What’s happening at SBARC? Here you will find the latest club news, events, projects, net activities, and news from our special interest groups (SIGS).
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We have moved content for the Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net here, and content for the Digital Modes Net here.
SBARC General Club Meeting
Friday, January 19, 2018 at 7:30 PM
Goleta Union School District Board Room
400 North Fairview Avenue in Goleta
Amateur radio operators in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties proved to be valuable assets in the Thomas Fire and now once again with the ongoing Montecito mudslide disaster. As a result of our members’ efforts to keep our analog and digital communications systems up-to-date with relevant information about evacuations, firefighting efforts and recovery operations, the ARRL featured SBARC in an article in its weekly email newsletter last week.
Everyone on the air rose to the occasion, especially during the critical days of the Thomas Fire. Amatuer radio remains a critical lifeline for those now affected by the disaster in Montecito.
At our meeting on Friday, we will host a debriefing and discussion with our membership about what the Club did well and what we can improve upon for future emergency responses. Please join us on Friday to let us know your thoughts on the future of amateur emergency communications in Santa Barbara.
We hope to see you all at the meeting!
Post expires at 1:00am on Saturday January 20th, 2018 but will still be available in the archives.
Looking northeast from the Santa Barbara Riviera toward the Westmont College area and the Thomas Fire smoke plume.
Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club members kept a close watch on the Thomas Fire after it broke out in early December. Using a variety of the club’s analog and digital Amateur Radio assets, radio operators were able to observe fire-fighting efforts first hand and pass along immediate information, often before it was reported by official sources or by local news media. SBARC operates five communication sites in Santa Barbara County, including sites on Diablo Peak on the mostly uninhabited Santa Cruz Island, and on Santa Ynez Peak.
“These two sites host [Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast] ADS-B receivers that are connected via a combination of amateur microwave IP links and mesh networking and were used to track and monitor airborne firefighting activities,” Levi Maaia, K6LCM, co-chair of SBARC’s Telecommunications Services Committee, told ARRL.
Starting in mid-December, a round-the-clock emergency net convened on 2-meters, as commercial power for much of Santa Barbara County was cut and the fire descended on residential communities in Santa Barbara County, prompting multiple evacuation orders. With repeaters on generator power and many operators running on battery power, net traffic consisted of official information, including evacuation orders, live reports on the rapidly approaching fire line from operators who remained inside the mandatory evacuation area, related traffic about firefighting efforts, and wind and weather conditions. SBARC volunteers set up an ad hoc remote receiving station to stream live fire ground and air communications audio over the Internet and mesh network.
As fire crews came off duty, one firefighter and Amateur Radio operator joined the net to offer a firsthand account of operations from an insider’s perspective. SBARC members also assisted visiting fire crew members with mobile radio antenna repairs in the field.
Maaia said social media proved to be a valuable communication asset, as most official organizations such as incident command and emergency management agencies were disseminating official information via Twitter immediately upon release. “Amateur stations without power, cell phone or Internet access could be kept informed of important information including evacuation orders, via the Amateur Radio net,” Maaia explained. “SBARC also served as an aggregator for Thomas Fire-related information by featuring tweets on the club website.”
The still-burning Thomas Fire, the largest in modern California history, caused devastating losses in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. “Although the Santa Barbara ARES group never activated, Amateur Radio proved to be a valuable mode of communication, especially when coupled with social media, amateur mesh networking, IRC chat (over mesh and Internet) and live audio streaming,” Maaia said.
In Ventura County, the Thomas Fire damaged or destroyed some Amateur Radio resources normally available to provide emergency communication. It was an Amateur Radio TV camera that caught the first images of the Thomas Fire on December 4. A fund-raising effort now is under way to help a repeater system operator to replace gear and to bolster the rest of the system for future such emergencies. Fund-raising sparkplug Ben Kuo, KI6YR, said the fire demonstrated the difficulty of keeping equipment running in remote locations during fire emergencies.
“We also discovered other sites faced serious limitations after utility power was cut and solar panels from solar denver were obscured by vast clouds of smoke,” Kuo recounted in his solicitation who immediately contacted solar panel cleaning Las Vegas to clean this mess. “This GoFundMe [campaign] will go toward enhancing the existing ham radio repeater network, to make it more reliable in emergencies.” High-quality video cameras for those repeater sites is another possibility.
During the Thomas Fire, Kuo helped bridge the divide between Amateur Radio and social media, and even firefighters would check his feed to see what was going on in other areas of the fire, he said. “It’s a very powerful combination,” Kuo told VC Star. An ARRL member, Kuo, of Newbury Park, founded the socaltech news site. He’s been licensed for 3 years and serves as an ARRL Technical Specialist for the ARRL Santa Barbara Section.
Local hams monitoring firefighting operations and disseminating fire information over the air, online.
