Welcome to the Baltimore Amateur Radio Club

The Baltimore Amateur Radio Club is a non-profit public service organization, organized under the laws of the State of Maryland. We are recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization, and are registered with the Secretary of State of the State of Maryland as a non-profit organization. For information on donations please contact us.

Find us on Facebook for the most up-to-date club info! A Facebook account is not needed to view our Facebook page. You can also stay informed by joining our Groups.io Group: BaltimoreARC.

* * * Membership Fiscal Year 2019 began on October 1, 2018; all memberships expired prior to that date. Your continued membership is important to us in order to keep our functions and missions moving forward. If you are not current, please go to the Membership page for details on how to send payment to maintain your membership. Thank you for your support. * * * .

Another fine turnout for our July meeting. Bill N3QVA and Frank W3FJM were welcomed to the meeting. Dave AB3TE gave an update on the hamfest held just weeks prior; again a successful event. Neil W3ZQI provided additional details on advertising and proposed some new approaches for the 2020 event. Dave was thanked for his outstanding effort as Hamfest Chairman. The evening presentation was by Dave AB3TE and Owen KC3IJN on using the MFJ Antenna Analyzer on a N9TAX 2m/70cm antenna which has been giving Owen trouble on 2 meters. The group then split into a number of smaller groups covering topics including license exams, ARRL Field Day, commercial digital broadcasting, logging software, the ICOM 7300, and remote operating.

We had a great turnout at the June, "pre-hamfest"meeting. Dave AB3TE gave an informative update on the BARC Father's Day Hamfest. Volunteers are welcome--give two hours to help out the club and receive free admittance for the rest of the event. Bill N3WD gave an update on the Sharon Dobson Memorial club now with callsign W3DUH. and spoke of ARRL Field Day. Remember the upcoming W3LPL Open House. Joe W3TTT is teaching an amateur radio course as part of the Community College of Baltimore County (Hunt Valley) Life Enrichment series, coming up in a few months. Dave AB3TE demonstrated his 2-meter radio "go kit", a padded suitcase with complete 2-meter FM radio station, including antenna and power supply.

A big thank you to Jim Green WB3DJU for having the club out to his home for a presentation of his impressive Collins-centric amateur radio station and "mini-museum". This May meeting was one of our largest group turnouts in quite some time. The station shows many, many hours of expertise and TLC done by Jim over the years. Minor club business mentioned completion of the move of club property to a smaller storage unit, to save on monthly expenses and updated the group on the Father's Day Hamfest. We have one more club meeting before the hamfest. Thank you again Jim, for your hospitality in hosting the May meeting.

April's meeting topics included the upcoming hamfest and discussion on the Fairview United Methodist Church; Neil W3ZQI visited the church site and more details have been clarified. Info from Phil N3CDY: the downtown repeater receive site antenna has been repositioned as required by the site owner (due to building reconstruction)--thank you again, Phil. Neil W3ZQI (hamfest publicity) mailed flyers/letters to more than 80 ham clubs within driving distance of our hamfest. The Dayton Hamvention is coming; a number of the club members will again be attending. Gerhart KC3JPK and Jeff (studying) were welcomed back after being absent for a few months. A work party was scheduled for the storage facility to move club-owned stuff to a smaller unit in order to reduce expenses. A prior trip by some of the members resulted in several pickup trucks full of stuff to the dump and recycling facility.

The March meeting featured an informative discussion about the W3FT FM repeater system, led by Phil N3CDY. Phil has been around from the beginning of the system and elaborated on the complexity of it all--thanks Phil! Club business included further discussion on the Fairview United Methodist Church; Jim WB3DJU and Neil W3ZQI assumed responsibility for furthering the investigation and are to report back to the club. The hamfest contract has been signed (porcelain restrooms!) and Neil W3ZQI will begin some of the advertising of the event. As always lately, the new transmitting mode FT8 captured some of the meeting time with the accomplishments of several of the users. Welcome to new attendee, Jon who is studying for his first license and has great interest in old equipment and Morse Code.

February's meeting was well attended--we now have 23 people signed up for our Groups.io e-mail facility. Jim WB3DJU and Dave AB3TE shared information of the Fairview United Methodist Church--photos were distributed post-meeting by our e-mail reflector. A hearty welcome to Billy H. who is studying for his Technician license. A lively discussion of license exam topics and getting-on-the air hints followed. Recently licensed, Owen KC3IJN showed that he has been a fast learner by contributing a number of pertinent points to the discussion.

The first meeting of the new year (January) featured a continued discussion of the hamfest in June. Bill N3WD and Dave AB3TE have swapped offices. Bill is now our Vice President and Dave is now our Treasurer. A big thank you to both for their great amount of time and service in their prior offices. The Groups.io e-mail facility is now in place to generate monthly meeting reminders.

December's meeting featured a lively exchange of ideas for helping Gordon KC3LWO configure an effective antenna system from the back of his townhome. Expounding on features of different wire antenna types and antenna tuners, one particularly comfortable arrangement for his QTH would be a high quality tuner (roller inductor preferred) with an end-fed wire antenna (using a 9:1 matcher). Power in excess of 100 watts was discouraged for now since he already has numerous opportunities for experimentation. First priority is to get on the air! This was preceeded by a short club board meeting.

