SARA | SARA This Week April 7

SARA This Week April 7 – April 13

Here is your SARA update for this week!

SARA Monthly Meeting April 13

The monthly meeting of the Stillwater Amateur Radio Association will be Saturday April 13. The meeting will be held in Auditorium B at Boutwells Landing. Please use the north entrance at 13575 58th Avenue North. We are asked not to enter the facility before 9:00 AM. Boutwells Landing may require face masks in the facility depending on COVID status within the facility. Please be prepared and bring your mask.

The meeting will be livestreamed via the SARA Zoom Meeting Room.

The program this month features Pat Gearty – WØYES – RADIO JOURNEY IN THE PARKS

Pat and his wife Dianne enjoy travel, natural resources and camping in their RV. Pat states “in 2016 I installed a ham station in the RV to participate in PARKS programs. Since then, I’ve activated more than six hundred parks and logged forty thousand QSOs from the RV while traveling. This presentation will show what, where and how we’ve enjoyed amateur radio in the PARKS.”

“I am a BORN-AGAIN HAM and a RADIOMAN from early in life. I was first licensed in 1964 as a Novice, followed with my General. I was active for 10 years when I fell Off-The-Air and let my license lapse. My Radio-Active career with Motorola, American Paging and Sprint fulfilled my RF fix for nearly 50 years. With my career behind me, I missed RF. In 2015 I retook the exams with the St. Paul Radio Club’s Volunteer Examiner program, received my Extra class license and reentered amateur radio. I am now a ARRL accredited Volunteer Examiner with the Maple Grove Radio Club.”

“My Plymouth, Minnesota home station is modest with wires in the trees. I enjoy operating fixed mobile in my RV and portable in parks with a variety of antennas. My primary activity is on the HF bands with SSB and CW modes. I collect and restore vintage radios and I’m on the board of the Pavek Museum in St. Louis Park.”

2^nd Saturday SARA Breakfast April 13

The monthly breakfast gathering at 7:30 AM at Perkins Restaurant 2050 Frontage Road, Stillwater, MN 55082

License Prep Classes continue through April 18

SARA’s Technician License Prep Class convenes weekly at 6:00 PM, at the Stillwater Public Library, 224 3rd Street, Stillwater. This week’s session is a virtual class via Zoom.

SARA is facilitating an Amateur Extra Class License study group. The study group will continue meeting Thursday evenings at the Stillwater Public Library through April 18.

A license exam session by SARA’s Volunteer Examiner team will be held on April 25^th.

New Ham Night is scheduled for Thursday May 16. This annual post-class session will be held at Valley View Park in Oak Park Heights. More to come.

Remote Station WØJH

The WØJH Remote Station, located in Hayward, WI, is online with TX limits as refining operation of the station continues. The station is limited to 75 watts transmit power and 80M to 6M for HF.

This remote station is accessible to current SARA and Courage Kenny Handihams members. You need to have a General, Advanced or Extra class license to use the remote station. Contact Pat WAØTDA at his email wa0tda at gmail dot com for access permission.

To access the remote station, you will need to establish an account with remotehams.com and then download and install RCForb client from remotehams.com. It is available for Windows (download from remotehams.com) and Android (Google Play). Sorry, it is not available for IOS devices.

The SARA POTA Challenge

The SARA POTA Challenge 2024 is off to a great start. March results will be shared at the monthly meeting and then posted to the radioham.org website.

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.

A thorough source of information for those that want to get started POTA hunting or activating is found on the POTA website. The https://docs.pota.app/ page is a great resource of all info for POTA. Start with the Getting Started with POTA page and go from there.

MN POTA Day 2024

Minnesota Parks on the Air Day is Saturday June 8, 2024, from 10:00 AM (15:00 UTC) to 6:00 PM CDT (22:00 UTC). Details can be found at mnpota.com. This is a free admission day to MN State Parks.

Activators can register their planned activation(s) and indicate if they are willing to mentor others interested in POTA activating, co-operate, demonstrate, or welcome visitors to their activation.

MN POTA Day builds upon SARA’s POTA Activity Day the previous 2 years. The SARA POTA Activity Day will continue on the same day with a similar schedule as in previous years: 2^nd Saturday Breakfast, day of operating in the parks, and dinner to follow at a local establishment in the evening.

This week’s SARA activities