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.

 

Awards: Hudson River Radio Relay 2021

 

Bringing together so many amateur radio clubs focused on a single goal was actually a pretty special experience

Lets talk about the event and highlight some amazing achievements by our local amateur radio community who took part in the first annual Hudson River Radio Relay event, this year featuring Bannerman's Island.

HR3:2021 Top Op Award

Our goal as a collective group of 8 stations was to make 2,000 radio contacts in 4 hours.  

While we fell short of this goal and only managed to generate 526 contacts, this was still amazing since that works out to more than 2 contacts per minute!

This year, the N2O station which was operated by the Orange County Amateur Radio Club made the most contacts at 194 in total.

Brian N2BTD, John KD2PTX, James KD2VTM and Dane KD2SSS were the ones who did most of the heavy lifting that day. 

They will have a lot to do next year to beat the score and fend off all other participants. Nicely done N2O OCARC Team!  

From left to right, only a small part of team N2O
John KD2PTX, Bruce KD2PSP, Erica N2TUC, Dane KD2SSS, & Stephen KD2JJY

HR3:2021 Individual Top Op Awards

With the N2O team logging the most collective contacts, it was Brian N2BTD (87) who just narrowly beat out Lloyd K2JVX (83) as part of the N2B team organized by HVDN for the most contacts overall.  Third place goes to John KD2PTX with 59 total contacts.   

What seemed to be the trend for Brian, Lloyd and John was to keep things simple. All only focused on voice modes and spent the majority of the time on 20m, but both John and Brian jumped to other bands and added even more contacts which helped them do so much amazing work.

While Brian and John both operated from fixed position mobile stations talked more about in the upcoming N2O article, Lloyd was stationary on Bannerman's Island  also known as USIAP NY-047, POTA K-2079 and COTA K-00047 which will be talked about in a N2B specific article. 

Lloyd K2JVX operating as N2B from Bannerman's Island - USIAP NY047's 1st activation! 

HR3:2021  Grid Iron Gang Awards

A major focus of the Hudson River Radio Relay (HR3) event during the ARRL VHF Contest which overlapped our special event on June 12th was to see how many grids we could work as a group not only on VHF, but also on HF.

Steve K2GOG, the main organizer of the HR3, faced some disbelief that HF operators would share a grid locator, since that is normally something only done on VHF, satellite and some SOTA or POTA activations. As it turns out, this was not as big an issue as many had said it would be when making contacts on HF.

For the collective group of eight special event stations, a total of 134 grid squares were contacted in four hours and the N2O powerhouse team notched 77 grids.  

The HVDN N2B team reached 61 grids and a third place tie of 44 went to both the N2N station run by the Peekskill & Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association (PCARA)  and the N2S station jointly operated by the QSY Society and the Mt. Beacon Amateur Radio Club. A more detailed breakdown will follow.

Visualization of some of the grids worked per station
as part of the first Hudson River Radio Relay 

HR3:2021 Continental Distance Award

Possibly a surprise to those who were part of the Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club who worked very hard to reach a total of 19 contacts was the fact that they had one of the few contacts across North America to reach the furthest.   

All the way on the opposite side of the country in grid CN87 was KB7THX at 2,455 miles away and Al is who to thank for pulling in two of our special event stations in out on the west coast.

While the N2S station also happened to make contact with KB7THX twice and on 20m and 40m, it was the OMARC team who did it first according to our time stamped log and is why they are crowned the champion for the HR3:2021 Continental Distance Award thanks to this effort on 17m from Kingston Point Park in Ulster County.

They grew an antenna!  The N2H OMAR team getting ready.
Photo foreground of David KD2MQE and Sarah.  Background Jeff KJ2DOC.
Visit the OMARC Facebook page for more details.

HR3:2021 Global Distance Award

The overall global distance award proved to be hotly contested between the N2O, N2B and N2D stations each reaching more than 4,000 miles away.

Beaming towards the east from FN31 was a nice 4,318 mile contact by N2B on 20m CW to Elemer HA9RE in KN08 and on 20m SSB to Matt SP2IST in JO94 for 4,033 miles.  

Just to the south of N2B was the United States Military Academy at West Point station on Constitution Island (USIAP NY073) operating as N2D. They managed to reach Tibi HA7TM using 20m FT8 in JN97 for a total of  4,277 miles.

It seemed we needed to possibly get into a six digit grid square locator to try and see who was the winner since it appeared as less than 41 miles separated N2D and N2B, but it seems that an error in the log that was later found showed that N2O in FN21 magically worked a 10m band opening 4,943 miles away into Brazil in grid GG43 thanks to PU5JVA on the other end.

