ARRL Field Day 2023: Past Hudson Division Site Participation

 

Back in 2020, we saw the full effect of what COVID did to ARRL Field Day site participation. The total number of participants shrank, but the number of actual "on air" participants increased greatly.

Everyone who organizes an ARRL Field Day operation and who submits logs back to the ARRL collects an attendance sheet and is how site participation is measured. Participants can be those who operate over the air or just come to help with setting up the event or socializing.  

In 2023, those who participated from home the past few years hopefully rejoin us out in the field in the true spirit of what makes field day a real field day.

A few years ago Hudson Valley Digital Network (HVDN) decided to take the publicly available ARRL Field Day data and continue running some analytics about the event, just like we do with global Digital Voice Repeaters.  If interested in past related articles, please use the our search function in upper right of page.

For 2023, the COVID impacts should be not great and site participation should rebound in a big way. 

Weather conditions in some parts of the United States may impact site participation this year, but most who organize ARRL Field Day sites know how to plan around the weather to pull off a great 24 hour preparedness event. Are you ready?

This will also be the first year that HVDN officially participates in ARRL Field Day using our N2HVD callsign. More details on where and what we are doing along with the UNDR Group is listed on its blog page along with details on the search and rescue inspired radio direction finding challenge.

Local ARRL Field Day Participation

Here in what is known as the ARRL Hudson Division and overall site participation has seen an increase in site participation compared to the event wide average.  This is a great trend to see considering that overall attendance across the event has declined over the past 13 years.

Here is a view comparing average site attendance by each of the three sections within Hudson Division. 

Based on the data below, the Northern New Jersey Section with few exceptions has had the smallest average site participation whereas the Eastern New York Section has continued to show higher turnout from those looking to participate in ARRL Field Day.   

Within New York City/Long Island has shown some issues and could be due to people moving out of the area, such as a number of Hudson Valley Digital Network (HVDN) members who decided to move north for better access to public spaces or lower cost of living.

Accept This Challenge Now!

It does not matter if you stay at home and operate as a 1D or 1E station,  plan to join a few friends as part of a small B or C class operation  or be part of a club operation within A class or at an emergency operations center as F class, the point is get out there and enjoy ARRL Field Day this year and keep our local division growing. 

The part two of this article will cover how did Hudson Division do this year in terms of site participation after the event. There may also be a part three later this year when we have full event details to compare against national averages.

Here is the official ARRL Field Day Station Locator map with public sites listed. Based on Hudson Division Sections, a listing of Class A participants is below as of the time of this article a few days before the 2023 event for those organizing "A" class field day sites. The full dataset used to create the above charts is available here.

New York City & Long Island

1. K2GSG - Garden School Amateur Radio Club
2. NW2C - NorthEast Wireless Radio Club
3. KC2RC - Kings County Radio Club
4. K2VN - Nassau Amateur Radio Club
5. W2VL - Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club
6. W2GSB - Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club
7. W2LRC - Larkfield Amateur Radio Club
8. W2DQ - Suffolk County Radio Club
9. W2RC - Radio Central Amateur Radio Club & Order of Boiled Owls
10. W2AMC - Peconic Amateur Radio Club
11. K2EC - Bonac Amateur Radio Club

Eastern New York

1. N2SF - Westchester Emergency Communications Association
2. W2NYW - Peekskill Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association
3. K2PUT - Putnam Emergency Amateur Radio League
4. W2HO - Orange County Amateur Radio Club
5. K2QS - The QSY Society
6. N2HVD - HVDN & UNDR Group - Taconic - Hereford MUA
7. N2LL - Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club - Ferncliff Forest
8. K2OMD - Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club  - Norrie Park (Not listed on map)
9. W2EGB - East Greenbush Amateur Radio Association
10. K2CT/NY2U - Albany Amateur Radio Association & Troy Amateur Radio Association
11. W2IR/K2AE - Broughton Memorial Field Day Group
12. K2DLL - Saratoga County Amateur Radio Association
13. W2F - Eastern Fulmont/Mohawk Valley
14. WA2ZWM - Schoharie County Amateur Radio Association
15. W2WCR - Warren County Radio Club

Northern New Jersey

1. W2NPT - Fairlawn Amateur Radio Club
2. N2FLO - Franklin Lakes Office of Emergency Management
3. W2EF - West Essex Amateur Radio Club
4. W2YD - Morris Radio Club/Hanover Township Office of Emergency Management
5. WS2R - Splitrock Amateur Radio Association
6. W2LV - Sussex County Amateur Radio Club
7. N2XJ - New Providence Amateur Radio Club
8. K2ZV - Carteret Volunteers Amateur Radio Club
9. NJ2SP - South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club
10. W2CRA - Cherryville Repeater Association 

ARRL Hudson Division Awards (2020 & 2021)

Saturday November 13th was the  ARRL Hudson Division Awards Lunch which recognized various achievements across the regional amateur radio community in 2020 and 2021 right here in the Hudson Valley and slightly beyond into Northern New Jersey, New York City and Long Island.

