Technician License Classes Coming Up Soon

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Jay Hennigan – WB6RDV will once again be conducting a special three evening class on September 7th, 8th, and 9th to help anyone interested in getting their technician license. These classes are intended to help you learn what you will need to know to pass the technician license exam. Each class is about two hours long, and Jay focuses specifically on the actual test questions and answers. Jay is an excellent instructor with many years of experience and his curriculum will help you learn and pass the first time!

On Saturday September 10th, there will be a license exam session. Since the exam is being held the day after your classes end, your chances of remembering everything you learned will be greatly enhanced! If you have been thinking about getting into amateur radio, and have about 6 hours of time to devote, this is a great way to do it!

For more information or to register for classes please click here.

Post expires at 1:34am on Saturday September 10th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

Club Meeting August 19, 2016

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Via Darryl, KF6DI – Our August 19, 2016 Club meeting we are in for a neat presentation from Benjamin ‘Ben’ Kuo, KK6FUT, from Newbury Park. Jim Fortney, K6IYK, our ARRL Santa Barbara Section Manager sent out a note announcing the recent appointment of Ben as Technical Specialist for the Santa Barbara Section and Ben will regale us with much of his collection of small electronic projects that he either designed or built or both. He is very enthusiastic about building things and wants to impart that excitement to our members and show them how they can also have as much fun with Amateur Radio as he has. At this meeting we will also raffle off 2 more of those neat handheld frequency counters and, hopefully, the neat shelf system that we didn’t sell quite enough tickets for last month. Bring your tickets from last month’s meeting.
Please join Ben Kuo and us for dinner at Cody’s at 5:30 PM before the meeting. I am certain you will enjoy yourself!

Post expires at 1:00am on Saturday August 20th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

Annual SBARC Bazaar August 20th

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The annual SBARC Bazaar will be held this year on Saturday August 20th, 2016. Setup will begin at 06:00 to 07:30 with selling to begin at 08:00 and continue to 11:30. Equipment you donate will be sold to raise funds for the club. There will also be a consignment table where you can bring items you want to sell if you like and the club will accept a 10% “commission” from those sales.

stnmapThe 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” 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 Dave K9KBX at (805) 896-8823 to sign up to help. You can also contact Brian K6BPM at k6bpm@sbarc.org.

Post expires at 11:00pm on Saturday August 20th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.

3D Printed Powerpole Distribution Box

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In my never-ending effort to upgrade my home and portable stations, I directed some effort toward improving my power connections. After some research, I decided to use Anderson Powerpole connectors. These are the standard ARES power connector and they have been thoroughly tested and used by Amateur Radio operators around the world. After crimping and installing the connectors on all my radio power cables, I ran into an issue. How do I power more than one radio from a single power source? Looking around online, I found a couple of companies that sold Powerpole distribution panels, but most of them did not fit the bill. They were all too expensive or too large for my application.

After looking around some more, I decided to explore some homemade options. I ran across this design, freely available on the popular 3D model sharing site, Thingiverse. I downloaded the files and had a friend print the box on his Makerbot Replicator 2 3D printer. The print turned out quite nicely, and all the components that I ordered from Mouser fit perfectly. Each side of the box snapped together cleanly and after a few weeks of everyday use at my home station, I can confidently say it works like a charm and will be a convenient piece of equipment for years to come! Total cost: $7.63 + S/H.

The following is a time-lapse and build log of the distribution box for those of you that might want to build one of your own!

 

Time-lapse –

In real time, the building portion of the project only took around 30 minutes.

Click below to continue reading.

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