Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net – Thursday July 9, 2015

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The timestamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file here and listening with Windows Media Player.

The Technical Mentoring and Elmering net on Thursday, July 9th had 9 check-ins plus net control “Shackmaster” Dave (K6HWN) plus 8 in the chat room at sbarc.org. Questions included:

10:15 – Jim (KK6SXB) asked about how to tell how much current is being drawn by a transceiver when there are no manufacturer specifications available.

16:55 – Garrett (AG6RQ) asked about the AllStar Link system and how to use it.

35:40 – General discussion regarding marine and other batteries (Gel, AGM, etc.) and which might be best to power your rigs in the shack especially when commercial power goes down i.e. which batteries would provide the longest run time without damaging the battery, maintenance considerations, etc.

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.

Free Pizza Lunch – Saturday August 8th

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Stop by the club station on Saturday August 8th between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm for a FREE PIZZA LUNCH courtesy of Tom N6YX and SBARC. We are also planning another pizza lunch on September 12th too, and if there is enough interest from club members, we will probably continue to do this on the second Saturday of each month from now on. So come on down and share some pizza and visit with your friends.

Windows Audio Issue and *NEW* Permanent Fix

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This week a bug report rocked the digital modes ham world.  Apparently the Texas Instruments audio chip used in many popular devices had a conflict with many version of Windows and was ruining receive performance on all digital modes.  This was especially troubling since it affected many popular radios and audio interfaces including:

  • All Icoms with built in USB Audio
  • All Kenwoods with built in USB Audio
  • All Yaesus with built in USB Audio, as well as the SCU-17 Interface
  • All Signalink USB’s

For a few days after the discovery, there was a known workaround that fixed the issue temporarily.  Today, a permanent fix was discovered which solves the issue even after the computer is restarted.   This YouTube video details this new permanent fix but for those who want just the facts, here’s what you have to do to optimize Windows settings to fix the bug.  These instructions are from Tigertronics, the makers of SignaLink, however the steps should work with any of the affected devices or radios:

1 – Right-click the white colored speaker icon located in the
lower-right corner of your desktop and select “Recording Devices” from
the pop-up menu.

2 – In the new window that opens, click one time on the SignaLink’s
“Microphone – USB Audio Codec” sound card to select it and then click
the “Properties” button.

3 – In the Properties window that opens, click the “Levels” tab.

4 – Right-click the percentage display to the right of the Level slider
and then select “decibels”.

5 – Lower the Level slider to “0db” or as close as you can. This is
“-0.4db” in Windows 7. It might be slightly different in Vista, Windows
8 and 10, but in any case, the closet value to 0db will work just fine.
Note that you can use the left/right arrow keys to move the slider
once you’ve clicked on it. This might be easier than using your mouse.

6 – Click OK, then click OK on the Recording Devices window.

7 – That’s all there is to it!

Santa Cruz Island Camera Back Online

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diablo4

The Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club operates a web cam at Diablo Peak, located 2,474 ft above sea level on Santa Cruz Island, off the coast of Santa Barbara. The camera is an Axis P5522-E pan-tilt-zoom camera with a resolution of 704×480 pixels.  The camera was offline for several months but access has been recently restored.

CLICK TO VIEW LIVE IMAGES

The images are captured at the peak and transmitted to the mainland over two 26 mile and 32 mile links using 802.11g WiFi technology. Images are captured and transmitted every 10 minutes during daytime. Enjoy!

Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net – July 2, 2015

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Tonight’s net yielded 11 check-ins plus net control (K6HWN) and 6 chat room members on SBARC.org. Shackmaster Dave had question of Eric (K6HMD) regarding last weeks net discussions of circulators. I (K6FLD) had a question about power supplies for my shack and if 30 amps would be sufficient to power all of my equipment. An Alinco DM-330MV was suggested by Brian (K6BPM) and we also talked about the differences between Linear and Switching power supplies. Please listen to the lively discussion here and enjoy.

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.

Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net – June 25, 2015

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The timestamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file here and listening with Windows Media Player.

The Technical Mentoring and Elmering net on Thursday, June 25th had 10 check-ins plus net control Dave (K6HWN). There were no questions waiting this evening so Shackmaster Dave kicked in his professional net control skills and brought up a discussion regarding circulators which are deployed in repeater systems. In loosely explained terms a circulator keeps unwanted signals from being transmitted over the repeater and are routed to a dummy load where they are dissipated. Please listen here to a very interesting discussion here starting at 12:20 on the Windows Media Player time stamp.

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.