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President's LetterJonathan Pearce, WB2MNFMarch 2026 |
February turned out to be a perfect illustration of the slide I showed at each meeting: “Without our Clubhouse we’re just another ham radio club!” With the building closed for nearly three weeks, virtually all the normal Saturday ham Club activity came to a standstill. There was little Club news to report this month, and I suspect many of you felt the same void I did. I hope you found other ways to stay engaged with the hobby during that stretch.
For my part, I got completely hooked on OpenClaw - the latest AI platform that’s taking the world by storm - and while the Clubhouse was offline I quietly burned through more API tokens than care to admit. The good news is that the time produced a couple of useful projects you’ll read about elsewhere in this issue : a Raspberry Pi-based OpenGD77 firmware flasher and live DMR activity monitoring on the Skunkworks site. The bigger takeaway for me is that there really is a meaningful place for AI in amateur radio. I can already imagine AI-driven digital decoders that outperform today’s WSJT family in weak-signal work. If anyone out there is already experimenting with AI and wants to compare notes let me know.
Membership Renewal Time
Renewing shouldn’t feel like pulling teeth, yet here we are again. As you’ve heard at the meetings, our budget is tight and depends heavily on two things : timely membership renewals and decent weather for the HamFest. Most clubs don’t have a fixed facility, so they can scale expenses up or down with revenue. We don’t have that luxury. The Clubhouse electric bill runs regardless of attendance - heat has to stay on in winter to protect the pipes, and A/C in the VHF room has to run in summer to keep computers and gear from cooking. Insurance is another large, non-negotiable line item protecting the substantial investment in equipment and infrastructure. Those fixed costs are what allow us to offer something most other clubs simply can’t : a real, equipped Clubhouse where members can gather, build, test, operate, and experiment together.
Right now only about half our members have renewed for 2026. If you’re in the “haven’t yet” group, please take a moment to visit w2mmd.org and complete the renewal or hand your check to John O'Connell K2QA at the next meeting. The process takes only a couple of minutes online. Please don’t be on the list of unrenewed members who will get my “Sorry to see you go…” email in April.
Tech Saturday - Under the Hood of WSJT Modes
This month’s Tech Saturday Forum on March 7, 2026 will take a deep dive into what makes the WSJT family of modes so effective at pulling weak signals out of the noise. I’ve always been fascinated by how well FT8, FT4, Q65, MSK144, and WSPR work, even though my own understanding of the underlying DSP was pretty thin. So I turned to Grok and iterated through dozens of questions until I had a reasonably solid grasp of the different modulation and encoding techniques - and why each mode is tuned for its particular job (fast QSOs vs. moonbounce vs. meteor scatter vs. long-term propagation monitoring). The presentation won’t be a “how to operate FT8” tutorial - I’m not qualified for that - but rather an under-the-hood explanation of the clever engineering that makes these modes perform so well. I’m not super-technical so it won’t be a major math program (no Fourier transforms) so hopefully will be interesting to many members.
If you’re looking to sharpen your FT8/FT4 operating technique, Steve Farney W2SEF has been running excellent Zoom sessions on exactly that topic; check the upcoming dates on the GCARC TechNet ZOOM page.
A Quick Look At Member Participation Numbers
One side benefit of having registration data since May 2025 is that we can now see real trends. On an average month about 60 different members participate in at least one club activity - whether it’s a General Membership Meeting, Tech Saturday Forums, a work party, or another scheduled event. That’s roughly a quarter of the membership showing up somewhere during the month, and the number climbs higher when we have particularly strong presentations or hands-on sessions. February’s General Membership Meeting set a new high-water mark with 60 attendees (40 in person + 20 on Zoom), which speaks volumes about the quality of speakers VP Ron Block NR2B has been lining up. With his schedule already set well into summer I expect we’ll keep seeing strong turnouts.
A Pleasant Zoom Surprise
Speaking of meetings, one highlight from February was Tim Duffy K3LR popping onto our Zoom call. For those who don’t recognize the call, Tim is both a top-tier contester and the founder/owner of DX Engineering. Jeff Garth WB2ZBN spotted him in the participant list, dropped me a note, and after some quick follow-up email Tim graciously agreed to present for us later this spring. Ron has him penciled in - watch the calendar for the date.
Another snow system is forecast as I write this. Fingers crossed it stays light and we’re back in the Clubhouse next Saturday. Withdrawal symptoms are real…
73 de Jon WB2MNF
For my part, I got completely hooked on OpenClaw - the latest AI platform that’s taking the world by storm - and while the Clubhouse was offline I quietly burned through more API tokens than care to admit. The good news is that the time produced a couple of useful projects you’ll read about elsewhere in this issue : a Raspberry Pi-based OpenGD77 firmware flasher and live DMR activity monitoring on the Skunkworks site. The bigger takeaway for me is that there really is a meaningful place for AI in amateur radio. I can already imagine AI-driven digital decoders that outperform today’s WSJT family in weak-signal work. If anyone out there is already experimenting with AI and wants to compare notes let me know.
