Category Archives: Club News

3D Printed Powerpole Distribution Box

By | |
4 Comments

In my never-ending effort to upgrade my home and portable stations, I directed some effort toward improving my power connections. After some research, I decided to use Anderson Powerpole connectors. These are the standard ARES power connector and they have been thoroughly tested and used by Amateur Radio operators around the world. After crimping and installing the connectors on all my radio power cables, I ran into an issue. How do I power more than one radio from a single power source? Looking around online, I found a couple of companies that sold Powerpole distribution panels, but most of them did not fit the bill. They were all too expensive or too large for my application. After looking around some more, I decided to explore some homemade options. I ran across this design, freely available on the popular 3D model sharing site, Thingiverse. I downloaded the files and had a friend print the box on his Makerbot Replicator 2 3D printer. The print turned out quite nicely, and all the components that I ordered from Mouser fit perfectly. Each side of the box snapped together cleanly and after a few weeks of everyday use at my home station, I can confidently say it works like a charm and will be a convenient piece of equipment for years to come! Total cost: $7.63 + S/H. The following is a time-lapse and build log of the distribution box for those of you that might want to build one of your own!   Time-lapse – In real time, the building portion of the project only took around 30 minutes. Click below to continue reading.

Memorial for Eric George Lemmon WB6FLY – SK Saturday, August 6th

By | |
Leave a comment

Via Tim Woolever KJ6OIL -President of the Satellite Amateur Radio (SARC) Club. I would like to invite all in remembering and celebrating the life of Eric George Lemmon WB6FLY. A memorial will be held at the Satellite Amateur Radio Club W6AB, Vandenberg AFB on the afternoon of Aug 6, 2016 at 2:00 pm.  This is on Vandenberg AFB property but base gate access is not required.  Excellent directions can be found at   http://satellitearc.com/directions.html.  Ham Operators: Talk-in on 145.360 -131.8, one of Eric’s repeaters. The Satellite ARC will be holding a meeting at this facility the hour before the memorial from 1:00 to 2:00 pm.  Everyone is invited to participate in the meeting and presentation.  SARC was one of the favorite passions of Eric’s.  For information about the club, please contact any of the officers or myself. The memorial will be outside in the paved parking lot.  Parking will be on the fields.  These fields have not been maintained and have gopher and ground squirrel holes, some holes are large.  So please take care while driving and walking at the facility.  No designated handicap parking or facilities are available.  Minimal restroom facilities, please plan accordingly. Current plans have a sound system, 2 – 10×30 foot awnings and lots of chairs. Vandenberg’s Honor Guard will perform a ceremony and playing of taps. Tim KJ6OIL Post expires at 8:35pm on Saturday August 6th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

Program for the July 15, 2016 General Club Meeting

By | |
Leave a comment

(Darryl – KF6DI) Do you recognize the fellow above standing next to the 7-foot tall rack of broadcast equipment? Some of you might remember him as attending, as well as helping answer questions after, the extremely interesting meeting put on by Orv Beach, W6BI, in February of this year. He is none other than Tom King, KA6SOX, husband of Marina, KA6JWL, and father of Justin, KJ6ZRT. Tom has been in the broadcast business for quite a while and has made a very good name for himself at practically every AM and FM radio station in our area as well as many out-of-town stations. At one time, not that long ago, he could even be seen working at dizzying heights atop broadcast radio towers at various stations. That is an activity that can take a toll on a body. Tom says that he is through with climbing towers! Tom is equally at home with the electronics inside the studios as he was with it up those towers. Today he much prefers to work on all that indoor gear! Wouldn’t you? Have you ever found yourself listening very carefully while tuning your receiver dial and asking yourself, “What are all these strange sounds at the bottom of the HF bands?” At this SBARC Club meeting Tom will explain the explosion of the HF Digital Modes, what they sound like and how they are used. If you appreciated your introduction to the Digital Mesh Networking discussion in February, you are bound to gain much knowledge at this meeting as well! It is meetings such as this one that will enhance your pleasure of Amateur Radio. The more you understand it the more you enjoy it. Don’t miss Tom’s presentation! Also, at this SBARC meeting, you will hear from President Brian Milburn, K6BPM, about our Digital Mesh Network and how you can get involved with it. By now you have probably heard that there is a whole lot of progress being made on the project and that more and more of us are finding it very exciting. Brian will also let us know more about how the Club Station is evolving. Levi Maaia, K6LCM, would like to tell us about our newly-formed Telecommunications group and what they are doing. Darryl Widman, KF6DI, will be introducing the newest hams and license upgrades from our VE Session held this past Saturday. Also, at this meeting, we… Continue reading →

Shop at Amazon and Benefit SBARC

By | |
Leave a comment

If you shop at a Amazon, you can now help benefit the club by using the Amazon Smile program. The Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club is now a registered non-profit organization with Amazon, and a they will donate a small percentage of every purchase you make to the club. In order for Amazon to credit us correctly, you need to access the Amazon website using a special link that identifies SBARC as your chosen charity. This doesn’t cost you a penny, and it will help support SBARC. Just click on the button below, and follow instructions.

