Thursday, May 22, 2025

Coming Very Soon - Falmouth ARA Field Day 2025

 

SAVE THE DAY

Falmouth Amateur Radio Association invites the public to attend




2 PM Saturday, 28 June through 2 PM Sunday, 29 June
Morse Pond School, 323 Jones Rd, Falmouth, MA

Rain or Shine

"Get On The Air" radio station available for the public

Excellent STEAM event for students
 





Friday, May 16, 2025

Falmouth ARA in ARES Exercise


Falmouth ARA (FARA) vounteers participated in the May 10, 2025 Cape and Islands ARES Exercise #83.  Charlie, K1CB and crew manned the Falmouth Hospital site.  Henry, K1WCC and crew manned the Upper Cape Field Site.  A failure of the tower winch at the Mid-Cape Field Site resulted in Henry acting as net control for the VHF portion of the exercise. 

FARA members, many from home stations, participated in the various portions of the exercise, consisting of an 80m SSB check-in net, a VHF-FM check-in net, NTS message traffic, and three opportunities to send Winlink traffic via either VHF or HF.

The exercise demonstrated the ability of amateur radio operators to quickly setup effective emergency communications with voice and digital messaging capabilities.

The first five photo's below were submitted by Henry, K1WCC.  They show various aspects of the Upper Cape Field Site.  The second five photos were taken by Frank, WQ1O, and show aspects of the Mid-Cape Field Site.  Click on the photo to view a larger image.


























Monday, March 3, 2025

Technician License Class for Public Safety Personnel

Falmouth Amateur Radio Association (FARA) recently conducted a Technician level amateur radio license class for Public Safety personnel.  The class was held in the training room at Falmouth Fire Headquarters from February 28th through March 2nd. There were 7 students in attendance. 

FARA instructors were Ralph Swenson (N1YHS) and Charlie Bresnahan (K1CB). Five of the students earned their Technician license.  Two students will be retested at a later date.  

License testing was done by members of the FARA VE Team, led by Lee Thomas, NQ1L.  

FARA's VE Team conducts amateur radio license testing on the 2nd Saturday of each month.  See https://www.falara.org/exams-classes/license-exams for complete details.

Congratulations to the new hams!








Friday, January 17, 2025

FARA First Day Breakfast 2025

A good crowd attended the annual FARA First Day Breakfast, which was held at Persey's in Falmouth.  Photo's courtesy of Charlie, K1CB.

Put it on your calendar for next year and join the fun.






















FARA Winter Field Day 2025

 

Winter Field Day, https://winterfieldday.org/index.php, was on January 25 and 26, 2025. FARA once again participated using the FARA communications trailer. The trailer was located at the Falmouth Band Shell located in Marina Park, which is next to Falmouth Harbor.

There were two operating positions available. Ralph-N1YHS, Mel-K1ELB, Jeremy-KB1SFS, Henry-K1WCC, and Steve-KC1TMJ operated on Saturday, January 25, for a total of about 5 hours. 98 contacts were made across 3 bands--10, 20, and 40 meters using two end-fed wire antennas. Several FARA members helped with the setup/teardown or visited the site.
















Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Cape Cod Marathon 2024 Comm Support

Cape Cod Marathon Weekend includes a Marathon, a Marathon Relay, a Half Marathon, and a 5km. The Clam Chowdah Challenge is for runners who would like to run both the Marathon and the Half Marathon in the same weekend, for a total of 39.3 miles. The courses run along Vineyard Sound and beautiful coastal roads on the Upper Cape.
Communications support for the races was organized by Barry, KB1TLR.  The FARA Communications Trailer was used as the radio net control point.  On Saturday and Sunday, local amateur radio volunteers operated from 33 positions along the courses, to provide communication support. The wind off the water was brisk at the positions along the water.

A total of 951 runners took part in the full marathon. Another 1,570 runners took part in Saturday’s half-marathon.

Tired runners were assisted, as well as people in serious medical need. On Saturday, one runner suffered a possible heart attack. 911 was called in to assist.  Hopefully, everything turned out well for him. There were also other runners with less serious medical situations that were aided. Sunday was busier, both with tired runner assists and medical assists.
The organizing committee, the runners, their families / friends, and everyone involved with the marathon sends their thanks to the amateur radio volunteers. Once again, amateur radio successfully provided an important public service to the local community. 
List of amateur radio volunteers:  
Barry-KB1TLR, Gerald-KB1NNH, Charlie-KB1CB, Frank-WQ1O, Ralph-N1YHS, Phil-KB1DOS, Henry-K1WCC, Jim-KB1ZJO, Matt-KB1MLP, Gene-KX1C, Scott-KE1CN, Paul-NM1Z, Harold-N1ZTV, Tim-W1TCD, Andy-K7ADA, Mel-K1ELB, Al-N1MF, Randy-K1RCO, Chris-WA1CMR, Irish-KC1TNX, Djjc, Don-KT1OK, hatobet1340, John-KC1SAT, Will-KB1WLY, Steve-KC1TMJ, Doug-N1OEI, Dan-KC1GOQ 


Photos courtesy: John-KC1SAT, Frank-WQ1O, Chris-WA1CMR, CC Marathon FB group, Falmouth Enterprise






























Wednesday, September 18, 2024

FARA FEST 2024 - November 2

 The annual FARA Fest is scheduled for November 2, 2024, 9AM to Noon, at the Upper Cape Regional Vocational Technical School.   

See the FARA Fest Flyer for details: