Club Information
Overview
The NPARC is a general interest amateur radio club open to
all. Our goals are
technical growth, community service, fellowship, and fun! We
also hope to encourage more people to become hams. If you're thinking about
becoming a ham or if you are
already a ham looking for a club affiliation, we invite you
to visit one of
our meetings or activities and talk to some of our members.
The club was formed in
the early 1960's, primarily by hams working at Bell Labs. Meetings were (and are
are still) held in New Providence, hence the name of the club. Despite the name,
there are no residency requirement for membership, although most members
do live within 20 miles of New Providence, NJ. (New Providence is in Union County
NJ, 20 miles
southwest of New York City.) We currently
have about 60 members -- men and women -- of all ages,
including school age students, with a wide variety of
skills and interests.
The club call sign is N2XJ,
which was the call sign of very respected club member, Carl
Felt, who is now a silent key (has passed away).
We use this callsign during special club activities such as Field Day.
Membership is open to anyone interested in amateur radio. An Amateur Radio License is
not required. Annual dues are $20.00; for students it's $10.00
which you can submit with a completed membership application.
If you have any questions about membership, come to one of our meetings, call one of
our club officers, or make an inquiry on
the club frequency, 145.75 MHz simplex , where someone is usually listening and can answer
your question.
Two club meetings are normally held each month.
They are held on on the second and fourth Mondays of the month, although if
Monday is a school holiday, we meet the
next night (Tuesday). Check the club calendar for exact dates and program
topics. Meetings begin at 7:30 p.m. and conclude not much later than 9:00 p.m. Guests and
prospective members are cordially invited to attend the meetings.
The meeting on the second Monday generally focuses on a
particular theme, with either a presentation or
demonstration related to ham radio. Important news is announced and, if
necessary, any club business is handled.
The meeting on the fourth Monday is an informal
meeting where anyone can bring up any topic for discussion or show off
their latest project. Often the club has a kit or other
building project underway and this meeting can be used to work on
that project. This meeting
usually ends with a raffle of door prizes which have been donated by members
(usually things they no longer want, but may have value to someone).
Meetings are held
in the cafeteria at the Salt
Brook School in New Providence -- take Springfield east from the center
of New Providence about 0.7 mile and turn right on Maple
Street. The school
is just down on the left. Park in the right side parking lot and enter through
the doors to the far right of the lot to get to the cafeteria.
Salt Brook School
40 Maple Street
New Providence, NJ 07974
908-464-7100
Driving Directions to the School
New Providence area map.
In addition to the two monthly meetings, club activities include:
In addition, some of our members are participants in the
National Weather Service SKYWARN program and
some volunteer in local RACES and/or ARES
units which are organizations active during emergencies
or public events. For information about local
activities for any of these organizations, contact the webmaster
or a club officer.
Registered club members can also subscribe to the club's e-mail reflector. The
reflector is a way for a club member to post information or ask general questions of all
the other subscribers. Any message sent to the reflector is automatically re-sent to each
of the subscribers. Generally this is a light traffic
reflector, so don't worry about being inundated with mail.
For more information about the reflector including how to subscribe, visit
the NPARC reflector page.
After you're registered, you can post a message for everyone to see by sending it to:
nparc@mailman.qth.net
We are an affiliated club (# 0213) of the ARRL
(American Radio Relay League), a membership service organization serving Amateur Radio
operators, enthusiasts, experimenters, and hobbyists.
To get the ARRL's weekly newsletter, send e-mail to listserv@netcom.com (no subject needed). The body of
the message should say simply: subscribe letter-list
Links to:
and our
Annual Auction