Upcoming General Meeting – June 17, 2016

By | |
Leave a comment

(Darryl KF6DI) – Mike Bales, KI6VBK, is the CEO and co-founder of the Santa Barbara Hackerspace, which was founded 6 years ago in his garage. Mike moved from San Diego to Santa Barbara to attend Santa Barbara City College to get a start on a degree in Electronic Engineering. He was frustrated with the limited access to the labs there and couldn’t afford the equipment that was required for an electronics project he was working on.  His life changed when he attended the Bay Area Maker Faire in San Mateo that year and discovered the concept of hackerspace. He thought that there must be others in a similar situation in need of space and equipment for personal and school projects given Santa Barbara’s many schools so he decided to try and start a hackerspace. Hackerspaces are community-operated physical places, where people share their interest in tinkering with technology, meet and work on their projects and learn from each other.  SB Hackerspace started small, about a half dozen people meeting in Mike’s apartment / garage for the first 6 months or so. Once they built up a small core group they rented their first space on Aero Camino in Goleta and quickly grew and acquired more members.  Mike has a day job as a systems administrator for a small IT company which manages networks and equipment for 30 clients in the Santa Barbara area, in addition to running the hackerspace, and developing open source weather balloon trackers and other neat projects.  If you would like to know more about this young, exciting group of people and what they are doing, you are invited to drop by and pay them a visit. The Santa Barbara Hackerspace is a fun and friendly setting for makers and hackers to build, experiment and learn together. They welcome all participants, no matter their level of skill or experience. Their general meetings are on Saturdays from 2 pm until late, and there are usually people there during the evenings on most weeknights. So, you can drop by their location on Saturday after you leave the SBARC Club Station, which closes around noon, and while you are there you can also join their mailing list for updates! Post expires at 9:00pm on Friday June 17th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

The Mesh Goes Over the Mountain

By | | ,
Leave a comment

On Sunday June 5th we reached a new milestone in the mesh network buildout. Tom – KA6SOX, Eric – KG6WXC, and Scott – KM6COI all spent their Sunday up on Santa Ynez Peak installing mesh nodes to allow us to reach Solvang and the Santa Ynez Valley. They installed one node pointing at Gibraltar Peak, and another pointing towards the Solvang area. We likely reach much further than Solvang too but have not tested limits of coverage yet. One of our goals has been to reach into the north county area, and this brings us one step closer. Our members in the Santa Ynez Valley can now link up with us in the greater Santa Barbara area and participate in mesh activities and nets. In other news, we are now linked with the Ventura County mesh network group. They have been doing this for awhile and have a few more nodes than we do, but we’ll see what we can do about that! With the Ventura county link, our range has extended to well over 60 miles. The Ventura group even has a Sunday evening MeshChat net and the Santa Barbara crew can now participate.   We are also adding services like crazy here and now provide an SBARC web forum, three different email platforms including the Winlink 200o system, a packet radio gateway, three NTP time servers including one that synchronizes via GPS satellite signals, IRC chat, and more. And, there is still plenty of things to explore!   Photos courtesy of Scott – KM6COI Post expires at 3:26pm on Friday July 8th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

SBARC Telecom Group Meets for First Time

By | | ,
Leave a comment

The new, and improved SBARC Telecom Group met Saturday June 4th for the first time. The Telecom Group is led by Bill W1UUQ and Levi K6LCM (co-chairs) and composed of members of the repeater and microwave crew that has maintained our infrastructure for years, and several members of the digital operations and mesh network group. Many members of the digital group have skills that will enable more people to share the load in maintaining and improving SBARC’s already amazing infrastructure. The SBARC digital group will be able to assume more responsibility for day-to-day repeater operations and programming, packet radio and APRS, weather stations, and other things that have overburdoned the telecom group for years. In the very near future, we will have some very powerful new repeater features available to the club, and this collaboration will ensure that the talents and skills available to the club are most efficiently utilized. Note: Missing from the picture is Brian K6BPM because he was taking it! Post expires at 6:53am on Friday August 5th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.