Field Day June 24 & 25, 2017

For Field Day this year, the Marshall Amateur Radio Club will operate from the Von Braun Astronomical Society planetarium and observatory, at Monte Sano State Park.  The location is on a ridge, about 2000 feet elevation, just east of Huntsville.  

We will operate class 2A with a SSB station and a digital/CW station.  We welcome anyone who would like to visit us.

If you contact us and would like a QSL card, please send a business sized self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to this address below. We also QSL on ARRL Logbook of the World (LOTW) and eQSL.

Marshall Amateur Radio Club, NN4SA
NASA MSFC, C/O Don Hediger, ES35
Huntsville, AL 35812
USA

 

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Thank you for visiting our page!

We are NN4SA, the Marshall Amateur Radio Club, located at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, on the Restone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama.  We operate phone, CW (Morse Code), and various digital modes.  Look for us on the air, for Field Day and contests, special events, community service, portable and QRP ops, meteor scatter, satellite ops, and down-to-Earth (well, most of the time) conversation too.  We were formerly WA4NZD (from 1980 through February 2015).

 

If you contacted us and would like a paper QSL, please send a business sized self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to this address.  We are not government funded.  Please include your QSL card, if you have one.

Marshall Amateur Radio Club, NN4SA
NASA MSFC, C/O Don Hediger, ES35
Huntsville, AL 35812
USA

Note: The mailstop code changed to ES35, effective May 1, 2015.  Mail to the older address will still be forwarded. The address at the FCC, which QRZ displays at the top of the page, is in the process of being corrected.

We also QSL through ARRL Logbook of the World and eQSL.

 

We have a website with a regularly updated blog at nn4sa.wordpress.com.  There you can find more about us, including our club announcements, photos, and information about our weekly 2 meter net ​on Tuesday nights.   From there we link to other local and NASA amateur radio sites, several NASA Twitter newsfeeds, and the location of the International Space Station.  We have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NN4SA/.  You can follow us on Twitter with the NN4SA user name, https://twitter.com/NN4SA.  Our previous website from when we used our earlier callsign is still active, wa4nzd.wordpress.com.  There you can see more photos, learn more about our history, and read our previous blogs.  Our public contact email address is msfc-NN4SA(at)mail.nasa.gov.

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Our club station NN4SA, a former liquid hydrogen (LH2) test site, located at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama, USA.

A Brief History

The earliest records we have indicate that the Marshall Amateur Radio Club was organized in 1971 before the Apollo program ended, and began operating special event opportunities to commemorate various NASA achievements. Thousands of stations made contact with WM4SFC during the final Apollo missions, and around 9000 contacts were made during 1973 during the three Skylab missions. At the start of the Space Shuttle program the club begain operating with the callsign WA4NZD.  For the two day special event operation celebrating the launch of STS-1, over 2000 contacts with over 30 countries were made. The club continued to host special events for many Space Shuttle missions. But then the club became inactive for many years.

Starting in 2009, with the dedication of a number of our members, the club was gradually brought back to life. Much needed repair work was done.  We now have a fully functioning station with many capabilities.  In February 2015 the club was issued a new callsign NN4SA. We have returned to the radio spectrum and the ham community.

We serve the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and Redstone Arsenal community.  Each month we host regular membership meetings and work-play sessions. We engage in a variety of ham activities to help us all learn and enjoy the hobby, and to serve the community. Learn more about us at nn4sa.wordpress.com. 

 

Recent Special Events Stations

• April 20-23, 2017: Apollo XVI Manned Lunar Landing - 45th Anniversary
• October 22, 2016 ​: National Parks On the Air, at Little River Canyon Preserve, Ft. Payne, AL
• ​July 30 to August 2, 2016: Apollo XV Manned Lunar Landing - 45th Anniversary
• February 5 & 6, 2016: Apollo XIV Manned Lunar Landing - 45th Anniversary
• October 11, 2015: National Wildlife Refuge Week Special Event Station, by the Tennessee River at the Wheeler WNR/Redstone Arsenal
• April 24-29, 2015:  Hubble Space Telescope 25th Anniversary
• December 6, 2014: Orion EFT-1 Flight Test
• July 17-22, 2014: Apollo 11 45th Anniversary, Special Event Callsign N4A
• July 2011: Final Space Shuttle Flight, STS 135
• November 2010: Space Shuttle Flight STS 133

 

 

Apollo XIV (14) 45th Anniversary Special Event February 2016, Orion EFT-1 Flight Test Special Event December 2014:

 

Apollo XI (11) 45th Anniversary Special Event Station N4A, digital and phone ops, July 2014:

   

 

ARRL Field Day 2016 in the field:

  

 

 

 

ARRL Field Day 2015, in the field with solar power and a biolite:​

    

   

  

Snapshots from some of our earlier Field Days:

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CW QRP To The Field / RApid Deployment of Amateur Radio (RaDAR) at Moontown Airport (3M5) in north Alabama, May 2014:

 

 

NASA MSFC Family Picnic 2013:

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QRP Skunkwerks presentation at Hunstville Hamfest August 2014, Summits On The Air (SOTA) JT65 Activation at Monte Sano State Park, AL, April 2014:

   

Solar panel work, 220 MHz antenna repair, 160 meter OCF antenna repair

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TH-11DX antenna raising:

   

 

 

Our Antennas ...

50 and 220 MHz yagis, 440 & 144 MHZ satellite antenna:

  

 

We also use our wire antennas: 160 meter OCF, 80 meter dipole, 40 meter dipole, 30 meter dipole, and 17 & 20 meter inverted vee with common center feed.