Technical Mentoring & Elmering Net
Technical Topics and Advice for New Hams
Thursdays from 8:00 to 9:00 PM on the SBARC Hub linked repeaters.
The Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net is dedicated to teaching. We discuss technical topics related to ham radio at ALL levels of expertise, with very special emphasis on helping any new ham any way we can. Remember you are an expert in your field of endeavor, so its no shame if you are just a beginner in ham radio. In fact, a great question for the net is “ WHAT are you guys talking about?”
There is no “lecture topic”, meaning that we are completely question-based, so its great if you have a list of questions ready. We take check-ins at the beginning, and throughout the net, so you can join (and leave) anytime you want to. Usually we discuss some technical topic for awhile, then leave breaks for people to jump in with a different question. Often several very expert hams are on, with possibly some listening ready to help with something they know, or to answer up to net control asking “who wants to answer that question?” The net is very informal and friendly, and also helps any new ham with even non-technical ham radio questions, like correct operating procedure, etc.
You’ll find recordings of the net in the SBARC Audio Archives.
Net controllers, see the TM&E Net preamble and script wiki.
The audio archive can best 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.
Tonight’s net was an interesting one with 11 check-ins plus net control (Shackmaster Dave K6HWN) and 10 chat room visitors. Subjects tonight included:
- G5RV antenna w/SWR “Talking” Watt Meter measuring for 20 to 80 meters (Dennis, WB6OBB having issues)
- NVIS and ground wave concepts
- Software Defined Radio
Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM (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 TM&E net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.
The audio archive can best 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.
Tonight’s Technical Mentoring and Elmering (TM&E) net yielded 13 check-ins plus net control (Shackmaster Dave, K6HWN) and 9 chat room visitors. Topics discussed included:
- A follow-up on steerable antenna arrays.
- Direction finding using a 4 antenna (vertical) array.
- The proper procedure to re-purpose a repeater and user conduct to be expected when an emergency arises.
- Proper preparation and contents of a good functional go bag and good practices to follow before actually leaving your domicile and becoming part of the problem.
- Affects of toroids on baluns especially related to heat.
Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM (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 TM&E net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.
The audio archive can best 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.
The net tonight was very interesting with 11 check-ins, net control (Shackmaster Dave, K6HWN) and 7 chat room visitors. Tonight’s subjects included:
- Ways to secure an antenna and mast to a building without having to drill holes into the structure.
- Hackerspace (http://sbhackerspace.com/) set up an ATV channel and the question was asked by Eric (K6HMD) if and when the ATV feed to the SBARC club station would be back on the air at BATC.tv.
- Chuck (N6CPN) asked why windows wants to install an ActiveX plugin when installing AllStar.
- Antenna arrays, steerable antenna arrays and phased arrays.
Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM (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 TM&E net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.
The audio archive can best 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.
Tonight’s net was yet another good and informative experience with 9 check-ins, net control (K6HWN) and 8 chat room visitors. Subjects discussed tonight were:
- An update on police scanner jargon / protocol and a helpful link to it at http://www.mendosa.com/code.html. Authorized radio unit designations can be found about 3/4 of the way down the page. Thanks for the link goes out to Hayden (KK6OYV).
- Cable / connector required to set up an AllStar node.
- More discussion about AllStar and its usage.
- Ground rods and why the recommended depth is 8 feet.
Tune in to the SBARC TM&E Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM (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 TM&E net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.
The time stamps shown below are best followed by downloading the .Mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with Windows Media Player.
Tonight’s Technical Mentoring and Elmering (TM&E) net was another informative one with 10 check-ins plus net control (K6HWN) and 7 chat room participants. The subject matter included:
- Police scanner jargon / protocol for patrols such as 32 Adam, 32 M, 32 K or just 32.
- Affect of a dipole or long wire up in a tree (a lot of foliage) or even touching a branch and maybe even bending a little.
- Slingshots, weights & pulleys, etc. when hanging a dipole or long wire.
- Modulation meter vs. Power meter.
Tune in to the TM&E Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 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 TM&E Net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.
The time stamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with Windows Media Player.
Tonight’s net had 8 check-ins plus net control (K6HWN) and 8 chat room participants. Subjects included:
- 09:05 – How the club station radio room has changed over the years since we moved into the Red Cross building over 30 years ago, how many radios and what bands are available to experiment with there, how one can be trained at COMMCOM (Communications Command), and a little history.
- 18:35 – Continuation of the discussion on heterodyning.
- 34:30 – Aspects of 220 MHz – Pros and cons, commonality, and usage in the Santa Barbara area.
- 58:00 – Issues on 40 meters over 50 watts causing a stuffed dog to bark and RF chokes.
Tune in to the SBARC Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 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.
The time stamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with Windows Media Player.
Tonight’s net was informative as usual with 7 check-ins plus “Shackmaster” Dave (K6HWN) as net control and 8 chat room participants. Questions included:
00:11:40 – Dave (K6HWN) “Shackmaster” started things off with discussion about the white papers written by EYV (full call unknown at this time). They are currently on loan to the club station and can be read there and they will also be available on SBARC.org soon. Some of the material covered in the papers and Dave’ s discussion tonight involves “mixing”. In ordinary free space everything is linear which means that everything is proportional, if you double X you’ll double the consequences and everything can exist simultaneously. All electromagnetic waves like radio waves of all frequencies just exist simultaneously and their electric fields may add at the moment if they’re near each other, but there’s absolutely no interference or “mixing”. It’s just the slightest bit of non-linearity (things don’t always double) then you get the very important properties of mixing, heterodyning and so on. This is a fascinating discussion, please take the time to listen to the recording for 7/30/2015 here.
00:25:22 – Brian (K6BPM) talks about helping the community at Rancho Santa Barbara (a mobile home park) and it’s 300 some residences there to have emergency communications using the GMRS (General Mobile Radio System) repeater at the K6TZ site on La Vigia. Brian was testing the site for the best reception areas with different antennas on radios in the 460 MHz range. Discussion also includes general information about the GMRS system. Listen to the recording for 7/30/2015 here.
00:54:40 Brian (K6BPM) related the SBARC chat room discussion going on related to a bug found in the Signalink and certain Kenwood and ICOM radios. When operating digital modes such as JT65 it was found that a certain chip used was clipping the received signal thereby reducing the number of decodes on might receive. There is a fix for this bug and you can learn about it by listening to the recording for 7/30/2015 here.
Tune in to the SBARC Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net next Thursday at 8:00 PM or 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 Technical Mentoring and Elmering net each week and join in with questions and /or answers to and contribute the knowledge of new and seasoned amateur radio operators alike.
