ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio^® is the organizer of ARRL Field Day.  This year’s event takes place June 28-29, 2025.

The ARRL Field Day official website is:   http://www.arrl.org/field-day

Field Day is always held the fourth full weekend in June.  It has been an annual event since 1933 (Field Day was not held in 1942-1945 due to the war). This year, 2025, marks the 88^th Field Day.

The Cumberland Amateur Radio Club (CARC)  participates from a portable multi-operator station at Shaffer Park in Carlisle, PA.

If you are a CARC Member, please join us at Shaffer Park. 

If not yet a CARC Member, and you want to see what amateur radio is about, want to see what the club is about, please feel welcome to attend. 

See the ARRL Field Day locator for details.  https://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator

Specify Call Sign K3IEC

For more information about radios, setting up your station  and another topics, follow the trail to

https://www.radioclub-carc.com/resources/

See ‘ya down the log.

Frank KB3PQT

Members of the Cumberland Amateur Radio Club (CARC) recently participated in their annual event called Derby Day. 

The traditional date of this event aligns with the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday of May.  A scheduling challenge forced our Derby Day to take place one week earlier than usual.  In turn, that change provided an opportunity to include the Florida QSO Party among our on-the-air activities.

Florida QSO Party 2025 featured a Spelling Bee.  Fourteen Special Event stations, with their 1×1 call signs, provided the material to spell PIRATES.  CARC Members operated club station K3IEC and worked FQP stations featuring each of the seven letters.  In return, we were rewarded with a custom designed QSL card and took pride for a job well done.

The QSL card front, and a representative QSL card back, appear below.

Thank you Florida QSO Party for sponsoring this wonderful event.

Florida QSO Party 2025 PIRATES Spelling Bee

Representative QSL Card Back

The first day of May is May Day.  A celebration of spring.

But Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!, when said three times, is also a distress call.

Mayday got its start as an international distress call in 1923.  The distress call was first recognized in 1924 by the Book of Wireless Telegraphy and later it was made official by the 1927 International Radiotelegraph Convention.

Editor Note:  There are frequent mentions of Mayday being made official in 1948.  However the citations do not identify the approving authority.

Mayday was the idea of Frederick Mockford, who was a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London.  He was charged with finding a suitable voice-based distress call to be used in place of the telegraphy signal SOS.  Mockford came up with the idea for “mayday” because it sounded like the French word m’aider, which means “help me.”

See ‘ya down the log!

Frank KB3PQT

(Your Editor remembers a tradition of hanging May Day baskets, as a child, on the door knobs of neighboring friends, knocking or ringing the bell, and running away as fast as possible to avoid being caught in the act.)

A POTAstic Day!

On Saturday May 4, 2024 CARC members and friends met at Pine Grove Furnace State Park for Derby Day.

Or as one local radio station morning show (Red 102.3) called it in their parody commercial done in the style of a 1980s Budweiser ad as they described the coincidence of Star Wars Day and the Kentucky Derby – “May the Horse be with you”. 

CARC Derby Day was designed to allow individual club members the chance to make a successful Parks On The Air (POTA) activation and participate in the 7th Call Area QSO Party (WA, OR, ID, WY, MT, UT, NV, AZ) and Indiana QSO Party.

Last year’s weather was perfect.  This year not so much.  The scattered thunderstorms became all-day rain forecasts by Friday evening.

Still, thirteen members and friends showed up to demonstrate the fortitude and enthusiasm they bring to the Amateur Radio hobby.

Mark Anstine                      KC3UVG,                  Paula Anstine              KC3UVH,

John Bartko                        W3JJB,                       Dave Donaldson         KC3OSG,

Garry Fasick                       K3EYK,                      Richard Johnson         N3EPY,

Glenn Kurzenknabe         K3SWZ,                     John Luthy                   WA3KCP,

Frank Mellott                     KB3PQT,                   Doug Stenger              KC3CPT,

Bill Wagaman                    N3GTY, 

along with our guests Osmon and his wife Kimberly, who wanted to see the magic happen and learn more about the wonderful world of amateur radio.

Contacts and successful POTA activations were made using digital modes and CW.  Band conditions were not the best, but some phone contacts were made in the 7^th Call Area QSO Party and some DX, primarily with Italy and Great Britain.