Many prizes related to the ARRL's branding of "Cycle 25" were given out all afternoon as well as the usual ARRL publications, including some donations by a latter to be mentioned award winner.  

Ria Jairam N2RJ, ARRL Hudson Division Director, did a fantastic job in pulling this years event together along with the Orange County Amateur Radio Club and it was great again to have some form of in person event take place which the Amateur Radio Relay League was able to visibly lead.

Joe K1JT accepting an achievement award during the ARRL Hudson Division Awards Lunch from Ria N2RJ (Photo Credit: Joe  CupanoNE2Z)

The first featured guest speaker was  Dr. Joe Taylor K1JT, the inventor of so many of the low signal to noise ratio modes enjoyed by everyone involved in HF data communications via FT8 and FT4 as well as those with loftier goals via meteor, tropo-scatter and "Moon Bounce" communications who diplomatically befriend to make radio contact beyond our atmosphere such as JT65 and others.

Here is the new QRP Labs QDX SDR transceiver capable of FT8 plus other modes which we have Joe K1JT to thank  which Neil W2NDG and Steve K2GOG of HVDN recently received and are
quickly trying to build in time for WFD 2022 (Source:  QRPlabs.com)

Following Joe was David NA2AA, the current ARRL CEO, and he talked about everything from major changes taking place within the ARRL to help modernize communication via video based content to better ways to engage the the population which Hudson Valley Digital Network has already been focused on since our inception in 2017. David's discussion was refreshing and encouraging. 

In 2021,  HVDN has 37% of our audience coming from where the ARRL needs help. David NA2AA wants to find more ways to even more closely focus on the 30-40 year old population.
(Source:  HVDN Leadership Team)

It was really great hearing more about the changes that are needed at the ARRL at the national level and also at the regional level straight from the top.  

With the current ARRL CEO not being afraid to speak about his 11m days openly along with other topics which predecessors stayed away from, it should be exciting to see what is next within the ARRL, including "Project X", which hopefully HVDN can be a beta tester for via our upcoming events like HR3:2022.   

The Hudson Division with Ria N2RJ and David NA2AA have lots of work to do and it was great to see them again in person along with an impressive number of section leaders at a sold out event with approximately 100 people attending.

David NA2AA talked about solar cycle 25 and its importance it can have for the hobby for more than the next 11 years to help us grow during a time where much of the amateur radio community is not getting any younger. (Photo Credit: Joe Cupano NE2Z)

So many amazing awards were given out during the event, including those for technical achievements such as David WO2X's remote station projects using NodeRed and Alan W2AEW's energy put into his wonderful YouTube channel with over 341 videos and 159,000 subscribers.  

Alan W2AEW 2020 Technical Achievement and David WO2X 2021 Technical Achievement winners of the ARRL Hudson Division Awards presented on November 13th 2021
(Photo Credit: Joe Cupano NE2Z)

It was great to see one of the Hudson River Radio Relay leadership team responsible for the 2021 N2S station receive the 2020 Grand Ole Ham Award in part thanks to all his many years of being part of the amateur radio community  Congrats Adam AE2AN on this award!!

Adam AE2AN sharing a few words during his 2020 Grand Ole Ham award reception thanks to Ria N2RJ and her wonderful children who helped keep things on track in the later parts of the afternoon.
(Photo Credit: Joe Cupano NE2Z)

There were many other awards given which can be read about on the Hudson Division and sectional websites next they are updated, but lets close this article by highlighting the amateur of the year in the ARRL Hudson Division for this and last year since COVID prevented an awards meeting in 2020.

2020 ARRL Hudson Division Amateur of the Year:  Richie Cetron K2KNB

Richie is well known to many members of Hudson Valley Digital Network since a few of us used to live on Long Island and became good friends with him over the years, especially through using the wide coverage W2VL 146.850 MHz repeater while commuting or while at home.

Richie won this same award in 2012 for his leadership following the Hurricane Sandy disaster that disrupted life for so many.  Providing communications and social well being after a disaster like that was important and while Richie earned this award, he was quick to point out it was the work of many who made this possible.

Fast forward to 2021,  Richie earned this same award for the year 2020 for similar recognition which also helped ensure social comfort at the height of the COVID pandemic.  

While there were other amateur radio clubs such as the Mt. Beacon ARC and Overlook Mtn. ARC which also held social wellness discussions twice daily, the Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club which Richie is President of required a lot more effort to keep it running via many net control operators and many expensive to maintain repeaters which can be heard by all of NYC, Long Island, Westchester and elsewhere.   

Richie is a wonderful recipient of  an award like this and many amateurs can learn much from him in how he leads by example. Being President of LIMARC for now 11 years in itself is no easy task either, so this award is well deserved. Congratulations Richie!

Richard "Richie" Cetron K2KNB was awarded the prestigious 2020 ARRL Hudson Division Amateur of the Year award for his tireless efforts during the heights of the COVID pandemic.
(Photo Credit:  Joe Cupano NE2Z) 

2021 ARRL Hudson Division Amateur of the Year:  Steve Bossert K2GOG

2021 was a tough year and just like Richie K2KNB, the recipient of the 2021 ARRL Hudson Division Amateur of the year award earned this through his work in organizing a safe multi club, multi site special event called Hudson River Radio Relay.

The goal of the event was to help raise awareness for Bannerman's Island since they are funded by donations and tours. The pandemic affected the upkeep of the island and the surrounding communities of the Hudson River.  With eight participating special event stations, the event helped bring together more than ten amateur radio clubs and our local communities in a time of  little in person safe activities.

Steve Bossert K2GOG, one of the co-founders of Hudson Valley Digital Network and main organizer of the event, was given this award and is also the first award recipient in the ARRL Hudson Division for not being a current ARRL member.   It was fantastic that that ARRL chose to honor Steve with this award and is also a great way that shows that the ARRL advocates for everyone involved in amateur radio and not just its current members.

While Steve has only been a radio amateur operator for 23 of his almost 41 years of age, he has learned a lot from mentors like Richie K2KNB and many others who were either at this event or sadly, have passed away into Silent Key land.  Being able to lead and organize an event like this with so many unique challenges and personalities involved was a huge honor.

Success of the Hudson River Radio Relay event is widely captured in the local media and Steve was focused on highlighting so many of the people who helped make a first year event during a pandemic a huge success, even in challenging times, he barely spoke of himself. Here is a video of his acceptance and almost a the very end of a very nice lunch amongst peers of all ages.

 

Recipe for Success: What is RTTY?

Radioteletype or "RTTY" is a digital data mode that allows text to be sent over radio and has been around since the 1930's.   

Before RTTY signals were sent over wireless, teletype was used going back to the mid 1800's which makes this one of the oldest modes of non-spoken communication, just like Morse Code.

Within amateur radio, RTTY is commonly sent on HF bands by using 45.45 baud at 170 Hz shift width along with a mark frequency of 2125.  It is also possible to use RTTY on all other bands such as the popular 2m band and at even greater speed. What does this all mean?  Lets find out.....

RTTY Basics

The term "baud rate" is used to explain how many words per minute can be sent and there are 60 (45.45 baud), 67 (50 baud), 75 (56.25 baud) and 100 (75 baud) options as standard within amateur radio.  

Here is where sending large amounts of data really started thanks to RTTY since even trying to speak more than 60 words a minute may be a challenge for many people.

If you think about how that translates to 1200 baud which is what APRS uses, or the last generation of "dial up internet modems" in the late 1990's which used 56,000 baud and now, all the way to modern broadband which would be too fast to even easily think about, RTTY sounds pretty interesting, right?

Some of the earliest RTTY activity took place just down the Hudson River on Long Island and a brief history is available on the RTTY Wikipedia page.  Lets keep building on our regional history by keeping RTTY alive! 

Here is what a RTTY signal would look like and how the "mark" and "space" are visualized.

Each of the signal peaks are one of opposing tones that help identity bits in the symbols being sent which translate to letters, numbers and special characters.

While there are more efficient modes of "keyboard to keyboard" communication available today, RTTY is not only reliable, but easy to be sent with basic equipment.

We learned with SSTV experimentation during the weekly UNDR Net in September 2021 over the 146.805 MHz repeater operated by the Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club, its possible to send images, so now its time to send some text.

