Six metre enthusiasts, VHF/UHFers, Moonbouncers, Scatterers and the like often use maidenhead grid locators to track their contacts. In their simplest form, Maidenhead grids divided the Earth into 1x2 degree chunks. When working over shorter distances with microwaves, a more fine-grained grid is used. Maidenhead is hierarchical, with most using the 4 character form. For instance, I live in FN03, but the club meets in FN04, which is a couple of hundred metres to the North of me. Each pair of characters represents a grid "square" (they're not square. In fact they're not even rectangular, although they would be if the Earth were flat).
Recently I happened upon an excellent on-line map with a Maidenhead grid overlay on a Hungarian Web Site. Even better, by clicking the appropriate button on the top right, there's a DXCluster link that shows communications paths on the map. The map lets you zoom in from the 2 to the 4 to the 6 character locators.
On VHF and UHF, the ARRL VUCC award recognizes 100 confirmed contacts with different grid squares. The ARRL also has the Fred Fish award recognizing contacts with every grid square which contains a piece of the continental US. FN03 is one of those, and according to the rules a contact with me would count for that award even though I'm on the Canadian side.
73,
Chris
Showing posts with label ARRL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ARRL. Show all posts
Sunday, 21 August 2016
Friday, 11 September 2015
The 1958 ARRL Convention (Ontario Chapter)
First announced in the April 1958 edition of QST magazine, this convention was held on October 18th in Hamilton, Ontario, at the Connaught Hotel (now a condominium development, pictured below) at 112 King St. East. Admission was $5 including the banquet, which featured a guest speaker. Contact for the event was Bob Parry, VE3DJE (no longer listed as the owner of that call). Bob is listed in the convention register along with his wife Vivian. It's unfortunate that QST didn't report on the actual conventions, so there aren't any pictures or write-ups on the happenings there.
In the same year the ARRL National Convention was in Washington, DC. It looked like an interesting program with tours of the White House, The Naval Research Laboratory, the Pentagon and a Nike Installation, the Voice of America, the Capitol, the Smithsonian, and the Arlington Cemetery. The amateur radio program included sessions on VHF, Mobile, TVI, RACES, Antennas, Contests, Code, RTTY, DX. A Wouff Hong Ceremony was held as well. The registration fee was $5, although the banquets, including the Hiram Percy Maxim memorial banquet ($6.50) were extra.
A night in the Sheraton Park Hotel was $7.50 to $14. The "parlor suites" were $17.50 to $22.00. That same year, the Sheraton Park Hotel also hosted the 3rd Annual AFA Jet Age Conference, the 2nd National Conference on Aviation Education, and the American Helicopter Society 14th Annual Annual National Forum. The Cold War was at its peak. Less than two years later, John F. Kennedy said "The enemy is lean and hungry and the United States is the only strong sentinel at the gate" at that same hotel.
The convention was organized by a consortium of 15 radio clubs in the Washington area. That's an impressive degree of cooperation!
Our club's own meeting register, dating from 1963 to 1969 matches the convention register in only one respect - that Harvey Bell VE3AFK, a prominent figure in club history, is listed in both. Neither Frank Preuten VE3FEP nor Jim Spence VE3BBX (SK), who attended the 1957 Convention in Toronto and also appear in the club register, weren't there in 1958. Fred Hammond, VE3HC was there in 1958 but not in '57.
In the same year the ARRL National Convention was in Washington, DC. It looked like an interesting program with tours of the White House, The Naval Research Laboratory, the Pentagon and a Nike Installation, the Voice of America, the Capitol, the Smithsonian, and the Arlington Cemetery. The amateur radio program included sessions on VHF, Mobile, TVI, RACES, Antennas, Contests, Code, RTTY, DX. A Wouff Hong Ceremony was held as well. The registration fee was $5, although the banquets, including the Hiram Percy Maxim memorial banquet ($6.50) were extra.
A night in the Sheraton Park Hotel was $7.50 to $14. The "parlor suites" were $17.50 to $22.00. That same year, the Sheraton Park Hotel also hosted the 3rd Annual AFA Jet Age Conference, the 2nd National Conference on Aviation Education, and the American Helicopter Society 14th Annual Annual National Forum. The Cold War was at its peak. Less than two years later, John F. Kennedy said "The enemy is lean and hungry and the United States is the only strong sentinel at the gate" at that same hotel.
