PARC | Ham Radio

The Best Amateur Radio Club in Florida

Category: Community Page 15 of 17

Announcing the Playground ARC Holiday Party!

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On July 28, 2024

In Announcement, Community, Events, Holiday Party!

The Playground Amateur Radio Club, INC. is proud to announce that we will be hosting our annual Holiday event December 15th from 4 to 7 pm as a Banquet in the newly renovated event space at Angler’s on Okaloosa Island Florida! We formally invite you to bring your friends & family and come out for a night of friendship and fun to close out our year together! We hope to award 2024 Ham of the Year to all clubs. So if you are part of a club you would like to have it and your members at this event recognized, please contact us at parcfwb@gmail.com
Stay tuned for updates, as this event is going to be big!
Please email kq4frb@gmail.com if you would like to RSVP!!! Donate Here! 

HAM CLOCK!

By

On July 28, 2024

In Announcement, Community, Events

A ham clock is a digital display that shows information about the Earth, space weather, moon phases, and more! It can be used by amateur radio operators, also known as ham radio operators, for a variety of purposes:
  • Finding grid squares
    While traveling, a ham clock can help you find the grid square for any location
  • Displaying information
    When you click on a location on the map, a ham clock can show information such as the time, latitude and longitude, grid square, sunrise and sunset, and distance
  • Tracking satellites
    You can select from a list of satellites in the upper left corner of the map

Want to build one?! Here is you chance to learn how!

August 1st 2024 at 730 pm CST. 17 A First St Se in Beautiful Downtown Fort Walton Beach Florida! Tom N2XU will take you through it all!

W4ZBB K4FWB is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Playground ARC Technical Nights
Time: Aug 1, 2024 07:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Every month on the First Thu, 12 occurrence(s)
Aug 1, 2024 07:30 PM

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/82219749948?pwd=tobOdo02WqXjuCPuVW4yNjF7BGlbwY.1

Meeting ID: 822 1974 9948
Passcode: Playground

Jackson County Amateur Radio Association

By

On July 28, 2024

In Announcement, Events, Hamfest/Tailgate!, Testing

Fresh off the heels of the Milton Hamfest and it’s quaint stability we learned from one of our traveling friends that there is an awesome show coming up in Biloxi! We were invited of course and are working plans to CQ and DX our way over to support those that continue to support us!

 

The Jackson County folks have been coming to our events for a long time! Be it our annual full blown Hamfest or be it our tailgate! So why Not! Let’s show them what PARC is all about and participate with them! See the flyer and the web link below for more details!

HamFest

Making a Fox Hole Radio

By

On July 21, 2024

In Announcement, Community

Want to do something fun and purposeful?

Alex, KO4OJQ, came to the Club with an interesting build in work to show off! A Fox Hole Radio?

What is a fox hole radio?! A foxhole radio is a makeshift crystal radio that soldiers built during WW2 to listen to local radio stations for entertainment. The radios were a safer alternative to vacuum tube radios, which could be traced by the enemy, and were often built using basic parts that didn’t require a battery. That’s right!! No power required!

Supplies
• Toilet paper tube
• Razor blade (If you can find a Blue one like the “PAL Super Single Edge”
then great. Otherwise, you’ll have to blue it by heating it up)
• Earphone
• Large safety pin
• Wood pencil stub
• Magnet wire
• A scrap of wood
• Paper clips
• Tacks

To make it, in short, 120 wire wraps around a tube tied to an antenna, a ground and a detector. They serve in conjunction with a cat whisker (pencil) and a razor blade with a high impedance earphone as a monitoring device.

This is essentially a crystal radio that can be used to hear music, news, and all other information transmitted over the AM broadcast band. AM radio is still viable the world over and in the United States, vital information is still passed over it. Don’t believe us? Turn off your Spotify and take a listen!

For detailed instructions go here: https://cdn.makezine.com/make/wp_foxholeradio.pdf

Don’t forget to stop in at the Playground Amateur Radio Club on Sunday’s at 3 pm central time! You never know what will come in the door!

 

 

 

Meet Paul!

By

On July 7, 2024

In Announcement, Community

Meet Paul Sapp, N4HFZ, a former USAF Flight Simulator VET (30 Years) used to go to Castle AFB in California and was able to sign for excess equipment that had passed its technological service due to the rapid technological expansion following WW2. His collection includes operational gear from the 1950’s and on. The old military equipment from his MARS days at Castle AFB is to be considered a donation to the Playground Amateur Radio Club!

The following items are now added as Playground Club property and enhance the test bench!

OS-8E oscilloscope: got it new, Replaced parts over the years, but still functional. With manual

TS-505 Electronic Multimeter: worked ok years ago, haven’t used it in15 years. With manual.

URM-26 Signal Generator: works ok, but attenuation circuit may be faulty. Tunes about 200 kHz to 30 m Hz.

