to donate to the campaign, please visit our donation site at https://secars.org/secars-donation-page/  Be sure to designate your gift to the building fund if you wish to support this effort.  We will also need volunteers to help with some of the work, so if you are handy please consider helping out.  The rodent abatement work and cleanup will all be professionally contracted.

Finally, we have numerous exciting programs running to help you build your knowledge and acquire some useful gear as well.  A successful tape measure Yagi build was conducted recently, and based on the success of that event Bob Nazro W1RPQ and Pete Obuchowski will be conducting two more antenna builds this spring.  One will be for a POTA vertical antenna – complete with ground plane.  The second will be for an off center fed dipole antenna to enable HF work at home.  There is  a modest fee to acquire parts for each.  Contract Bob or Pete to sign up – details are on our website.  We also have an exciting seminar program building.  In January we learned about digital voice hotspots, and just this month we had a talk on Civil Air Patrol communications.  Next month we will hear from Fred Kemmerer AB1OC on how to put up a tower.  Then in April we have Dennis Egan W1UE presenting on propagation prediction software.  Fred will be telling us later in the year how to work EME – an unconquered frontier for me in amateur radio.  If you would like to conduct a program or presentation after a club meeting, contact me at ke1iumark@gmail.com.  All topics related to amateur radio or electronics are welcome.  My goal is to fill the calendar for the year.

As you can see, we are very active.  Thank you for all of your support, and I look forward to an exciting year of amateur radio at SECARS!

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