Ham radio dates

[Chris KI1P]

Here is an off the cuff email of dates you may want to be aware of.  This is my list of amateur radio events for the year.

March 7-8 ARRL International DX contest.  This is a great way to add to your country list.  The goal is to work stations outside of the US.  So that means everyone else is looking for US stations.  

March 28-29 CQ WPX this is a very exciting contest as every new prefix is a multiplier so your score goes up very quickly.

April 18-19 Support your Parks event.  This is a weekend of a lot of POTA activity.

May 1-2 NEARFEST.  One of the larger Hamfest in the New England area.  

May 2-3 New England QSO party.

May 15-17 HamVention The largest Hamfest in the world in Dayton OH

June 13-15 ARRL VHF contest 

June 27-28 ARRL Field Day!! 

That’s just a few.

Chris KI1P

Chris

KI1P FN34 

[Catherine James]

Looking out the full 12 months from now...

Add the Vermont QSO Party in early February, the ARRL DX CW contest in late February, and the Worked All Europe SSB (September 22-13) and CW (August 8-9) contests.

https://contestcalendar.com is a great resource.

There are also some good RTTY contests. Do we have any active RTTY operators in CVARC?

73,

Cathy NQ1B 

[Patrick Schlott]

I’ve never operated RTTY but have always been interested in starting. Been experimenting a lot with traditional TTY over phone lines so this feels like the next logical step!

-Patrick

KC1DPM

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[Chris KI1P]

RTTY is something I have never done.  I have been thinking of getting into that.  Need to practice a bit before the next contest.  

Chris 

Chris

KI1P FN34 

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From: Patrick Schlott <pschl...@protonmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2026 9:15:18 AM
To: Catherine James <catheri...@att.net>
Cc: ki1p....@gmail.com <ki1p....@gmail.com>; w1...@googlegroups.com <w1...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CVARC] Ham radio dates

 

[Patrick Schlott]

RTTY sked?? I can do 80-10m. We can discuss at the meeting tonight if people are interested.

-Patrick 

Sent from Proton Mail for iOS.

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[Catherine James]

Chris,

There's a weekly half-hour RTTY contest on Thursday evenings from 0145Z - 0215Z. That's the best place to get some practice.

N1MM fully interfaces with MMTTY and 2Tone to support operating and logging RTTY.

73,

Cathy NQ1B 

On Wed, Mar 4, 2026 at 9:18 AM, Chris KI1P

<ki1p....@gmail.com> wrote:

[Andrew Hobgood]

I've done some RTTY ops with fldigi, but it's been a while (maybe 2019?) and I'd have to knock off the rust.  Most software modem tools like fldigi rely on a serial UART for transceiver control and an audio interface for signal in/out.

/Andrew // K1LOZ

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/w1bd/668549935.3311165.1772636117461%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Catherine James]

The audio interface can be little more than a cable running from the sound card of the computer (the headphone and mic jacks) to the headphone)mic jacks on the radio, either directly or, more often, through an accessory jack on the back.

You do not need a Signalink or other fancy external audio in interface. They have advantages, but are not absolutely needed.

The only transceiver control required is the ability to key PTT. That can be as simple as a one-transistor keying circuit connected to a computer serial port. USB-to-serial converters are dirt cheap.

If your computer and radio are successfully operating FT8, they can operate RTTY with no changes to the hardware.

FLDigi can be a pain to configure, but that's because it's so flexible.

What radio are you using?

73,

Cathy NQ1B 

[Catherine James]

Does anyone have access to a hipot tester?

I'd like to test some 3-500Z tubes for gassiness before putting them in an amp.

73,

Cathy NQ1B