MarVac Reopening in July as “Santa Barbara Electronics”

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MarVac will be reopening as Santa Barbara Electronics sometime in soon. The doors will be open during the stocking process. Hours are 10am to 6pm Monday – Friday, and 10am – 5pm on Saturdays. It will be under new management and will be located in the same location in the Magnolia Shopping Center on Hollister at Walnut. It will have a complete refresh of stock, and your input is encouraged if there are things you would like to see them keep in stock. It will be managed by Andrew KG6END, the son of Ken KA6KEN. Please give them a call with your suggestions at 805-681-2524.

ARRL Elections Coming Up This Fall

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Members of the ARRL are encouraged to make sure their membership dues are up-to-date, and make sure the ARRL has your correct contact information.

Elections are coming up later this fall. All ARRL members are eligible to vote and will receive ballots. For the first time in 20 years, the election for the Santa Barbara Section Manager position will be contested. Our current Section Manager, Robert Griffin K6YR, has run unopposed since 1996. This year he will be challenged for his seat by Jim Fortney, K6IYK.

Official ballots will be mailed from ARRL HQ on October 1st to ARRL members residing in the Santa Barbara Section that are paid up as of September 4th. Ballots need to be returned by November 20. HQ counts and results will be announced shortly thereafter. The new term begins January 1.

Please make sure your voice will be heard at election time. And, if you are not a member of ARRL, or your membership has lapsed, please consider joining (or re-joining).  Visit http://www.arrl.org/membership for more information.

Post expires at 7:16am on Sunday November 15th, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.

For Sale – Kenwood TS-430S, Kenwood 2570A and Kenwood AT-250

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This seller has three items for sale.

  1. Kenwood TS-430S HF Transceiver Base Station.  This radio transmits 100 watts on 160 to 10 meters plus WARC.  The receiver covers from 0.150 to 30 MHz.  It handles SSB, AM and CW modes (FM with addition module, not included).   Asking $300 OBO.   Currently being serviced.
  2. Kenwood AT-250 Automatic antenna tuner.  Asking $300 OBO.  Currently being serviced.
  3. Kenwood 2570A 2 meter FM Transceiver.  Very solid, old school 2 meter radio transmitting at 75 watts max.  Asking $200 OBO

Contact:  Greg KF6RXX – (805) 689-4779

ARRL Message Regarding the Amateur Radio Parity Act (HR-1301)

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Dear fellow ARRL members,

It’s crunch time.  To date, your elected Member of Congress, Representative Lois Capps, has not yet joined the growing list of supporters of the Amateur Radio Parity Act (HR-1301).  This bill would extend the “reasonable accommodation” provision of PRB-1 to Hams living under private deed restrictions.  We expect some pushback from the opposition after the House of Representatives comes back from vacation after Labor Day.  Now is the time to get out in front of the effort.  I am writing to you directly because only you, a constituent of Representative Capps, can email and call her office to put the pressure on.  All you need to do is say:

“I am a constituent and a federally licensed Amateur Radio Operator.  I Support HR-1301, the Amateur Radio Parity Act, and I am asking that Congresswoman Capps support HR-1301 as well.”

You can send an e-mail to Rep. Capps here:  https://capps.house.gov/contact-me/email-me

Enter your zip code and follow the prompts.  Fill in the form, and either write what I’ve suggested or write whatever moves you. Please also call one of her District Offices to say the same thing:

Santa Barbara: (805) 730-1710
San Luis Obispo: (805) 546-8348
Santa Maria: (805) 349-3832

Your emails and phone calls will help convince your Representative to support HR-1301.  ARRL has teams visiting Capitol Hill, but it’s your calls, e-mails and letters that open the door.  WE NEED YOU TO BECOME PART OF THE PROCESS if you haven’t done so already.

Please send these emails and make phone calls even if you have already written to your Congressman about the bill.  Let’s work together to get these folks to support us.  Let’s do it today.  If you have not written your representative yet, we can generate a letter for your signature at the ARRL Southwestern Division Convention on September 11-12-13 at the Torrance Marriott.  Even if you can’t stay for the whole convention, please come by to get your ready-to-sign letter.  We’ll even arrange to have it hand-delivered to your representative’s office in Washington DC.  If you can’t come to Torrance, you can download a sample letter at http://www.arrl.org/amateur-radio-parity-act .  Customize it if you can, and send it to ARRL, Attn: HR 1301 Grassroots campaign, 225 Main St., Newington CT 06111.  Headquarters staff will arrange for hand-delivery to Rep. Capps’ Washington DC office.

We will contact our members soon in a separate message regarding  S1685, the Senate version of the bill.

Thank you and 73,

Marty Woll N6VI
Vice-Director
ARRL Southwestern Division

Post expires at 9:40pm on Sunday November 1st, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.

Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net – Thursday July 30th 2015

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The time stamps below are best followed by downloading the Mp3 file for the appropriate date here and listening with Windows Media Player.

Tonight’s net was informative as usual with 7 check-ins plus “Shackmaster” Dave (K6HWN) as net control and 8 chat room participants. Questions included:

00:11:40 – Dave (K6HWN) “Shackmaster” started things off with discussion about the white papers written by EYV (full call unknown at this time). They are currently on loan to the club station and can be read there and they will also be available on SBARC.org soon. Some of the material covered in the papers and Dave’ s discussion tonight involves “mixing”. In ordinary free space everything is linear which means that everything is proportional, if you double X you’ll double the consequences and everything can exist simultaneously. All electromagnetic waves like radio waves of all frequencies just exist simultaneously and their electric fields may add at the moment if they’re near each other, but there’s absolutely no interference or “mixing”. It’s just the slightest bit of non-linearity (things don’t always double) then you get the very important properties of mixing, heterodyning and so on. This is a fascinating discussion, please take the time to listen to the recording for 7/30/2015 here.

00:25:22 – Brian (K6BPM) talks about helping the community at Rancho Santa Barbara (a mobile home park) and it’s 300 some residences there to have emergency communications using the GMRS (General Mobile Radio System) repeater at the K6TZ site on La Vigia. Brian was testing the site for the best reception areas with different antennas on radios in the 460 MHz range. Discussion also includes general information about the GMRS system. Listen to the recording for 7/30/2015 here.

00:54:40 Brian (K6BPM) related the SBARC chat room discussion going on related to a bug found in the Signalink and certain Kenwood and ICOM radios. When operating digital modes such as JT65 it was found that a certain chip used was clipping the received signal thereby reducing the number of decodes on might receive. There is a fix for this bug and you can learn about it by listening to the recording for 7/30/2015 here.

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.

ARES Exercise on Saturday August 29th

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ARES will be conducting a Fire Watch exercise on Saturday August 29th, 2015. The exercise begins at 1000 hrs (briefing at 0900) and they will be using the K6TZ 146.79 repeater occasionally. Please try to limit activity on this repeater to short calls and be sure to leave plenty of space between transmissions for break-ins. For longer conversations, please use the 146.700 repeater.

Anyone interested in seeing what ARES does during an exercise is welcome to drop by the County Sheriff’s building where the big SBARC/ARES van will be parked.

Post expires at 3:57pm on Sunday August 9th, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.