Tag Archives: Social

General Club Meeting August 17, 2018. – DMR Revisited

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SBARC now has numerous members with DMR radios, but many have not yet quite gotten the hang of how DMR works and have not yet been able to enjoy the full capabilities of the DMR network. I have been asked several times recently about the possibility of having DMR be the topic of a club meeting, so I thought this month might be a good time to have one. Now that a lot of members have radios and have had at least some exposure to DMR, I think another meeting to go over the numerous capabilities of DMR might help clear things up for a lot of people, and get a few more people interested in jumping on board. We’ll also demonstrate and explain some different kinds of “hotspots” that you can set up at home and basically operate your own tiny, low powered DMR repeater. So bring your radios, and bring your questions! Post expires at 8:00pm on Friday August 17th, 2018 but will still be available in the archives.

SBARC Annual Bazaar – This Coming Saturday, July 21, 2018

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The annual SBARC Bazaar will be held this year on Saturday July 21, 2018. Setup will begin at 06:00 to 07:30 with selling to begin at 08:00 and continue to 11:30. Donated equipment that has been collected throughout the year will be sold to raise funds for the club. There will also be a consignment area where you can bring items you want to sell if you like and the club will accept a 10% “commission” from those sales. The Bazaar this year will be held in the parking lot at the Club Station in the Red Cross parking lot. It will be fun to have it “at home” again this year, and the Club Station will be open during the entire time. The Red Cross building is located on the corner of State Street and Alamar. The parking lot behind the main building, and the entrance is on Alamar. We will need help and people with pick-up trucks and/or hand trucks to move the equipment and set things up and clean up afterwards. Sales people are also needed. Please contact Brian K6BPM at k6bpm@sbarc.org if you can spare an hour or two. Your time will be greatly appreciated and it is for a good cause! Post expires at 12:35pm on Saturday July 21st, 2018 but will still be available in the archives.

Field Day 2018 – Saturday June 23 thru Sunday June 24

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This year we’re putting the “Field” back in Field Day!  We will be operating from Elings Park up on the hill where the hang gliders take off. We will be operating from 11:00am Saturday until 11:00am Sunday, and we still have several time slots to fill, so we would really appreciate your help. We need two volunteers per time slot, one to operate the station, and one to help with outreach to the public (answering questions, etc). Newly licensed (in the past year) and inactive hams – we’ll teach you how to work the GOTA station (check out the ARRL Field Day intro and the ARRL Field Day Rules for more information); so, if you are new to the hobby or just getting back into it, we have a spot for you too! We also need people to help set up before-hand, and help break-down at the end. Operating/outreach time-slots are four hours long (but if you can only do something less, we’ll still fit you in).  Your club needs you! Let’s make this a fun field day for everyone. We will bring the Rover to just above the hang gliding area at 7:00am on Saturday, June 23.  We will need a crew of four or more to assemble the antenna and put it on the Rover’s mast, but we’ll need more people to help assemble di-poles and erect antenna masts. We need a minimum of TEN volunteers to kick this off – six operators and four people for outreach (fewer for outreach since the public won’t be there during the dark hours). It would be awesome to get twelve operator time-slots filled (two people per time-slot) for a total of SIXTEEN volunteers so we can run two operator stations! You are more than welcome to work a 4-hour operator shift and a 4-hour outreach shift, if you so desire, or even take two operator shifts at different stations and/or times (lowering the need for as many total volunteers). Feel free to mix it up and hang out. If you can help out in any way, please contact us immediately, and let us know what hours you are available. Ideally, we’ll be filling shifts for these six time slots: 11am-3pm, 3pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am, and 7am-11am, but again, let us know when you can help, and we’ll fit you in! Post expires at 1:00am on Monday June 25th, 2018 but will still be… Continue reading →

General Club Meeting – Friday June 15th 2018

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Join us for an interesting presentation from Michael – K6RQV titles “The NAS in a nutshell”.  A quick en-route/terminal system overview of the National Aerospace System from a technician’s perspective. Michael works for the FAA as a systems technician in the Santa Barbara area, and we’ll learn about all the work that goes on behind the scenes to keep our air travel safe and reliable.     SBARC General Club Meeting Friday, June 15th, 2018 at 7:30 PM Goleta Union School District Board Room 401 North Fairview Avenue in Goleta We hope to see you all at the meeting! Post expires at 10:35pm on Friday June 15th, 2018 but will still be available in the archives.

General Club Meeting – May 18th, 2018

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Our general club meeting this month will feature a presentation from Gene Nelson Ph.D KE5HXX on converting gas generators to propane. Many of us have generators that don’t get a lot of use but want them to be ready to go when the need arrises. We have all found that storing gas is a pain, you need to add stabilizer and remember to replace gasoline every year or two. Generators also don’t like sitting around with gasoline in them for a long time and we often find that we can’t get them started when we need them. Well, Gene has a solution and will tell us about it step by step. He will also give us an outdoor demonstration. This month’s meeting is also Old-Timers night. Come pay your respects to our old-timers and bring your old radios to show off. We’ll introduce our old-timers at the beginning of the meeting, then we’ll give everyone plenty of time after the presentation to check out members gear from yesteryear. SBARC General Club Meeting Friday, May 18th, 2018 at 7:30 PM Goleta Union School District Board Room 401 North Fairview Avenue in Goleta We hope to see you all at the meeting! Post expires at 8:02pm on Friday May 18th, 2018 but will still be available in the archives.

General Club Meeting – April 20, 2016

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Wayne Beckman AF6GX will be the speaker this month, presenting a “Test Bench in a Backpack” program. He will give us a talk and demonstration of very portable and powerful test equipment that is much smaller and less expensive than earlier instruments because these new devices rely on being connected to a computer to utilize the processing and display capability of the computer. When used with a laptop computer this also makes the instruments battery powered very portable. Wayne works along with Bill, W1UUQ keeping our infrastructure maintained and frequently works in remote places where it is difficult if not impossible to run back to the shop for a tool or piece of equipment. See how he makes the best use of sometimes limited space and weight so that they can get the job done. SBARC General Club Meeting Friday, April 20, 2018 at 7:30 PM Goleta Union School District Board Room 401 North Fairview Avenue in Goleta Post expires at 10:15pm on Wednesday April 18th, 2018 but will still be available in the archives.

Election Coming Up – General Club Meeting, November 17, 2017

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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: Download and print the ballot. Make your selections, sign and date it at the bottom of page 1. If you have a scanner, please scan the document and save it to a file. if you don’t have a scanner, take a clear picture of page 1. Send either the scanned ballot or picture of the ballot by email to the Club Secretary, Dorothy K6DSO at secretary@sbarc.org. 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.