Tag Archives: Social

Program for the July 15, 2016 General Club Meeting

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(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 →

Field Day 2016

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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 still have several time slots to fill, so we would really appreciate your help. Operating/logging time slots are only 2 hours long, so it won’t put a very big dent in your weekend plans. Your club needs you! Let’s make this a fun field day for everyone. The plan is to bring the Rover Friday afternoon to the South Park area of Elings. Tom, N6YX expects to arrive between noon and 1 pm. He will take the road that the hang gliders use, then drive through the field to South Park area. We will need a crew of four or more to assemble the antenna and put it on the Rovers mast. The antenna only weighs 60 pounds, but it is about 12 feet long and 10 feet wide. We will test the radio and check digital modes. We should be finished before 4 pm Friday. Tom will arrive again Saturday morning about 9 am. He will work with someone else for the first shift. Shifts are two hours during the day and evening until 9 pm. Other operators / loggers will arrive for each shift. From 9 pm to about 6 am, there will be two or three for the night shift. We will operate until 11 am Sunday morning. The Rover will remain parked from Friday afternoon to Sunday about 1 pm. I don’t expect more than six people at a time. I don’t know how many from the club will be participating. We need at least 16 people for a full 24 hour operation. We need a minimum of 10 for a 12 hour operation. If you can help out with operating, logging, set-up or take-down, please contact us as soon as possible. Post expires at 11:00am on Sunday June 26th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

Upcoming General Meeting – June 17, 2016

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(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.

General Club Meeting Coming Up on April 15, 2016

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(Darryl – KF6DI) In 1957 the world was in its 12th year of a Cold War with the Soviet Union. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union stunned the world with its surprise launch of Sputnik-1, a two foot diameter 180 pound man-made satellite orbiting the earth every 92 minutes. This Soviet achievement caused the United States and Canada to build a massive military defense system which would give warning of an attack by “orbiting bombs.” ICBMs had not been invented yet. That system, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, will be described in detail by a person who worked on the BMEWS project for 400 days in Northern Greenland. Skip Aubry was first licensed as KN2LXC in 1955. In 1964, while serving in the United States Air Force, he was a certified Electronics Counter-measures instructor for *SAC EB-47 bomber flight crews. * Strategic Air Command In 1968 he joined RCA Service Company as a Tech Rep and was assigned to support the RCA BMEWS presence in Northern Greenland. As an RCA Tech Rep he was initially a BMEWS radar System Engineer and later a BMEWS Computer operator. While in Greenland he was licensed by the Danish Government and was active on the ham bands for more than a year as OX5AC. Come find out more about this fascinating fellow at our April SBARC Club meeting and about what it was like to think that during the next few seconds our lives and those of our neighbors could be turned upside down. We hold our Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club meetings at the Goleta Union School District, 401 N. Fairview Ave. in Goleta, right across the street from the Goleta Library. Doors open at 7:00 PM and the meeting starts at 7:30 PM. Post expires at 1:00am on Saturday April 16th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

General Club Meeting – March 18, 2016

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We had a packed meeting this month in more ways than one! It was very well attended with a 59% increase in members in attendance compared with our recent averages. On top of that we had three presenters too! It started off with Jon Kent of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Aero Squadron. Jon explained what the Aero Squadron does and related some great stories. Jon has been a volunteer for decades and has flown many missions in support of local law enforcement, county government, and emergency services. He is truly a dedicated to public service, and is an inspiration to all of us. Gear, gear and more gear! The tables were packed with radio equipment that immediately drew interest from our members. Bill Talanian W1UUQ showed off some of his one-of-a-kind creations that help him support a wide variety of services including air observer support, repeater maintenance, and emergency services support. Also displayed on the main table was a repeater, controller, amplifiers and other gear slated soon for SBARC service. Out third speaker, Matt Lechliter, W6KGB, explained what it all was. Matt treated us to an extremely informative hour explaining how he hand builds our repeater systems for us. Although we seldom hear him on the air, he is nevertheless hard at work repairing our existing equipment and building new things for our future. Matt typically takes Motorola and GE commercial repeaters had hand fabricates new parts and electronics to turn them into top quality amateur radio repeater systems. Calling his creations “home-brew” does not do them justice. They are every bit as professionally constructed – if not more so – that the finest factory made ones. SBARC is extremely lucky to have people like Bill and Matt on our team. There is nothing “amateur” in what they do. Post expires at 1:50am on Wednesday April 20th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

March 18, 2016 General Meeting Program

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Come to our March 18 Club meeting and hear about the forward upgrade plans for the hilltop repeater sites for the Mesa site and about our 220 MHz Repeater Site at Santa Ynez Peak. Matt Lechliter, W6KGB, will brief everyone about these upgrade plans. These upgrades are now underway and should be available for the users by mid-year. How many of you have had the pleasure of meeting Jon Kent of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Aero Squadron? Jon holds the rank of Captain in that fine organization. Want to know why the Sheriff would want to get into a smaller aircraft and fly it over residential areas? Why would he fly it over forested areas?  Maybe Jon can fill us in. At our meeting, Jon will be ably assisted by our own Bill Talanian, W1UUQ. If you have no plans for dinner before the meeting, you might like to join Matt, Jon, Bill and us at Cody’s in the Turnpike Shopping Center at 5:30 PM. We hold our Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club meetings at the Goleta Union School District, 401 N. Fairview Ave. in Goleta, right across the street from the Goleta Library. Doors open at 7:00 PM and the meeting starts at 7:30 PM. Feel free to bring a guest! Join or renew your membership in SBARC while you’re there. Submitted by Darryl, KF6DI Post expires at 11:40pm on Friday March 18th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

February 2016 General Club Meeting: Amateur Radio Mesh Networking

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Orville Beach, W6BI spoke at SBARC’s February General Club Meeting. Orville is a member of the Simi Settlers Amateur Radio Club of Simi Valley, Calif. who says he is now All Digital, All the Time! Orville spoke to the group about the success of digital mesh networking in Ventura County and encouraged Santa Barbara-area hams to join in the the fun of using 0ff-the-shelf wireless networking gear to create private IP networks using the exclusive ham allocation in the 2.4 GHz band. Listen to audio from his presentation below and learn more about the software his is using that is coming out of the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) Project.