ATV Special Modes Net – February 3, 2015

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Last nights net was very well attended with 8 checkins and at least half of us operating JT65 at the same time. KI6HGH Steve, also joined in on both Allstar and 40m JT65 from Yucca Valley. HGH and K6FLD Frank also carried on QSO’s with other hams on the band and we were all able to watch the action. Even the Shackmaster was able to find a little time in his busy Tuesday night schedule to follow along from the Club Station. This was a really great demonstration of how JT65 works and why it is becoming so popular.

We also took some time to discuss Yaesu’s new digital voice HT radios. In a week or two, we should have 5 members who have these powerful little radios and we’ll be able to add a new digital activity to our nets. These radios have a lot of interesting capabilities we’ll be exploring and learning about.

So tune in to the ATV Special Modes Net next Tuesday at 8:30pm and keep up with the latest and greatest in digital ham radio.

Upcoming Club Meeting – February 20, 2015

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IMG_1965

Bill W1UUQ and the SBARC crew make occasional helicopter trips to service the repeater site on Santa Cruz Island.

Bill Talanian W1UUQ will be our February featured speaker, dazzling us with tales of the SBARC repeater infrastructure dotting the hilltops of Santa Barbara county and beyond.

Bill has been SBARC’s “Mr. Repeater” for several decades now, and spends most of his days making sure we have reliable repeater communications.  

Please try to attend the meeting and take a look at SBARC infrastructure under the hood from the man who keeps it humming.

MeetingMapMeeting Location

SBARC general club meetings are held at the Goleta Union Schools Administration Board Room, 401 North Fairview Avenue in Goleta across the street from the public library. Meetings start at 7:30pm but the doors open at 6:45 so come early and visit!

Post expires at 9:30pm on Friday February 20th, 2015 but will still be available in the archives.

K6TZ Repeater Live Streaming Audio

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Scanner Radio

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.

Digital Voice 2m Communications – First Impressions

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If you get QST Magazine, it is hard to miss Yaesu’s push for their 2m/440 digital/analog radio offerings. They have been taking out 2 page ads right after the cover for some several months now. Yaesu  digital radios use the C4FM modulation method. It is currently only compatible with other Yaesu radios.

FT1DRYaesu’s base HT radio, the FT1DR, has become very reasonably priced, with most outlets selling them for less than $300. First, they are full featured dual band analog HT radios with all the features you would expect from Yaesu. But there’s more. A lot more. This radio also has digital capabilities, GPS, and APRS.

Levi K6LCM and I decided to take the plunge and order a pair of these powerful little radios. They operate just like any other quality HT on VHF and UHF analog so they are great for every day communications. Levi and I tried our first experiment with digital using simplex between his home QTH on the far western end of the ocean side of the Mesa, and my QTH on the far eastern end of the Riviera. Between us there are two hills to overcome, so we hooked our radios to our rooftop antennas and used 5 watts of power.

Wow! The first thing I saw was Levi’s callsign come up on my radio. His voice was completely natural and absolutely clear. No static, no background noise, just an absolutely clear voice as if he was next door.

There are all kinds of other cool features we have yet to experiment with, like seeing the other person’s location and relative distance. For now the bottom line here is that digital communications is not a gimmick. It really works. We’ll continue to explore the capabilities of these little radios and post more in the future.

If you want to learn more about digital voice radio, tune into the ATV Special Modes Net on Tuesday at 8:30pm. We will be discussing this more there this week.

ATV Special Modes Net – January 27, 2015

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Even though the net was lightly attended, we nonetheless had another good discussion on antennas and using JT65. We operated locally on 6m for awhile, then moved to 40m and carried on a couple of QSO’s so that we could compare our long range signal propagation on PSKReporter.

JT6520mmap

Map of stations that heard K6BPM using JT65 on 15m at 35 watts

PSKReporter.info is a web site that aggregates signal reports from hundreds of digital mode operators all over the world. Almost all digital mode software applications automatically report this information to PSKReporter whenever the application “hears” a callsign. So whenever you transmit in a digital mode, and another station hears your signal, your callsign and signal report are reported in real time. This is called “spotting”. It enables you to immediately see where your signal is being heard, and how strong your signal is. Data is displayed on a world map and you can easily see where and when your signal is being received. The PSKReporter site is also great for finding out where all the current activity is, and what modes are being used.

Our Shackmaster Dave is usually very busy on Tuesday nights while the station is open. Nevertheless, he tries to tune into the net and follow along with whatever mode we are working. He will have all the activity displayed on one of the shack computers. So, if you get the chance and want to see what this is all about, drop by the shack during the ATV Special Modes Net, and follow along or participate in the action!

Great Discussion Today on Morning Net

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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.