Because it was cold, wet and never got above 50 degrees, the event broke up in the early afternoon.  Doug Stenger KC3CPT, Paula Anstine KC3UVH and Bill Wagaman N3GTY made a wonderful meal of hamburgers and hotdogs. 

After lunch a drawing was held for door prizes, including an ARRL Operating Manual, 250’ feet of Davis antenna wire, a tube of coax connector seal, various other books on antennas, voice over internet-VOIP, GPS and other amateur radio topics.  

Osmon and Kimberly traveled 1 3/4 hours to attend and left with an ARRL Technician exam study guide to help them begin their longer amateur radio journey.

The CARC Radio Road Show team is already looking forward to Derby Day-2025!  Mark your calendar for Saturday May 3, 2025.

For more information about POTA, Field Day and another topics, follow the trail to

https://www.radioclub-carc.com/resources/

See ‘ya down the log.

Frank KB3PQT

We did not operate our traditional Portable Multi-Transmitter / Multi-Operation station this year due to the weather forecast calling for rain, cold temperatures, and high winds associated with hurricane remnants.  But quite a few members played along at home.  The PA QSO Party team has now posted those results.

And the winners are…

Congratulations !

For more information about Radio-Sport and another topics, follow the trail to:

https://www.radioclub-carc.com/resources/

See ‘ya down the log.

Frank KB3PQT

We received the sad news that Thelma – Radio Dog passed away.   Thelma was a trained service dog for club members Mark Anstine, KC3UVG and Paula Anstine, KC3UVH.  Thelma was a active participant in club events and will be missed.

Please consider a donation in her memory to the Adams County SPCA.

Online:
Home | adams-county-spca (adamscountyspca.org)

By Mail:

Adams County SPCA
11 Goldenville Road
Gettysburg, PA  17325

https://www.radioclub-carc.com/resources/

See ‘ya down the log.

Frank KB3PQT

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**  FAMOUS HISTORICAL PHRASES RENDERED IN MORSE CODE **

Club President, Frank Mellott KB3PQT, offers a challenge to viewers of this blog page.

Frank gathered several well-known phrases from history and applied the corresponding dots and dashes to paper. 

He wanted you to read the printed dots and dashes and submit a transcription of your discovery. 
But Morse Code involves hearing dits and dahs.  Your Editor recorded the audible dits and dahs and hopes our website can render the WAV file as audio.

There are two files.  The first file contains audio for phrases one through four.  The second file contains audio for phrases five through eight.
The Morse Code was sent at 10 words per minute.  Each phrase is introduced with a tag such as CW1 NEXT and a moment of silence.     
The space between words was lengthened slightly for the benefit of those who are taking their first steps with Morse Code.

The length of each file is on the order of four and one-half minutes. 

Let’s see if this works:   (YES !  It worked.)

Phrases 1 through 4

Phrases 5 through 8

Give it a try.   Write down the words that you heard.
Submit your entry via eMail to:  president@RadioClub-CARC.com
We welcome your comments.

Questions can be directed via eMail to:   AF3I@RadioClub-CARC.com   If you would like receive a slower transmission let him know.  Andrew is open to special requests.

#####

**  So how many active hams are there?  **

 Curious Newcomer (CN) and Experienced Elmer (EE) both started interesting groups.io threads.  One asked for people to tell what they do on the air, and the other has had a lot of fun with FT8 and wondered if …

a.)   With that as background, I have noticed recently that when I watch the JTAlert “All decodes” window, 20-25 percent of those active on the band at a given time are people whom I’ve already worked. That makes me wonder about a couple of things:

 b:)   How popular are the FT modes, anyway, and if you could collect similar stats for CW and phone, would we see something similar?  I’m still a long way from “working the bands out”, but it’s been a little surprising.

 Let’s look at numbers.  A couple years ago ARRL stated that FT8 was 70% of all HF activity.  That is market share a monopolist would love.  70% is a lot, and that is only 1 mode.

The ARRL, as of August 14, 2023, shows 759,159 licensed amateurs in the US and territories.

Technicians have some HF privileges, but I doubt that more than maybe 10% get on HF. 

And a high number, maybe as high as 50%, of all Technician class licensees are not active in the hobby at all.   It has been over 23 years since anyone received a new Advanced class license.  In 2015 there were over 54,000 Advanced licensees.  While some have upgraded to Extra, too many have become inactive or Silent Keys. 