Congratulations to our new slate of officers (see bottom of this page) elected at the November meeting. After a short review of business by Hale N3NYC, elections were held. Neil W3ZQI spoke of our on-going plans to expand the hamfest vendors/attendees to include robotics, drones, and R/C. Jim WB3DJU mentioned a meeting space and storage opportunity. He followed with a discussion of his recent 5,000 mile road trip by RV over much of the country, to include visiting the Collins Radio Company in Grand Rapids and viewing the Mississippi River. He then showed his new Family Radio HTs with a discussion of their design and capabilies. Subsequent discussions included popular choices for starter HF amateur radio stations.

Much of the business discussion at the October meeting centered on the upcoming June's BARC Hamfest. A slate of officers for November elections was assembled (see bottom of this web page). Neil W3ZQI will assemble a membership list from various sources and initiate billing for this year's annual dues. New member Joseph AB9YY and returning member Gerald NE3C were welcomed.

At the September meeting, Gordon pleasantly surprised us by announcing that he had passed both the Tecnician and General exams since the July meeting--congratulations to Gordon, now KC3LWO. Al W3YRS had not been seen in a good while; welcome back. Stephan KC3ILL discussed his solar power array that supplies most of the electricity to his home in Timonium and showed us his electric scooter (used to ride to a Light Rail stop on his way to the meeting) which does 18 mph. Neil W3ZQI led a discussion on the new weak-signal operating mode FT8.

Thank you for joining us for the 2019 BARC Father's Day Hamfest and Marketplace in Upperco, MD. This exciting event featured a giant flea market for traditional tailgating, miscellaneous items, and food. This was held on Father's Day Sunday June 16, 2019...Hours: 8 am.-2 pm. Location: the Arcadia Volunteer Fire Company grounds, 16020 Carnival Avenue, Upperco, MD 21155. We continued with our value pricing of $5 attendance and $5 per tailgating space.

A big thank you to our hamfest volunteers and especially Dave AB3TE (our hamfest chairman) for another successful event in 2019).

Mr. Nick provided BBQ sandwiches, hot dogs, ice cream, coffee, and other goodies.

Again, plenty of tailgating spaces and free customer parking. New for 2019: indoor rest room facilities!

Remember, our event is the last area hamfest before the annual ARRL Field Day for those last minute shoppers. Please join us in Father's Day 2020 for our next event. Printable hamfest flyer of the 2019 event.

ARRL Field Day for 2019 is June 22-23, 2019. This is the largest on-air amateur radio event in North America. Members of our club and the Baltimore Radio Amateur Television Society (BRATS) were hosted in 2018 and 2019 at a facility made available by Steve KA3ZMN who provided a first-rate operating environment for our multiple transmitter activity, complete with generator power, an impressive selection of antennas, and great food. A big thank you to Steve for his tremendous effort in making these events so effective and enjoyable for the two clubs.

QSL any of our contacts (any on-air activity): US-send SASE; DX-send SAE w/$1USD or use the bureau. For any direct mailing, an SASE or postage is required. Our mailing address is "Baltimore Amateur Radio Club-W3FT, P O Box 120, Reisterstown, MD 21136"; please mark your inbound envelope with the event name (if applicable). Logbook of the World is loaded promptly after any contacts are made.

Skywarn Training Classes

The BARC 2 meter Repeater				Weather and Solar Data
The BARC Repeater is available for anyone to use. The repeater has a primary input frequency of 146.07 Mhz and output is 146.67. The output PL tone is 107.2. With multiple receive sites in the Greater Baltimore area, coverage is excellent. A big thank you to Phil N3CDY for his years of effort in maintaining the system. If the Repeater goes down, please try simplex as we will monitor BARC Simplex Frequency 146.550 mhz., 40M on 7.195Mhz, and 75M on 3.910Mhz.				Early history of our club Part 1, Part2 Current Officers Hale Adams, N3NYC President Bill Dobson N3WD Vice-President Val Purvis, W3VAL Secretary Dave Shadwell AB3TE Treasurer Mike Hall, KB3VHH Member at Large Gordon Johnston, KC3LWO Member at Large Neil Gustafson, W3ZQI Member at Large
Upcoming Events and Meetings: Club meetings are on the first Wednesday of each month at Wegman's Hunt Valley (Hunt Valley Town Center--122 Shawan Road, Hunt Valley, MD 21030 in the upstairs dining area) 7:00 pm. sharp. Arrive ahead of time if purchasing dinner or beverage. Wegman's has an extensive buffet food bar with many Chinese and American food selections plus pizza, sandwiches, and beverages. ------------------------------------------------------ -- Wednesday, August 7, 2019 -- monthly club meeting 7:00 pm. -- Wednesday, September 4, 2019 -- monthly club meeting 7:00 pm. -- Wednesday, October 2, 2019 -- monthly club meeting 7:00 pm. -- Wednesday, November 6, 2019 -- monthly club meeting 7:00 pm. -- Wednesday, December 4, 2019 -- monthly club meeting 7:00 pm.