The convention was organized by a consortium of 15 radio clubs in the Washington area. That's an impressive degree of cooperation!
Our club's own meeting register, dating from 1963 to 1969 matches the convention register in only one respect - that Harvey Bell VE3AFK, a prominent figure in club history, is listed in both. Neither Frank Preuten VE3FEP nor Jim Spence VE3BBX (SK), who attended the 1957 Convention in Toronto and also appear in the club register, weren't there in 1958. Fred Hammond, VE3HC was there in 1958 but not in '57.
Friday, 4 September 2015
On My Way to Mars
A recent ARRL letter provided a link to a NASA web site that takes your name (and call sign) and includes it on a microchip in on the "Insight" mission Mars lander. There's no explicit way to add the call sign so I added it after my last name. Last day to register is September 8th. All aboard!
 |
| Boarding Pass |
Wednesday, 19 August 2015
1957 Toronto ARRL Convention - Part Two
A recent post about the 1957 ARRL Convention in Toronto noted that the date was not given on the convention register. Fortunately, QST had been published since long before 1957 and sure enough the convention was listed as happening in "Ontario Province, Toronto" on October 18 and 19.
Even today, there are frequent ARRL Division Conventions held in the US, but sadly not in Canada now that RAC has taken their place as the organization representing Canadian Amateurs. Here is the schedule of conventions in 1957.
* The ARRL National Convention was in Chicago that year.
QST listed the convention from April 1957 onward, which was good lead time compared to some which appeared only 2 months prior to the date. Aside from the implication, which was close to the truth, that amateurs were all male at the time, it is quite remarkable that it was held at the King Edward Hotel in downtown Toronto, which has accommodated kings, queens, movie stars, famous authors (including Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling and Ernest Hemingway), and so forth, for a fee of just $5.00 including dinner.
You couldn't buy an hors d'oeuvre there for $5.00 now. Mind you, the minimum wage then was in the neighbourhood of 60 cents an hour, so adjusted to today's minimum wage we're around $75 for registration and dinner.
Reprinted with the permission of the ARRL. Copyright ARRL. Courtesy October 1957 QST.
Another interesting habit of those more innocent times was the publication of people's home addresses. The newspapers did this as well. That would not go over very well these days.
Another noteworthy item is in the second paragraph about the initiation into the ROWH, which is of course the "Royal Order of the Wouff Hong", which hams may ignore at their peril!
An interesting story about buying a Wouff Hong ash tray made for the 1948 ARRL Convention is on KY4Z's blog.
The convention register lists attendees, including "the ladies" numbering in the mid 200's, well short of the "Over 700" expected. However there is a note in one of the later conventions that not everyone who was there signed the book. Perhaps that was the case in this one as well.
A careful search of the pages of the Toronto Star and the Toronto Globe and Mail revealed no mention of the convention, despite coverage of dozens of other conventions in the month of October, 1957.
One of them, earlier in the month, was the convention of the Institute of Radio Engineers. One article featured their discussions of tracking Sputnik with a computer. Sputnik orbited the Earth during both conventions, and no doubt was a topic of intense conversation at the ARRL Convention as well.
Even today, there are frequent ARRL Division Conventions held in the US, but sadly not in Canada now that RAC has taken their place as the organization representing Canadian Amateurs. Here is the schedule of conventions in 1957.
| City | State/Prov | Date |
| Grand Rapids | Michigan | March 8-9 |
| Tahlequah | Oklahoma | June 1-2 |
| St. Paul | Minnesota | June 7-9 |
| Estes Park | Colorado | June 15-16 |
| San Antonio | Texas | July 27-28 |
| Long Beach | California | August 16-18 |
| Chicago * | Illinois | August 30 - September 1 |
| Charlottetown | Prince Edward Island | August 31 - September 1 |
| Kansas City | Kansas | September 21-22 |
| Long Beach | California | August 16-18 |
| Toronto | Ontario | October 18-19 |
| Long Beach | California | August 16-18 |
| Guam | (Far East Division) | November 8-11 |
* The ARRL National Convention was in Chicago that year.
