New England QRP Club : The Excitement is Building....

A kitting party for the Club's NEScaf kit has been scheduled for Monday evening, November 21st. Once again, we will be enjoying the generous hospitality of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMoB) at their clubhouse on the grounds of MIT's Haystack Observatory. Here's a copy of the announcement posted today by Dave, NT1U: The NEQrp club will be gathering once again Monday 21 November, on the grounds of the MIT Haystack Observatory to kit some more NEScaf kits. We invite any and all interested in joining us to come along.

I have registered a test session with the ARRL for Saturday, July 9th at Thomas Point Beach Campground in Brunswick, ME. I put "Lobstercon Event Field" as the specific location. If the weather is nice, we can conduct it right on the picnic tables before lunch. If the weather is less than nice, I will see about arranging the use of the recreation hall (or whatever it is called at TPB) for an indoor seating.

Testing will begin at 10:30am.

Hello, folks. I am making preparations for attending Lobstercon again this year in Brunswick, ME at Thomas Point Beach Campground. Linda (KA1ORB) and I will be arriving on Wednesday afternoon, July 6th before the scheduled festivities.

I am trying to determine if there is interest in having a VE Test Session (That's Volunteer Examiner, not Canadian license testing) at the event. I am the ARRL VE team liaison for my local testing group, and would bring all the materials required.

Due to overwhelming demand, we have again sold out of our current stock of NEScaf filters. Parts are on order for another round. Some items are backordered at our supplier, but we hope to be able to accept orders again within 2-3 weeks time (mid-June timeframe).

Check back later for updates, and thanks for the continued interest in this kit.
-Bruce N1RX

The NEQRP kitting crew met in Westford, MA last night and prepared another round of the club's Switched Capacitor Audio Filter kit, the NEScaf. Kits are once again available for ordering from the NEQRP Club Store.

Thanks to all the kitting volunteers, and all the users of this kit for the continued interest, and patience while we prepared another round.

Hello Folks,

Our next kitting gathering is one week from tomorrow. This is Wednesday, April 21st. Dave, NT1U will be purchasing food for the grill, so for the sake of accuracy, please let N1RX or NT1U know if you will be joining us. I hope to be there at or about 5:00. We should eat at about 6pm, and begin kitting by 7:00. We will be done by 9:00 or earlier, but if you can only join us for part of the time, that is fine.

We will be meeting in the farmhouse on the grounds of the MIT Haystack observatory. (same place as previous kitting parties). Directions can be found at:

http://www.haystack.mit.edu/site/directions.html

It's past time for an update on the New England QRP Club's NEScaf kit.

To date, NEQRP has sold over 800 of these. We have been out of stock for some time as the SCAF chip we were using, National's LMF100, was discontinued in DIP format. We made a preliminary decision to redesign the board to accept the SMT version of the chip.

During that process, one of the club's members pointed us to Linear Technology's LTC1060. It is a drop-in replacement for the LMF100. I obtained some samples, and have tried it in my NEScaf. It appears to offer performance comparable to the LMF100. Please don't ask me for hard numbers- I haven't done THAT kind of analysis. To my ears, it sounds comparable.