Looking northeast from the Santa Barbara Riviera toward the Westmont College area and the Thomas Fire smoke plume. (K6BPM photo)
SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. – Amateur radio operators at the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club (SBARC) have been on the air around the clock monitoring the progress of firefighting efforts during the Thomas Fire. The local radio enthusiasts monitor a number of over-the-air and online resources and disseminate information over the air including updates on aerial firefighting operations, weather conditions, evacuation orders and traffic and road conditions.
SBARC operates five primary emergency telecommunications sites including Santa Barbara City and Santa Barbara County facilities on various peaks throughout the area including Diablo Peak on Santa Cruz Island and from the American Red Cross building on State Street in Santa Barbara. Club members volunteer to build and maintain resources such as analog and digital radio repeaters, shortwave radio stations, microwave internet links and local area mesh network nodes, webcams, weather stations, and GPS asset tracking systems. These systems allow for live tracking of firefighting aircraft over the Thomas Fire online.
Access to many of the resources provided by SBARC including a live audio stream of the Club’s radio repeater is available to the general public at www.sbarc.org. Anyone interested in obtaining an amateur radio license may contact the club at that website or by calling 805-456-5689.
SBARC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public benefit corporation organized to promote education for persons interested in radio telecommunications, to disseminate information about scientific discoveries and progress in the field, and to train communicators for public service and emergency communications. SBARC operates a wide-area network of analog and digital communications systems across Santa Barbara County and encourages and sponsors experiments in electronics while promoting the highest standards of practice and ethics in the conduct of communications.
Media Contact:
Levi C. Maaia, Director at Large
Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club
805-604-5384
k6lcm@sbarc.org
Dorothy K6DSO, SBARC’s outgoing secretary and Tom N6YX, SBARC chief financial officer, oversaw the election on November 17, 2017 under flashlights during an SCE planned power outage scheduled during our regular Friday-night meeting time.
Despite the scheduled power outage at our meeting place, we were able to successfully conduct the SBARC election for the 2018 Board of Directors under portable, generator-powered lights. All of the nominated candidates were approved by the voting membership.
Members shared their own projects and experiments during “Homebrew Night” at the November General Club Meeting.
2018 Executive Committee
President and Chief Executive Officer: Brian Milburn, K6BPM
Chief Financial Officer: Tom Saunders, N6YX
Secretary: Wayne Beckman, AF6GX
2018 Directors At Large
Director At Large: Ken Alker, KA6KEN
Director At Large: Theo Howe, KK6YYZ
Director At Large: Levi Maaia, K6LCM
Director At Large: Michael Taylor, K6RQV
Two referendum items were also on the ballot. Results for those ballot questions are as follows:
#1 Raise the annual dues from $24 per year to $35 per year: APPROVED.
#2 Amend bylaws to allow Board of Directors to set annual membership dues. NOT APPROVED.
The audio archive of this net can best be followed by downloading the .mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with the media player of your choice. You can move the progress slider forward or backward to the subject of interest to you.
We had another good net tonight with 10 check-ins plus net control, Frank, K6FLD and some chat room visitors! Tonight’s subjects included:
Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net every Thursday at 8:00 PM local (2000 Hrs) and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.
It’s that time of year again. It is time to elect your board of directors for 2018. We also have two other items to vote on, so we hope to have a good turnout this year.
Not only will we be conducting the election, the November meeting is also traditionally been Homebrew Night. We invite everyone to bring a something you have built, or a project in progress, to show, demonstrate, and tell your ham friends about. Homebrew is what being a ham is all about! Anyone can go buy a radio, antenna or other accessory, but to many hams, building their own gear is much more fun and rewarding. So bring something (or a lot of things) because we’re all interested in seeing what you’re up to!
The official SBARC ballot is available by clicking here. We hope you can make it to the meeting, but if you can’t for some reason, we still hope you will cast your vote by absentee ballot. We are trying to make the procedure for casting absentee ballots easier this year, so here is the procedure:
Please note, if you are submitting your absentee ballot by email, it must be received by 11:59 PM on November 16, 2017.
Of course, you can also send it by regular mail to the address below. Please make sure your ballot is received by November 16th.
Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club, Inc.
Post Office Box 3907
Santa Barbara, CA 93130-3907
We hope to see you all at the meeting!
Post expires at 9:00pm on Friday November 17th, 2017 but will still be available in the archives.
The audio archive of this net can best be followed by downloading the .mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with the media player of your choice. You can move the progress slider forward or backward to the subject of interest to you.
We had another good net tonight with 9 check-ins plus net control, Brian, K6BPM and some chat room visitors! Tonight’s subjects included:
Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net every Thursday at 8:00 PM local (2000 Hrs) and see what interesting questions will arise or ask some of your own! All club members and visitors are encouraged to check in to the net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.