To see and learn to use these assets, please stop in at the Playground Amateur Radio Club based on our Calendar for our weekly Pile-Ups! You never know, you too can learn the ways of the old to understand what influenced the new! Be more than an operator, be a technician!

13 July 2024, 0900 Test Session for Ham License/Upgrades

By

On June 30, 2024

In Announcement, Events, Testing

Are you ready to obtain your Ham Ticket?!

Are you looking to UPGRADE your License Class?!

If you said yes then check out the ARRL Recommendations at: https://www.arrl.org/getting-licensed

Our Next Test Session is on 13 July, 2024 at 0900. Located at 17 First St SE in Beautiful Downtown Fort Walton Beach Florida!

Good luck and see you there! Please follow the instructions on our EXAMS Page: https://w4zbb.org/exams/

Need an app on the go to prepare? Check out: https://hamradioprep.com/ham-radio-study-guide/

Romeo the dog says “CQ”

Field Day Results for Team PARC

By

On June 30, 2024

In Announcement, Events, Field Day

The results are submitted and here they are in raw form!

June 22-23, 2024 Field Day
Site Responsibility Ed Underfinger
Safety Ed Underfinger
Elected official visitor Dan Henkel, Mayor of Niceville
132 QSOs
Power mod x2
100 pts Emergency power
100 pts Public location
100 pts Public Information Table
100 pts Alternate power
100 pts Elected official visit
100 pts Social Media
1064 pts total
This is great considering performance in years past and we sure are grateful for the participants, visitors, and teammates who made this possible! The next adventure for Team PARC is going to be the continuation of our awesome Sunday Pile-Ups at 3pm located at 17 First St SE in Beautiful Downtown Fort Walton Beach Florida and our meetings and nets as indicated on the clubs calendar!
We will have more in store as we progress with multiple projects, the continuation of WIRES-X on 146.400, Room 91172, 01172! This is been a great work in progress by Mark, NC4MR! We also are working FT8 with him for a J8 call. Keep up with us and don’t forget to come visit us and get some of Randy’s, KJ4FNB’s Sausages! Curious? Come see him! Super delicious!

W4ZBB Field Day Success!!!

By

On June 23, 2024

In Announcement, Community, Events, Field Day

Wow what a weekend! Outside, fresh air, friendly faces, open communication, and QSO’s for Field day!

A very large thank you to all who participated, made contacts, and just flat out, had fun! This was a wonderful event for Team PARC at Fred R Gannon State Park in Niceville Florida! We hope your field day was wonderful as well! PARC racked up the contacts and used only battery and solar power! To add to that, we used gear that was designed for ease of use and rapid deployment! We would like to make a special thank you known to the Mayor of Niceville, Dan Henkel, who came out and got involved with Amateur Radio, understanding its operational capability, and seeing first hand how dependable Amateur Radio Communicators are to the community at large!

Another special thanks goes out to the Twin Cities Amateur Radio Club for attending the PARC Field Day Event and operating under the Club’s call, W4ZBB! We would also like to that the staff at Fred R Gannon State Park for having us and taking an esteemed interest in what we do, how to get licensed, what gear works good versus what does not, and offering input for future events!

Enjoy the photos below and take note of AA0EU’s ingenuity of a pole for his counterpoise!

 

 

Happy Father’s Day from Team PARC!

By

On June 16, 2024

In Announcement, Community, Events

Happy Father’s Day from all of us at the Sunday Pile Up! We hope all of your plans are going well and that you are celebrating! Be sure to join us for more Amateur Radio fun this coming Thursday, June 20th at 730 pm CST at 17 A First St SE in beautiful Downtown Fort Walton Beach for the Club’s monthly business meeting!

Bring your guests, family and friends for all are welcome here and it is always a great time Keys down!

You might also get to meet (RFD) Romeo!

 

From the Shack of Michael W Pickett W9MWP!

By

On June 9, 2024

In Announcement, Community, Events, Hamfest/Tailgate!

Hi guys, just wanted to let you know that when I visited your club and joined back in March I took away one valuable idea from your hamfest. Your idea of giving everyone a badge upon paying their entry fee struck me as an incredibly great idea. It serves as proof of payment as well as a great souvenir. I brought this idea up to the organizers of our hamfest and they thought it was a great idea, so I got busy making badges, 255 as a matter of fact. We had 237 people that attended our hamfest and our treasurer that collected admission mentioned that he got more comments on the badge then he could count. Our hamfest also has tailgate sales which are out in the parking lot and we have had people in the past bypass the admissions table only to tour the outside sales. This did not happen this year due to being able to spot all the paying customers who sported their new badge. I heard a lot of great chatter on 2 meters the day after about it as no other club around here has ever done this before. Thanks again for letting me bring back one of your great ideas to Wisconsin.
Michael W Pickett  W9MWP

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