QST listed the convention from April 1957 onward, which was good lead time compared to some which appeared only 2 months prior to the date. Aside from the implication, which was close to the truth, that amateurs were all male at the time, it is quite remarkable that it was held at the King Edward Hotel in downtown Toronto, which has accommodated kings, queens, movie stars, famous authors (including Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling and Ernest Hemingway), and so forth, for a fee of just $5.00 including dinner.
You couldn't buy an hors d'oeuvre there for $5.00 now. Mind you, the minimum wage then was in the neighbourhood of 60 cents an hour, so adjusted to today's minimum wage we're around $75 for registration and dinner.
Reprinted with the permission of the ARRL. Copyright ARRL. Courtesy October 1957 QST.
Another interesting habit of those more innocent times was the publication of people's home addresses. The newspapers did this as well. That would not go over very well these days.
Another noteworthy item is in the second paragraph about the initiation into the ROWH, which is of course the "Royal Order of the Wouff Hong", which hams may ignore at their peril!
An interesting story about buying a Wouff Hong ash tray made for the 1948 ARRL Convention is on KY4Z's blog.
The convention register lists attendees, including "the ladies" numbering in the mid 200's, well short of the "Over 700" expected. However there is a note in one of the later conventions that not everyone who was there signed the book. Perhaps that was the case in this one as well.
A careful search of the pages of the Toronto Star and the Toronto Globe and Mail revealed no mention of the convention, despite coverage of dozens of other conventions in the month of October, 1957.
One of them, earlier in the month, was the convention of the Institute of Radio Engineers. One article featured their discussions of tracking Sputnik with a computer. Sputnik orbited the Earth during both conventions, and no doubt was a topic of intense conversation at the ARRL Convention as well.
Wednesday, 12 August 2015
The 1957 ARRL Convention - Toronto
A register of participants in Canadian ARRL Conventions (and some other meetings) was given to me last year. As part of my historical research into YRARC I've searched the pages for callsigns that I recognize. Some of them, like P.D. (Phil) Balmer VE3BAL, have a familiar callsign but are now in someone else's possession, which is no surprise some 58 years later. Also Al, VE3UT is not the VE3UT we all know.
Cross referencing is made all the more difficult by the hand-written entries, often with signatures rather than printed names, despite having "Please Print" at the top of the page . Here's page 1. You can click through if you want to examine it in more detail.
The pages are so long they don't fit on my scanner. The first column denotes ARRL membership. Unfortunately there is no date other than 1957 in the register and Google has provided no joy in finding out anything further about the event.
The second last line of this page shows the signature of Alex Reid, VE3BE, who was the Canadian Director of the ARRL at the time.
The club connection I found (on a subsequent page of the register) was that of Ron Cronk, VE3EBD. He hosted the first meeting of the York North Amateur Radio Club of 1963 but did not attend any other meetings and did not identify himself as a member of the club in the meeting register.
There are probably some other people of note at this meeting and I've found some familiar names in the subsequent meetings but I will save that for a later date.
Cross referencing is made all the more difficult by the hand-written entries, often with signatures rather than printed names, despite having "Please Print" at the top of the page . Here's page 1. You can click through if you want to examine it in more detail.
The pages are so long they don't fit on my scanner. The first column denotes ARRL membership. Unfortunately there is no date other than 1957 in the register and Google has provided no joy in finding out anything further about the event.
The second last line of this page shows the signature of Alex Reid, VE3BE, who was the Canadian Director of the ARRL at the time.
The club connection I found (on a subsequent page of the register) was that of Ron Cronk, VE3EBD. He hosted the first meeting of the York North Amateur Radio Club of 1963 but did not attend any other meetings and did not identify himself as a member of the club in the meeting register.
There are probably some other people of note at this meeting and I've found some familiar names in the subsequent meetings but I will save that for a later date.
Saturday, 8 August 2015
RAC Releases Updated Canadian HF Band Plan
Friday's ARRL Letter mentioned that a new HF band plan for 0 to 30MHz was released, including the new 600 (a.k.a. 630 metre) and 2200 metre bands. It appears to have been released very recently despite having an effective date of January 1, 2015. The format is very similar to the ARRL equivalent for US hams. It is available for viewing on-line or for download as a PDF file.
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