Field Day 2016

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Directions to the SBARC Elings Park Field Day site: Take 101 to Carrillo and head southwest toward the Mesa. Turn west on Cliff Dr. and follow past Monroe Elementary to the Elings Park unmarked driveway on the right just past Monroe's sports fields. There is a gate but no sign. Follow the dirt road to the top of the hill and the SBARC Rover. ADVISORY: There is no driving access to the site from the Elings Park main gate off Las Positas.

Directions to the SBARC Elings Park Field Day site: Take 101 to Carrillo and head southwest toward the Mesa. Turn west on Cliff Dr. and follow past Monrow Elementary to the Elings Park unmarked driveway. There is a gate but no sign. Follow the dirt road to the top of the hill and the SBARC Rover.  (Lat/Long 34.410028, -119.735822) ADVISORY: There is no driving access to the site from the Elings Park main gate off Las Positas.

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.

Mesh Network Meets the Telephone

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We now have the capability to use VOIP (Voice Over IP) telephony over the mesh network, and even have a functioning PBX system with voicemail installed. It is very simple to use. Some of us have purchased Grandstream 1620 0r 1625(POE) telephones from Amazon or other sources. These  phones are simply office style desk telephones. They run about $50. Others are using “Softphones” which are software programs you run on your computer that lets your computer act like a telephone. You can use either an inexpensive USB headphone/mic, or simply use your build in speakers and microphone.

To use the PBX system we must first set up the account for you. We’re all using our callsigns as our extension numbers, so it will be easy to remember extension numbers. For example, to call me at home, you simply dial K6BPM, or to call me at my office, you dial K6BPM2. This make is very simple to use. Setting things up on your end is simple. If you are using a Grandstream phone, you just plug it in and that’s it. If you are using a Softphone, you just need to give it an account name and password, and you’re in. You’ll have all the niceties you’re use to like call waiting, missed call lists, notifications for new messages, etc. If you want phone repairs, Pro Phone Repairs of Albuquerque’s Instagram need to be chekced.

X-Lite is free and available for Windows and Mac

X-Lite is free and available for Windows and Mac

Using voicemail is exactly like what you are probably used to using at your job, or maybe even your home. You call in, enter your password, then check your messages. You have all the tools available to you as you do on commercial voicemail systems like recording greetings, message forwarding, mailbox folders, etc.

Surprisingly, it all works pretty well! As we get everything dialed in, I expect it will get better and better! If you haven’t yet got on the mesh, maybe this will interest you!

– Brian – K6BPM

Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net – June 16, 2016

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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.

We had another good net tonight with 18 check-ins! including net control, Levi K6LCM and some chat room visitors! Tonight’s subjects included:

Note: Tonight’s net was heavily concentrated on the current Scherpa wild-fire situation North of Santa Barbara.

  • Discussions and comments regarding the current Scherpa fire North of El Capitan.
  • When using a repeater to coordinate an emergency, how do you know if and when to switch to simplex?

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.

Upcoming General Meeting – June 17, 2016

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Mike Bales, KI6VBK(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.

The Mesh Goes Over the Mountain

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Eric KG6WXC installing a mesh network node on Santa Ynez Peak

Eric KG6WXC installing a mesh network node on Santa Ynez Peak

On Sunday June 5th we reached a new milestone in the mesh network buildout. Tom – KA6SOX, Eric – KG6WXC, and Scott – KM6COI all spent their Sunday up on Santa Ynez Peak installing mesh nodes to allow us to reach Solvang and the Santa Ynez Valley. They installed one node pointing at Gibraltar Peak, and another pointing towards the Solvang area. We likely reach much further than Solvang too but have not tested limits of coverage yet.

One of our goals has been to reach into the north county area, and this brings us one step closer. Our members in the Santa Ynez Valley can now link up with us in the greater Santa Barbara area and participate in mesh activities and nets.

In other news, we are now linked with the Ventura County mesh network group. They have been doing this for awhile and have a few more nodes than we do, but we’ll see what we can do about that! With the Ventura county link, our range has extended to well over 60 miles. The Ventura group even has a Sunday evening MeshChat net and the Santa Barbara crew can now participate.

 

One of the SYP Mesh Nodes

One of the SYP Mesh Nodes

We are also adding services like crazy here and now provide an SBARC web forum, three different email platforms including the Winlink 200o system, a packet radio gateway, three NTP time servers including one that synchronizes via GPS satellite signals, IRC chat, and more. And, there is still plenty of things to explore!

 

Photos courtesy of Scott – KM6COI

Post expires at 3:26pm on Friday July 8th, 2016 but will still be available in the archives.