Membership Renewal Time
Renewing shouldn’t feel like pulling teeth, yet here we are again. As you’ve heard at the meetings, our budget is tight and depends heavily on two things : timely membership renewals and decent weather for the HamFest. Most clubs don’t have a fixed facility, so they can scale expenses up or down with revenue. We don’t have that luxury. The Clubhouse electric bill runs regardless of attendance - heat has to stay on in winter to protect the pipes, and A/C in the VHF room has to run in summer to keep computers and gear from cooking. Insurance is another large, non-negotiable line item protecting the substantial investment in equipment and infrastructure. Those fixed costs are what allow us to offer something most other clubs simply can’t : a real, equipped Clubhouse where members can gather, build, test, operate, and experiment together.
Right now only about half our members have renewed for 2026. If you’re in the “haven’t yet” group, please take a moment to visit w2mmd.org and complete the renewal or hand your check to John O'Connell K2QA at the next meeting. The process takes only a couple of minutes online. Please don’t be on the list of unrenewed members who will get my “Sorry to see you go…” email in April.
Tech Saturday - Under the Hood of WSJT Modes
This month’s Tech Saturday Forum on March 7, 2026 will take a deep dive into what makes the WSJT family of modes so effective at pulling weak signals out of the noise. I’ve always been fascinated by how well FT8, FT4, Q65, MSK144, and WSPR work, even though my own understanding of the underlying DSP was pretty thin. So I turned to Grok and iterated through dozens of questions until I had a reasonably solid grasp of the different modulation and encoding techniques - and why each mode is tuned for its particular job (fast QSOs vs. moonbounce vs. meteor scatter vs. long-term propagation monitoring). The presentation won’t be a “how to operate FT8” tutorial - I’m not qualified for that - but rather an under-the-hood explanation of the clever engineering that makes these modes perform so well. I’m not super-technical so it won’t be a major math program (no Fourier transforms) so hopefully will be interesting to many members.
If you’re looking to sharpen your FT8/FT4 operating technique, Steve Farney W2SEF has been running excellent Zoom sessions on exactly that topic; check the upcoming dates on the GCARC TechNet ZOOM page.
A Quick Look At Member Participation Numbers
One side benefit of having registration data since May 2025 is that we can now see real trends. On an average month about 60 different members participate in at least one club activity - whether it’s a General Membership Meeting, Tech Saturday Forums, a work party, or another scheduled event. That’s roughly a quarter of the membership showing up somewhere during the month, and the number climbs higher when we have particularly strong presentations or hands-on sessions. February’s General Membership Meeting set a new high-water mark with 60 attendees (40 in person + 20 on Zoom), which speaks volumes about the quality of speakers VP Ron Block NR2B has been lining up. With his schedule already set well into summer I expect we’ll keep seeing strong turnouts.
A Pleasant Zoom Surprise
Speaking of meetings, one highlight from February was Tim Duffy K3LR popping onto our Zoom call. For those who don’t recognize the call, Tim is both a top-tier contester and the founder/owner of DX Engineering. Jeff Garth WB2ZBN spotted him in the participant list, dropped me a note, and after some quick follow-up email Tim graciously agreed to present for us later this spring. Ron has him penciled in - watch the calendar for the date.
Another snow system is forecast as I write this. Fingers crossed it stays light and we’re back in the Clubhouse next Saturday. Withdrawal symptoms are real…
73 de Jon WB2MNF
Sunday, March 8, 2026 @ 0200 Hours
Happy Birthday - March 14, 1979
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Happy Pi Day - 3.14
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Friday, March 20, 2026 @ 1046 Hours
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Monday, March 30, 2026
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Full Worm Moon - Tuesday, March 3, 2026 @ 0639 Hours
This name is traditionally thought to refer to the earthworms that appear as the soil warms in spring. Alternatively, during his travels in the 1760s, Captain Jonathan Carver wrote that this Moon name refers to a different sort of “worm” - larvae - which emerge from the bark of trees and other winter hideouts. Although some Cree groups used the term Eagle Moon to describe the time around February, others used this term for the Moon cycle closer to spring. The Northern Ojibwe called this Crow Comes Back Moon. |
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The term Goose Moon was used among Algonquin and Cree peoples. Snow Crust Moon was an Anishinaabe term. Sore Eyes Moon is a Dakota, Lakota, and Assiniboine term referring to the blinding rays of the sun on snow. Sugar Moon (Ojibwe) is the time when maple sap runs. Wind Strong Moon (Pueblo) refers to the strong windy days that come at this time of year.
Old Farmer’s Almanac - www.almanac.com