RTTY takes up around 250 Hz of receiver bandwidth if your radio is set for 170 Hz shift between the high and low tones. This is more than ok if you plan on sending RTTY over FM since a typical signal is 25 kHz wide, so there is more than enough room to send RTTY over FM.

The year 2021:  Why RTTY?

While RTTY is mainly used during special contests or between just a few friends, its still a mode that is worth keeping in your communications tool box.

A benefit of audio frequency shift key (AFSK) based modes is that they are easy to decode simply by holding a smartphone near your radio speaker. You can even send RTTY by holding the microphone of your radio near the speaker on your smartphone.

Better results can be had with a wired interface like the Easy Digi device for use with most any handheld radio or the Masters Communications Model RA-40. 

Some radios even include a built in decoder for RTTY like the Icom IC-7000, IC-7100 and IC-705. 

As we learned by sending the PD50 SSTV mode which takes about one minute over FM,  this should mean we can send at least 60 words of text or more in the same time using RTTY.  This capability could be very useful in certain situations where accuracy counts and a digital signal is better than speaking.

What if we wanted to share Uncle Grants Field Day Chili recipe over the air?  

According to the below photo courtesy of the ARRL, this recipe page has 313 words and it may actually be quicker sending a recipe like this over RTTY compared to multiple smaller sectional photos sent over PD50 SSTV or one higher resolution photo using the PD290 SSTV which would take almost 5 minutes!

The above recipe can certainly be condensed and reformatted for more "human readable" reception if sent over RTTY.

This will be one of our first tests in sending some interesting information using RTTY in the month of November during the UNDR Net.

If you are interested in joining our experiments, feel free to come up with your own interpretation of the above recipe and lets see who can transmit it the fastest that is human readable on the receiving end. 

Please join us every Tuesday at 8:00 PM Eastern US time in the month of November to listen in or participate with what we are doing each evening with RTTY.

IMPORTANT:   Starting December 6th 2021, UNDR Net will be moving to Monday 8:00 PM 

HR3:2021 Quick Engagement Results

Yesterday was the first annual Hudson River Radio Relay event. This year our fundraising theme was to support Bannerman's Castle Trust via GoFundMe and we managed to raise $1,418 in total with over $300 of that coming in the hours leading up to, during and just after the four hour event which took place from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern US time on June 12th

While we await the final logs from all eight of our participating special event stations to get compiled and posted to the HudsonRiverRadioRelay.com website, an initial estimate from casual discussion with most all the participating locations sounds like we should end up around 500 to 600 total contacts as a collective group.

There are so many positive things that will get mentioned about this event that will get published in the coming days along with lots of pictures and videos, but here is a quick snap shot just based on who visited each special event web page as well as the QRZ.com page for each of our eight callsigns.   

Both metrics were measured from between May 13th and June 13th at 10:00 AM EST.

It was expected the N2B station would possibly gain the most attention as a never before activated USIAP island NY047, but the N2O station rivaled our flagship location mainly due to its various USIAP, COTA, POTA and SOTA designations along with an amazing number of enthusiastic members that promoted what they were doing.

Our three stations that were not aided by affiliation of the different "on the air" categories like islands, parks or summits such as N2H, N2S and N2V seem to have also been very popular too over the last 30 days of measurements and deserve a lot of credit also.

The three lowest elevation stations, some only a few feet above the river such as N2U, N2D and N2N are hidden gems that deserve much more attention considering how hard they worked and are all actually very rare locations that we need to help promote even more for next year. 

Between these three stations, there was a brand new USIAP NY-073 on a US Army facility plus POTA K-2079, K-4582, K-5161, COTA K-00825 and the former home of the founder of Paramount Pictures.

What's Next?

Now that we have an official website visit metric posted just after the event, please go and learn more about each club and location they operated at during this special event by visiting HudsonRiverRadioRelay.com 

More detailed articles from each station highlighting each sponsoring club and a list of total event contacts plus the winner of our Xiegu G90 package raffle will be coming soon, so please follow the HVDN blog for more details between now and ARRL Field Day which is just under two weeks away.

NEWSFLASH: Virtual Hamfest!!!

So many amateur radio clubs that miss the ability to run a "hamfest" no thanks to COVID have become very creative in the past year.

Just outside of the official boundaries of the Hudson Valley is the Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club (LIMARC) and is one of the largest clubs in the United States. 

Since they have a HUGE network of expensive repeaters to maintain, they count on income generated from these social selling and buying events to keep things running.

