Join SBARC

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This will encourage the new lean Board of Directors, which was elected to answer the objections about the prior club management. Go to www.sbarc.org to the membership tab on top. You can join online with PayPal and use your PayPal account or any major credit card. Or, you can come into the station with a check or cash ($24.00), or you can download and print the membership form and send it in by “snail mail”. If you need assistance financially, there are still some free, sponsored memberships available. Come by the Club Station or call Dave K6HWN, at 898-0644. Memberships now run for 12 months from the date you join and will renew on your anniversary date.

Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net – February 5, 2015

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There were some interesting discussions on last night’s net including K6HMD Eric’s issue he’s been experiencing with his iCom IC-7600 transceiver. It seems that Eric was attempting to set up FM split mode operations to access the K6TZ 6 meter repeater when he began seeing unexplained signals every 100 Khz at the same amplitude on the rigs spectrum analyzer. Even changing bands didn’t help. After a fair amount of troubleshooting Eric finally opted to reset the rig to factory specifications and the problem was solved, no more weird signals. Shackmaster Dave (K6HWN) offered a very plausible cause for the anomaly, while Eric was trying to set up split mode operations he may have pushed a button on the rig enabling the crystal calibrator. The calibrator would emit signals at specific intervals to calibrate the rigs frequency output by. Eric’s perusal of the operating manual didn’t offer up any information about a crystal calibrator being on-board the rig so he’ll contact the manufacturer. Tune in to the next Technical Mentoring and Elmering Net and hopefully learn the answer to this puzzle!

Other discussions involved HF noise and troubleshooting, automatic gain control and signal to noise ratios.

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 edification of new and experienced hams alike.

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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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.