The Orange County ARC team behind N2O seems like the team to beat next year! 

The N2D team led by N2WU on USIAP NY073 as its first official activation
along with other cadets looking on

Hudson Valley Heart Award

One of the major goals of the Hudson River Radio Relay event is to promote collaboration between our local community. In this case for 2021, the QSY Society and Mt. Beacon ARC worked together to make the N2S station at College Hill Park a success.  

For the future, it is our hope that other pairings of amateur radio clubs or other organizations like local schools, emergency response or other groups can work together to win the next Hudson Valley Heart Award in 2022. 

Here is a nice drone video taken by Sebastian KI2D who helped Scott W2NTV, Frank W2GIO, Adam AE2AN, Shirley N2SKP and so many others make N2S an example for our region.

HR3:2021 Squeaky Clean Award

The exchange for this special event was call sign,  first name and grid square. Many participating clubs have a lot to work on when it comes to accuracy and completeness when it comes to information exchange. 

Having these skills is important should amateur radio ever be needed for realistic emergency communications.  

Details such as a first name and location could be extremely useful for difficult situations, especially if a club callsign was used and its not clear who the operator on the other end was.  

Same goes for approximate location which is possibly even more valuable compared to exchanging ARRL sections as is done during the annual ARRL Field Day event coming up on June 26th and 27th 2021.

Of a total of 72 contacts, the N2N station operated by the Peekskill & Cortland Amateur Radio Association required almost no in depth analysis  based on very complete logs. Random fact checking also proved a high level of accuracy by the PCARA team.  

Team N2N showing how a well organized operating position
helped them possibly win the squeaky clean log award in 2021.
Indian Point Nuclear Power Station is in the distance.

HR3:2021 Digital Achievement Award

Our four hour long special event focused on promoting four different types of amateur radio technology.  

Analog voice and Morse code have been around for a very long time, but newer counterparts such as digital voice modes like DMR or digital data modes like FT8 are growing in popularity and relevance to the modern amateur radio enthusiast.

The Crystal Radio Club who operated as N2V for the event should not fool anyone with its name since all but one of its contacts came on FT8 and split between 6m, 20m and 40m bands.

For the future, we will look at any special event station that is part of HR3 with the highest percentage of  both any digital voice or digital data mode contacts made compared to the overall total they are able to log. Hopefully Paul K2PH and team can share the secrets of operating digital modes from the field so effectively. 

HR3:2021 Hudson Valley Tough Award

Surely, having to deal with loading all the gear on a boat and operate from an island plus having to bring it all up and down more than 70 wooden steps would make for an easy award for N2B, but the Putnam Emergency Amateur Radio League (PEARL)  seemingly had much tougher conditions to deal with as part of the N2U contingent located at Castle Rock Unique area as part of  POTA K-5161 and K-2079 plus COTA K-00825 in grid FN31.

According to Diana KD2AEG, there was nearly 5 foot tall grass that needed to be flattened out to make a clearing for the antenna and operating tent.

After making quasi crop circles with repurposed 4 foot military mast and a length of paracord, they needed to also do some emergency Power Pole repairs to power up the radios.

While they managed only four contacts and three of those coming via Morse code, much was learned and they are deserving of this year's Hudson Valley Tough Award.

Those scary clouds and tall grass were just a few more things which  did not prevent
PEARL's N2U station  from operating as part of Hudson River Radio Relay

HR3:2021 Awards Summary

• HR3:2021 Top Op Award - N2O - OCARC

• HR3:2021 Individual Top Op Award - N2O -N2BTD

• HR3:2021 Continental Distance Award - N2H - OMARC

• HR3:2021 Global Distance Award - N2O - OCARC

• HR3:2021 Grid Iron Gang Award - N2O - OCARC 

• HR3:2021 Hudson Valley Heart Award - N2S - QSY Society & MBARC

• HR3:2021 Squeaky Clean Award - N2N - PCARA

• HR3:2021 Digital Achievement Award - N2V - CRC

• HR3:2021 Hudson Valley Tough Award - N2U - PEARL

Since this is the first year of the Hudson River Radio Relay, we are going to allow each winner to create an award in the form of some sort of novelty that can be passed on to next year's winner, likely at some sort of official awards lunch for all those who participated in the 2022 event, for which we already have reserved the same special event callsigns.

Stay tuned for more details from each of our 2021 participants in an upcoming series of articles. The map below shows where all eight stations were located and direction of all contacts made.

Questions?

Steve Bossert K2GOG

Co-Founder, HVDN

Organizer, Hudson River Radio Relay

steve.bossert@gmail.com 

Putting the HV on the map with HR3 and HVDN

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.