SARA This Week Feb 22 – Feb 28

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SARA This Week Feb 22 – Feb 28

Technician License Prep Classes begin March 5

SARA’s Spring Technician License Classes begin Thursday evening, March 5. Classes will be held at the Stillwater Public Library, 224 3rd Street E, Stillwater, MN 55082, from 6:00 PM to 7:50 PM for 8 weeks through April 23. The SARA VE Team will conduct an Exam Session on Thursday April 30th.

The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual 5th Edition is the textbook for the class. You can order a copy direct from the ARRL at https://home.arrl.org/action/Store/Product-Details/productId/2003373064 or from Amazon http://home.arrl.org/action/Store/Product-Details/productId/2003373064.

The current Technician Class exam question pool expires June 30, with a new question pool being effective July 1. Now is the time to act, before the question pool expires!

To sign up for the class, email Bob WØGAF via email at w0gaf at me dot com 

1st Thursday Technical Topic Nights “Let’s Talk About…”

1st Thursday Technical Topic Night features a technical presentation and discussion based upon the level of interest in the club and the willingness of someone to prepare and lead the session. The sessions are livestreamed via Zoom for those who choose to join the session virtually; and are recorded and posted to the SARA YouTube channel for future viewing and reference.

The 1st Thursday Technical Topic Nights are held at the Baytown Township Hall, 4020 McDonald Dr N, Stillwater, MN 55082, beginning at 6:00 PM Central (00:00 UTC).

  • Mar 5, 2026 1st Thursday Tech Topic Night
    “Let’s Talk About … Logging Workflows” led by Dale WØDHZ
  • Apr 2, 2026 1st Thursday Tech Topic Night
    “Let’s Talk About … Meshtastic” led by Collin KEØIYN
  • May 7, 2026 1st Thursday Tech Topic Night
    “Let’s Talk About … Antenna Analyzers” led by Joe KCØOIO
  • Aug 6, 2026 1st Thursday Tech Topic Night
    “Let’s Talk About … Cloud-based logging with Wavelog (and others) led by Collin KEØIYN

Eyeball QSO Party

The weekly Eyeball QSO Party is at the Stillwater Public Library Conference Room through the 16th of April 2026 and then April 30th, except for 1st Thursdays (Tech Topic Night). The April 23rd session will be at another location due to room availability at the Library that evening.

Radios in the Parks will return May 14 as we move the Eyeball QSO Party outdoors to various parks in the area. We’ll begin with the annual New Ham Night at Valley View Park on May 14 and continue through Sept 10. Full schedule will be shared as we get closer to May. We are looking for suggestions for parks to visit this summer.

SARA to host Metro Skywarn training session March 28

SARA will host a session of Metro Skywarn storm spotter training on Saturday March 28. The session will be in the Margaret Rivers Room A & B at the Stillwater Public Library beginning at 10:30 AM. Registration for the 3-hr session is required by Metro Skywarn. You can register for this session at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1982900251029?aff=oddtdtcreator 

Metro Skywarn has a total of 12 training sessions scheduled this spring, 7 in-person and 5 on-line. Can’t attend the March 28 session, check out https://metroskywarn.org/training/ for more options.

The SARA POTA Challenge

The SARA POTA Challenge 2025 final results were revealed at the February meeting. The full results for 2025 are now available on the radioham.org. >> CLICK HERE <<   to view the 2025 results and the Awards Ceremony slide deck.

Results for January 2026 can now be viewed, >> CLICK HERE << to view those results.

The SARA POTA Challenge 2026 is well underway! At some point in the summer of 2025, POTA raised the minimum contacts returned in the Top Hunter search to 50 Hunter contacts. This is a limitation placed on the hunter database by POTA. Therefore, the hunter threshold has changed to the minimum 50 for the 2026 Challenge, not by our choice, but because of what we can extract from POTA’s database.

SARA members who have registered on the POTA website https://parksontheair.com/# (sign up is under the Help/Getting Started tab) are automatically included in the SARA Challenges.

This week’s SARA activities

  • “Sunday Fusion” Digital Voice Hangout Feb 22
    19:00 Central (01:00 UTC) 
    SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)
    or connect via WIRES-X to the W0JH-Room 63969
    System Fusion digital voice hangout to expand use and familiarity with the digital voice capabilities available on the WØJH repeater.
  • SARA Evening HF Ragchew
    Nightly 
    20:00 Central (02:00 UTC) 
    Frequency: 3.813LSB +/- QRM 
    Alternates: 1.966 MHz +/- QRM (LSB), 21.316 MHz +/- QRM (USB) 50.166 MHz +/- QRM (USB)
  • SARA Monday Morning 75-meter Ragchew Feb 23
    08:00 Central (14:00 UTC)
    Frequency: 3.856 LSB +/- QRM
  • Two Meter Tuesday (TMT) Round Robin Ragchew Feb 24
    7:00 – ~8:00 pm Central (or until we finish!) 
    SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)1stTuesday of each month is Emergency Power Night – participants are encouraged to operate the stations on emergency power.
    The Tuesday evening on-air round robin ragchew, featuring the “Ask the Elmer” segment. The group leaders focus on encouraging any and everyone, especially those new to the airwaves, to join the session via the repeater.
  • Eyeball QSO Party Thursday Feb 26
    6:00 PM
    Conference Room
    Stillwater Public Library
    224 3rd Street E, Stillwater, MN 55082