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General Club Meeting – November 19, 2021

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Normally this would be Election Night but in light of the continuing pandemic, we’re going to have this meeting, our final meeting of the year over Zoom, hopefully for the last time. We will re-evaluate after January 1st and see if we can go back to a full in-person meeting schedule.

So this meeting we will be announcing the election results from our online voting totals. Hopefully you have all voted by now, but if not, check the post below for instructions.

This would also normally be “Home-brew” night. Traditionally, members bring something to show that they designed and built … Read more… →

Pacifcon Convention Wrap-Up

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by David Hackleman, K6VML

Per Ken Alker’s request on the SBARC listserver, here is my account of Pacificon, October 15-17, 2021.

My trip to Europe had been cancelled due to COVID. Pacificon was coming up at about the same time that the trip would have been. I had never been to it and decided it would be a worthwhile alternative. Earlier in the week I made a reservation at the San Ramon Marriott, site of the convention, even though the special rate had expired. Turns out I got the room at about the same rate. This was … Read more… →

General Club Meeting – October 15, 2021

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Several people have asked about FT8 in recent months, so we thought we would do an introductory presentation to explain what it is and how it works. FT8 is a fast paced digital mode for HF and it works even when most other modes don’t. It’s high sensitivity to weak signals makes it a favorite mode for many of us without amplifiers and big beam  antennas. It typically takes about 35 watts and a modest dipole or wire antenna and you can easily make contacts world wide. Many … Read more… →

Raspberry Pi and Amateur Radio – General Club Meeting – September 17, 2021

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We’re sure many of you have heard club members talk about Raspberry Pi’s and how we use them for performing tasks on our network as well as other things we do in our own shacks. Raspberry Pi’s are small but powerful, full featured computers that can be used for a variety of purposes. And, they start at $5 for RPi Zeros and $35 for the more powerful, original sized boards. The newest Raspberry Pi 4 series are even more powerful and start at $45. They are ultra reliable and will run for years.

This month we had a PowerPoint presentation … Read more… →

General Club Meeting – August 20, 2021

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orville-k-beach-w6biOur speaker this month will be Orv Beach W6BI. They will bringing us up to date with everything that is going on in mesh networking. There have been a lot of changes in the past 4 years since Orv last presented to out members. A lot of us have mesh nodes deployed, but most of us have not kept up with the latest firmware and equipment. The Mesh community has grown considerably.  This will be a very informative meeting and anyone interested in Mesh Networking should make plans to attend.

We had … Read more… →

Consider Supporting our Scholarship Fund

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*** Be sure to allocate your donation to the “Scholarship Fund” box. ***

In 2021, the Board of Directors created the Santa Barbara Wireless Foundation Scholarship Fund to provide annual support to high school seniors with excellent academic records who plan to study Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) in higher education. Each year, the Scholarship Committee will select a high school senior who will receive up to $1,000 to support their undergraduate studies.

This scholarship is funded entirely through contributions made to the Santa Barbara Wireless Foundation Scholarship Fund. Tax-deductible contributions to the Scholarship … Read more… →