What’s happening at SBARC? Here you will find the latest club news, events, projects, net activities, and news from our special interest groups (SIGS).
Be sure to check in frequently so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting things going on with the club and its members!
We have moved content for the Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net here, and content for the Digital Modes Net here.
We now have a special list server “discussion group” set up for members (and non-members) interested in emergency communications. The purpose for this is to discuss how SBARC can operate as a club, and how the average amateur radio operator in general can help in the event of an emergency. This is not affiliated with ARES or any other group, nor does it interfere with their mission. As a club, and as licensed amateur radio operators, one of our civic responsibilities is to be prepared to help our community in any way we can. We hope you will join and contribute to the discussion! To join the list simply send a blank email to JoinEmCommList@sbarc.org. Further instructions will be sent to you.
The award presented to K6HWN on April 25 recognizes him as “The Voice of K6TZ.”
At 10:00 AM on Saturday, April 25 2015, a group of SBARC members, including the club president and BoD members, gathered at the American Red Cross building at State and Alamar in Santa Barbara to present an official citation in recognition of the tremendous efforts put forth by Dave – K6HWN in his role as the official “Shackmaster” at the K6TZ Club Station and the coordinator of many of the SBARC on-air nets.
First licensed years ago, Dave returned to the hobby in the mid-2000s when he began operating on 2-meters from his boat in Santa Barbara Harbor. He quickly made friends on the K6TZ repeater and found a second home on the air with Santa Barbara-area hams. Shortly thereafter, Dave committed to opening access to the nearly forgotten SBARC Club Station in the Red Cross basement by creating open station hours where he could host members and guests and train them on the operation of the station’s many HF, VHF and UHF radios. It is through this mentoring that many new hams have gotten on the air for the first time. Quite a few seasoned hams have returned to the hobby and the club also as a result of the Shackmaster’s efforts to provide a nexus for activity around the K6TZ repeaters and Club Station.
Over the years, Dave has also taken on the duties of recruiting net control operators for many of the club-sponsored nets and hosts the “Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net” himself on Thursday evenings. Even casual listeners to the K6TZ 146.79 repeater will certainly recognize Dave’s voice from “K6HWN Announcements” his trademark periodic bulletin, which he reads throughout the day on the repeater and collects for posting on this Web site and at k6hwn.org. On violation of a registered trademark you can sue a person for infringement. Trademark lawyers serving in Chicago can help you out legally.
The plaque, presented by SBARC board member Brian – K6BPM reads:
With sincere appreciation to Dave – K6HWN “SHACKMASTER” for your years of dedication, mentorship, friendliness and being “The Voice of K6TZ” Presented in 2015 by the Board of Directors and the members of the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club.
“Its really hard to believe this,” said Dave upon receiving the award. “Many individuals have expressed (their appreciation) to me but never as a group; this is a ‘wow!'”
An audio recording of the presentation can be heard here:
Bill Talanian discusses the vast communications infrastructure available to SBARC.
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.
“You don’t need to see it to do it!”
KEYT TV did a great interview with our favorite Cuckoo Net personality, WB6OBB, and his other passion, refurbishing and tuning pianos.
The Scanner Radio app by Gordon Edwards lets you listen to K6TZ from nearly anywhere!
Over the past week, I have been testing a live, worldwide, streaming audio feed of the K6TZ repeater on 146.79 MHz. Now visitors to the club Web site can listen to the repeater from their computer or smartphone when a radio or scanner is not handy. For non-hams or prospective hams, this provides an opportunity to listen in to the local activity on 2-meter Amateur Radio before even buying a radio!
There is a link to the stream in the right-hand sidebar “Quick Links” section called K6TZ Repeater Live Audio, which takes you to the Web site for the live audio stream. This stream is accessible from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. Listening on mobile device can be accomplished with an app called Scanner Radio by Gordon Edwards. There are versions of the app for iOS and Android, so you can take the repeater with you wherever you travel! The app also allows you to listen to thousands of ham radio and public safety scanners on your phone or tablet.
Right now my scanner is configured to scan both the 2-meter and 70cm K6TZ repeaters. The scanner listens to 146.790 (primary) & 446.400 (IRLP node 3673). Scan priority is given to 146.790 (the main SBARC repeater) where the most traffic and many weeknight nets can be found. Let me know what your experiences are with this new feature by leaving a comment on this post.
We had a great discussion with Brian, K6BPM and Levi, K6LCM, the creators of the new SBARC Web site project and this new site. If you have any questions about the site, register for an account on the right side of the site and then login to post your comment on this post.
Join us on the air every morning from 7am-8:30 on 146.79 – Pl 131.8.
Post expires at 11:59pm on Tuesday January 27th, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.
3D printer in action
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.