I have no good way of estimating how many General and Extra class licensees are actually active on the air.  But on any given day there may be as few as 200,000 to 250,000 who actively would use the HF bands in the US. The good news?  In 2016, there were 725,000 US licenses. According to NPR, that was up 60% from 1981.  But according to Wikipedia, in 2021, the US had 779, 545.  or a whopping 0.233% of the  population.  In 2 years the US has lost about 20,000 and by the numbers, most of those came from Advanced licensees going SK.  In percentage of the population licensed, the US has fallen to third.  Japan is in second and Slovenia is in first place.  The US has about twice as many as Japan, but a smaller fraction of the population is licensed. China is in third place in numbers, with 150,000 as of 2019.

Amateur radio is not dead.  But it will always need new people getting involved.

For more information about Amateur Radio, Cumberland Amateur Radio Club, and another topics, follow the trail to

https://www.radioclub-carc.com/resources/

See ‘ya down the log.

Frank KB3PQT

#####

When I have too much time on my hands I enjoy crunching numbers.  We had some cold, wet weather recently.  I stayed indoors.  That was my invitation to curl up with a good database and extract some numbers. 

My research was focused on the popularity of amateur radio as a hobby around the world and locally in Central Pennsylvania.  My results are represented by the proportion of licensed Amateur Radio Operators among the population as a whole.

USA

The USA has 779,545 licensed amateur radio operators.  In case you wondered, that’s 0.233 percent of the population.  For those of you who broke up with math in the 1980s, and learned that getting back together is awkward, that works out to 23 amateurs per 10,000 people. 

Let’s put those numbers into a real-world context.  The seating capacity of the GIANT Center arena is 10,500.   How about dropping the loose change and call it 10,000.  If you sprinkled 23 ham radio operators among all the event attendees you would have the same proportion of ham radio operators in the arena as there are in the United States, as a whole.

Global Highlights

By comparison, in other locations where amateur radio is a poplar hobby, we found these numbers from 2019.

Japan has 381,899 licensed operators, or 0.304% of the population.

Thailand has 101,763 licensed operators for 0.147% of the population.

Germany has 63,709 licensed operators for 0.0735% of the population.

Locally in Central Pennsylvania

Here are population counts in the 170xx Zip Code area as of 2021

            Cumberland County has 262,919 people.

            Perry County has 45,986 people

            Lebanon County has 143,943 people.

The FCC shows 1,752 licensed amateur radio operators in 170xx.  So, at 0.39%, that Zip Code area has nearly twice as many amateur radio operators as the USA average.  Go 170xx !

Moving to the west, the 155xx Zip Code covers Bedford and Somerset counties.  A database search returned 242 licensed amateur radio operators.  Bedford has a population of 47.461 people and Somerset has 73,627.  The percentage of amateur radio operators in the 155xx Zip Code area is 0.20% of the population, which is less than the national average.

Marketing Analysis

You probably are wondering…. Why do these percentages matter?  Really – Who Cares?

Well, someone cares.  You can be sure of that.   

• Mr. or Ms / Mrs. Business Person — If you are thinking of opening an Amateur Radio themed Pizza and Cheese Steak Restaurant your business is more likely to succeed in Cumberland County because the pool of potential customers is greater there than if you located your shop in Bedford or Somerset counties. That is why you care.

• If dating an electronics wizard who wears a plaid shirt and a baseball cap embroidered with his amateur radio call sign is one of your personal objectives you are likely to find a bigger selection of potential candidates in Cumberland County than you might find in Bedford or Somerset counties. That is why you care.

• What if you needed technical advice on the directional antenna heading for making a long path QSO to Madagascar? If you focused your search on Cumberland County you stand a better chance of getting an answer than if you sent out feelers in Bedford or Somerset counties.  That is why you care.

For more information about radios, setting up your station and another topics, follow the trail to

https://www.radioclub-carc.com/resources/

See ‘ya down the log.

Frank KB3PQT

#####

As wars and rumors of wars flood the media, sometimes you just need to step away.

Go to the shack… Turn the transceiver on and do what you enjoy doing: whether you choose to hunt down new-to-you grid squares in FT8, ragchew, check into a net, chase DX, work a contest, or learn something new.    

What have you learned today?

For more articles please follow the trail below:

https://www.RadioClub-CARC.com/resources/

See ‘ya down the log.

Frank KB3PQT