HVDN loves to support anything that LIMARC does, since a few of us (K2GOG and W2NDG) were very active in that great club before we moved off of Long Island and up to the Hudson Valley.

Join us on February 28th at 9:00 AM Eastern for the 2nd time that LIMARC is doing a Virtual Hamfest.

Attendance is free and details are here at https://limarc.org/virtual-hamfest/ 

There are some excellent door prizes offered by many great organizations to help create more attendance, so feel free to check it out and see if we can get past the 1,000 person attendance limit the last Sunday of February.

Also, please do not forget about  what we hope will be a return to normalcy with a real hamfest by visiting https://hudsonvalleyhamfest.com/index.html and take our interest survey. 

HASviolet: Here's a Story about a Lovely Project

In the beginning . . .

It all started with a member of HVDN sharing the following idea with Steve, K2GOG and I

"I've been wanting to do a "communicator" for a while. Something that someone could use over relatively short distances to send text messages back and forth. I have been looking for others to work on a project with too!"

After some investigation LoRa was something to consider since it "should play well with the hacker/maker crowd and possibility the IoT/computer science area." From this point we thought it was a good idea to take forward and started developing a concept around it.

Yet another LoRa project?

We sifted through a number of existing published LoRa projects using Raspberry Pi and various microcontrollers. GitHub sites with code, libraries, and recommended hardware but most of them were just "proof of concepts" with no demonstrations of use cases are sharing of lessons learned whether as a "lone eagle" or part of a team.

Since there were going to be a number of skills we were going to develop along the way including building new skillsets our differentiator with this project would be sharing the journey through articles, videos, and (hopefully) good documentation.

Our Story and Hope

There were skill gaps to overcome but we were driven by the same desire.

• Do an open source RF project that bridges the maker/hacker and Amateur Radio communities
• Learn new or build existing skills along the way
• Inspire others to do the same

Inspiring others is not about contributing to this project (though it is welcome) it is about inspiring people to take big steps in making your ideas real and not be intimidated by any skills gap you or your compatriots have. Lot's of discussion and breaking progress down in small steps or sprints is what will keep the learning feel organic.

By emphasizing the project journey through a series of blog posts here, we hope to inspire you to chase your passion and through caution to the wind in developing skills you think are hard to build. You just need to find something you have a passion for and other like minds.

Finally, we would like to thank Joe N1JTA for the initial idea and taking time out of his busy schedule for early testing.

All the best,

- Joe, NE2Z

HVDN:GO - APRS Bridge Contest 2020

Crossing The Hudson River

Our region has five wonderful  bridges that span the Hudson River and Historic Bridges of the Hudson Valley has released a set of free collectible stickers available at any full service toll window.

All you have to do is roll up to any "human" toll collector and ask for your free sticker, its that easy.

HVDN Participation and Prizes?

One of HVDN's members suggested we mail out some of our limited edition "HVDN holographic" stickers or collectible pins to any licensed amateur radio operator who can beacon your location using APRS while on the bridges and share the proof via APRS.fi to show you have done it on at least 2 bridges!

Qualifying Bridges:

• Rip Van Winkle Bridge

• Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge

• Mid-Hudson Bridge

• Newburgh-Beacon Bridge

• Bear Mountain Bridge

• Walkway Over The Hudson (No Toll Required!!)

Challenges & Even Bigger Reward!

A challenge in the Hudson Valley right now is we do not have as many "digipeaters" to help relay weaker APRS signals across the valley and specifically where our northernmost bridges are located. 

Having a robust network of both digipeaters and igateways will help the region communicate general well being and potential emergency messaging much more effectively, especially in sanctioned ARES/RACES,  Red Cross or Medical Reserve Corps volunteer scenarios.

Amateur radio operators are very resourceful and this is why for anyone who can show proof of APRS operation on all six river spans will be given an official HVDN hooded sweatshirt. This offer is on a first to win basis and supplies are limited.

Current Digipeater and I-Gateway Locations

As you can see on the above map,  there is a large gap north of Poughkeepsie and the Mid-Hudson Bridge all the way up to Saugerties and the Rip Van Winkle Bridge.

One of HVDN's goals for 2020 is to raise awareness of this situation and to be an organization who through existing equipment/donations and  find sites to put equipment at to help fill this void for the betterment of the community.

So, please help us get out as many stickers, pins and hoodies as possible!!

Who does HVDN see making use of APRS? 

Amateur radio and our APRS systems plus other even more modern technologies can add much enjoyment to other hobby or activity interests. 

