Tag Archives: Meetings

June 2015 General Club Meeting

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If you missed this months meeting, you missed a great presentation by Levi – K6LCM on his recent trip to Cuba. Levi had the rare opportunity to join a research delegation visiting the normally closed off island nation to meet the people, experience the culture and even get together with a local ham club in Havana. Listen to how Levi initially made contact with them and developed a relationship with this group of Cuban hams. It is very interesting to hear about the resourcefulness of the Cuban people and how they get by without access to equipment and parts to fix their radios, vehicles, and all the other things we take for granted. The full meeting audio is available in the audio archives area. Listen to Levi’s presentation portion of the meeting below.   Post expires at 8:23am on Saturday July 4th, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.

Club Meeting – May 15, 2015

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What exactly is Old Timers Night, anyway? Well, let’s say that it is an annual event that occurs at our May SBARC Club Meeting. It is a special time where we can once more meet and greet our “most experienced” amateurs. These folks have paid their dues and come this far along life’s journey to a point where they can boast about having had experiences in the great hobby of Amateur Radio that most of us have only heard about. Continue reading →

Come to the April General Club Meeting – April 17, 2015

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Our scheduled topic this month will be on emergency training. Learn about CERT training, emergency communications, and how to best serve your neighbors and community during an emergency. As amateur radio users, we are able to provide a valuable service that others can’t. So be sure to attend. We will be meeting at the normal place, Goleta Union Schools Admin. Board Room – 401 North Fairview Avenue – across the street from the public library. The meeting starts at 7:30 but come early and socialize! Post expires at 1:00am on Saturday April 18th, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.

March Club General Meeting

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At tonight’s club meeting, ATV & Digital Modes Net controller Brian Milburn (K6BPM) provided SBARC members with a glimpse of the fun that can be had on HF with digital modes.  By tunneling into his shack computer, Brian was able to project his own software defined radio (SDR) on the presentation screen at the meeting for a live demo of JT-65.  JT-65, originally designed for Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) communication, has become tremendously popular on the HF bands for its ability to perform under extremely poor conditions.  Those in attendance seemed intrigued by the prospect of being able to work stations around the world to fatten their logbooks even under the most dire band conditions. Although Brian’s SDR setup is quite impressive, one doesn’t need to spend a lot of money to get on many of the numerous HF digital modes, including JT-65.  Even many older HF radios support computer interfaces such as SignaLink and RigBlaster, which are more than adequate for dabbling with free digital mode software like Fldigi and WSJTX. Listen to an audio recording of Brian’s presentation from our audio archive: Post expires at 7:39pm on Friday April 17th, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.

Come to the March General Meeting March 20, 2015

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It is almost that time of the month for the monthly Club Meeting. This month our presenter will be Brian – K6BPM. You may have heard Brian doing the Weather portion of the Reg Dawe Memorial Cuckoo net on Wednesdays and Fridays, or as net control of the ATV Digital Modes Net on Tuesday evenings. He is also one of our board members this year. Brian will be speaking on using Software Defined Radios (SDRs) and digital modes. He will be demonstrating these live, on-the-air, so all of us can see how these thing work and why operating digital modes is becoming so popular. So be sure to attend. You will be guaranteed to walk away with a better understanding of how easy digital modes are to use. We will be meeting at the normal place, Goleta Union Schools Admin. Board Room – 401 North Fairview Avenue – across the street from the public library. The meeting starts at 7:30 but come early and socialize! Post expires at 1:00am on Saturday March 21st, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.

Bill Talanian’s Presentation at the February 2015 General Meeting

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If you missed the February 2015 General Meeting, you really missed out on a good presentation. Bill Talanian W1UUQ gave us a great presentation on the various repeaters we use in the Santa Barbara area. Most of us probably have no idea how sophisticated how Club communications backbones are, but in an hourlong presentation that went by way too fast, Bill gave us plenty of detail illustrated with pictures about the unbelievably sophisticated infrastructure we all take for granted when we press the transmit button on our radios. Starting with  the main repeater site on the Mesa, Bill took us on a guided tour through it’s humble beginnings with a couple of leaky shacks and equipment covered with blue tarps, to the sophisticated communications center it is today. His tour continued give us a behind the scenes look at La Cumbre Peak,  Santa Ynez Peak, Broadcast Peak, UCSB, and Santa Cruz Island. Most of us think our repeaters are only for 2m, 220 and 440 voice communications. Not so fast. Bill showed us many of the other things he and a handful of volunteers maintain on a constant basis. These include weather stations, APRS digipeaters, AIS reporting for maritime purposes, aviation, and many other things. One of the more interesting aspects of the presentation was how Bill and others have bartered and wheeled-and-dealed over the years to get the club access to literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of top quality equipment, towers, and whatever else it has required to make us a first class club. He is a master at horse trading and scavenging and fruits of his many years of work are largely unknown. If you missed this meeting, you missed one of the best presentations we have had. The amazing number of resources available to the club made possible through Bills hard work truly deserve our appreciation. You can listen to audio recording of the the meeting below. The presentation is 1 hour 37 minutes and you will need to stay on this page to ensure you do not interrupt playback.

January 2015 SBARC Club Meeting

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The January Club Meeting featured an interesting presentation by Julianne Walsh on 3D printing. She brought along a working 3D printer to demonstrate and a couple of “home brew” printers to show. 3D printing is going to be the revolution of the decade and will soon be able to print almost everything from tools to human organs. Thanks Julianne for the great presentation! Post expires at 11:00pm on Monday February 2nd, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.