The ARRL recently introduced a new contest for relatively new hams: The ARRL Rookie Roundup

Visit www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2010/rr.html to see the rules.

This is a pretty interesting and unique contest format:

The contest is conducted three times each calendar year on the third Sunday of April, August and December.

During 2010 that means April 18th, Aug 22nd, and Dec 19th.

Here's another interesting aspect: Each month features a different mode:

April = SSB
Aug = RTTY
Dec = CW

There will be no Morse Code Training Class this weekend (Saturday, 13 Mar) due to the scheduled monthly exam session.

Students are encouraged to continue working their way through the first 5 character groups using "Method 1".

The "post graduate" students should be breezing through character refresher and doing "Speed Drills".

Greetings!

As you know, we are offering a licensing course for the General class license.

It's free - you just pay for the license manual (at a discounted price if you order it through the club)

It starts April 24th (0900-Noon) and ends June 12th (Just in time for Field Day) http://fieldday.w3vpr.org/

Sign-up using the "Class Sign-up Tool" on the left side of the web page or e-mail Rick aarcpres@comcast.net

License manuals will be available at least a week prior to the start of the course.

73

Greetings!

Do you feel the need to expand your horizons?

Is being a "Repeater Rat" not all it was cracked up to be when you started and now has you depressed?

Do you suffer from ham radio "HF Deficiency (HFD)?

Do you want to meet people on the air from around the world? Do you want to have lots of fun and improve your love life?

I'm not sure about improving your love life, but upgrading your Technician license to General class will solve almost all of your problems listed above.

The AARC 2010 Technician licensing course got started after Mother Nature intervened and imposed a mandatory wait period.

We have eight students including three kids.

The first class session was on 20 Feb - A week after the original start date. Parking was extremely limited due to the massive snowfall and lack of snow plowing. A single lane was cleared to the top of the hill.

Thanks to Rick/KK4GV and Cody/KB3POM, a path was shovelled to the front door.

Greetings and Happy New Year!

The Anne Arundel Radio Club has launched the new official website for the Maryland-DC QSO Party.

You can find it here http://mdcqsoparty.w3vpr.org/ or by clicking on the link in the upper right hand corner of this website (MDC QSO Party)

This website will be the primary source of information about the MDC QSO Party, so please bookmark it and come back often for news and updates.

The 2010 MDC QSO Party will be held 14-15 August and logs are due not later than 14 September 2010.

Greetings from the VE Team!

Saturday, December 12th marked the end of year for the AARC VE Team and as usual, it was another successful year.

During the year we conducted 14 exam sessions and administered, 145 exams to 117 applicants. Of the 145 exams administered, 109 were passed for a pass rate of 75.2%

68 Element 2 (Technician) exams were administered.
59 were passed - 86.8% pass rate.

58 Element 3 (General) exams were administered.

38 were passed - 65.5% pass rate.

Did you know that as of today, 7 Dec 2009, there are only 201 days left until operating phase of Field Day 2010 kicks off?

With Field Day just around the corner, it's time to learn the Morse code so you can operate a Morse code station during Field Day with some assistance of course.

So here's the deal - If there are enough folks interested, I will conduct a Morse Code training class that will help you learn the Morse code characters and prepare you to successfully transmit the required Field Day exchange information:

3:55pm - KB3ATI gets the "Clean Sweep"!!!!!

73 de AA3RR

OK so this the first entry and not really an update.

2:45pm - For the past 30 minutes KI3DS and KB3ATI are taking turns trying to contact a KL7 station on 15M. KI3DS needs the KL7 for a "Clean Sweep". KB3ATI needs the KL7, a Southern New Jersey (SNJ) and Newfoundland (NL) for a "Clean Sweep".

So how did it all begin? On Saturday, we showed up at the clubhouse and began putting up antennas and radio stations. We also started working on our dinner project for this event. The menu was as follows...