Here are some examples of users we see being able to benefit from increased APRS infrastructure:

• Hikers
• Campers
• Bike Riders
• Dog walkers
• Community volunteers
• Makers
• Farmers
• Emergency auxiliary communicators
• Weather forecasters
• Power outage alert needs
• Health based alerts needs
• Special event alert needs

Contest Rules

This contest runs from March 11th 2020 until December 31st 2020. 

• All entries must include proof of APRS beacon via APRS.fi from your home address or closest post office AND:

• To qualify for an HVDN pin or sticker, contest participants must show proof by beaconing location over APRS from two of the six bridge spans in the same 30 day period during the contest along with at least one matching bridge stickers.

• To qualify for a free HVDN hooded sweatshirt, contest participants must show proof by beaconing location over APRS from all six bridge spans and at least three of the five bridge stickers in the same 30 day period during the contest.

• All APRS activity must be done over an analog AX.25 RF path. No "APRS-Droid", DMR, D-Star variants.

• Reward submissions may be emailed to info@hvdn.org  and must include the following:

• APRS.fi URL showing your callsign/SSID 

• Photo of bridge stickers

• Address to mail prize to 

Questions/Media Inquiries:

Steve Bossert
Co-Founder, HVDN
E-Mail:  steve.bossert@gmail.com
Phone:  +1.914.573.1799

How was it? February HVDN Meeting

Even with all the snow, ice, sub-zero temperatures and sporadic unseasonably warm winter weather, it was possible for just over 20 people to venture out on March 11th and take part in the first Hudson Valley Digital Network meeting of 2019.

What was on the agenda?

Our meeting inspired both the local maker community and national level of amateur radio leadership to have representation that illustrated first hand what amateur radio is all about as created by the Federal Communications Commission almost 100 years ago!

Because amateur radio is a federally licensed service, we have our own unique set of rules to follow. Part 97.1 of the FCC rules found in many places such as government, lobbyist and even legal academic websites such as New York's own Cornell Law School.  

From the over 21,000 MHz of discontinuous wireless spectrum we are provided to the equipment, power levels and information we are allowed to transmit - there is so much that amateur radio can offer a wide range of hobbyists that goes unnoticed at times today.

The major draw of the evening in Rhinebeck New York at the ultra modern co-working space aptly named CO. were our two presenters. Sean Swehla of the Squidwrench maker group and rarest of rare contacts to ever make through "on the air" methods, talked about the upcoming (and nearly sold out!)  Build It: Oscilloscope & Signal Source event taking place on March 9th.

This upcoming event focuses on education about soldering and how many hobbyist groups can benefit through education of practical use of basic or advanced test equipment.

STEM & Amateur Radio Together?

In comparison, our other presenter was Ria Jairam spends much more time making use of the wireless amateur radio spectrum compared to Sean who also holds an amateur radio license but they both have different yet similar hobby interests which is one thing that makes amateur radio great!

Ria holds the distinction of being the newly elected Hudson Division Director of the Amateur Radio Relay League provided a great presentation and insight as to the priorities of the ARRL at the highest levels including renewed focus around Science, Technology, Engineering & Math.

She also highlighted the new executive leadership of the ARRL and experiences that will help ensure that amateur radio principles are made more visible to wider audiences. Ria also highlighted the newly improved and expanded Hudson Division website and its activity calendar.

The Future Of Amateur Radio

The organizers and presenters of the meeting all agreed that the future of amateur radio is under attack if we as a community do not promote modern and relevant aspects of the hobby in an overly connected world we have come to know today. 

The attending audience seemed to be in agreement and following the presentations during refreshments were many discussions covering topics including some of the following:

• DMR University (Details shared in person by Len N2LEN at the meeting too!)
• Satellite communications
• Electronically steerable antenna
• Upcoming Trenton Computer Festival  (Thanks Joe N1JTA & Steve K2GOG)
• What is the Circle of HOPE? (Thanks Joe NZ2E)

The next HVDN meeting will be on March 11th at 6:00 PM in Rhinebeck with location details at https://hvdn.org/meeting . Featured March discussions will likely include:

• Sneak preview of Steve K2GOG's satellite spectrum presentation and live demonstration of SATCOM

• Oscilloscope use cases based on the DSO150 scope and signal source constructed at Build It two days prior.

• Special guest speaker and topic 

Anyone interested in suggesting future presentation topics or contributing in some other way (snacks, prizes, etc) for the future meetings, please contact HVDN at info <at> hvdn <dot> org