SARA This Week: June 14 – June 20

ALL IN-PERSON ACTIVITIES REMAIN CANCELED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!

SARA’s on-air activities continue to be a great way to connect with others and check on their wellness as well as a boost of your own overall wellness. Those on-air activities provide healthy social contact while maintaining personal distancing.

The W0JH repeater WIRES-X link is active, operating in digital voice (System Fusion C4FM) mode only. The SARA Room is 63969, notable for those who wish to access the WØJH repeater via the PDN capability of some Yaesu System Fusion radios. System Fusion users can access the WIRES-X link on the WØJH repeater and bring up other rooms such as the MN/WIS, the DARC Room, AmericaLink, and many others. Refer to your radio’s manual on how to utilize the WIRES-X features of your radio, BE SURE TO DISCONNECT FROM THE ROOM WHEN YOU ARE DONE USING IT!  There is a failsafe in that if there is no activity into the repeater link after 5 minutes it will revert back to the SARA room. 

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Field Day Notes from our FD Coordinator Bob WØGAF:

It’s just two weeks until Field Day 2020! Do you have your operating plan figured out? Reminder, we’ll be asking members to “show us your Field Day shack” so don’t forget to snap a few photos of your setup.  

From the Competition Committee

– We’ll be asking you to submit your Field Day contacts totals to ARRL to contribute to our aggregate club score. The club name everyone will need to use is “SARA MN”. We’ll be publishing a detailed cheat sheet on how to submit your score.

– Rules for our internal competition have been finalized. Details will be released at our Thursday Tech Night session, but highlights are that all modes receive equal points for each contact, and bonus points will be awarded for use of low power and non-directional antennas. The idea is to level the playing field for as many participants as possible. Join us on Thursday for the rest of the story.

SARA FD Sprints – What the heck is a sprint? If you’re not a computer programmer, you may not know. A sprint is simply a way to focus on a very specific activity for a short period of time. Sprints can be a great way to plan and focus your operating time, especially for those with limited opportunity to operate. We’ve scheduled a number of sprints over the course of Field Day weekend, each with a specific objective. Depending on your schedule or station set up, you may want to try your hand in the Morning Gray Line Sprint, or the Top Band Chase Sprint. The full sprint schedule will be shared in our Thursday session and published to all members soon after. 

Don’t forget to help us in our planning and communications, we’d like to know how many of you plan to participate in Field Day 2020. If you haven’t done so already, please go to this link and complete the short survey there. Your information will help us develop activities and communications that we hope will enhance your Field Day experience.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdJCCS0lSvc4cHQT6NacE7T2JqFrI5Oe8a0No6SJ22KXDFhvw/viewform

SARA’s Field Day plan will be featured for the Technical Topic Thursday via Webex video conference on June 18th at 7:30 PM.  

Watch this space for details on schedule and planned activities for SARA Field Day 2020.

Now onto this week’s activities!

1. SARA Top Band Ragchew
      Nightly
      Time: 20:00 Central (01:00 UTC)
      Frequency:  1.966 LSB +/- QRM

2. SARA Monday Morning Ragchew June 15
      Time: 08:15 Central (13:15 UTC)
      Frequency:  3.856 LSB +/- QRM

3. The Lunch Room
      Daily (Monday thru Friday)
      Time: 12:00 Central
      SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)

4. SARA Two Meter Tuesday (TMT) Round Robin Ragchew June 16
      Time: 7:00 – ~8:00 pm (or until we finish!)
      SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)
      The Tuesday evening on-air round robin ragchew
      An HF Afterglow follows on 160 meters at 1.966 MHz LSB +/- QRM

5. SARA Two Meter Wednesday Round Robin Ragchew June 17
      Time: 9:00 PM
      SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)
      The Wednesday evening SARA Ragchew on the SARA repeater

6. SARA Two Meter Thursday (TMT2) 2-meter Thursday June 18
      Time: 7:00 PM
      SARA Repeater 147.060+ Mhz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)
      The Thursday evening on-air round robin ragchew
      An HF Afterglow follows on 160 meters at 1.966 MHz LSB +/- QRM

7.  SARA Technical Topic Thursday Virtual Meeting – June 18
      Time 7:30 PM
      SARA Field Day 2020 – learn all about our plans to enhance your Field Day operating experience while working Field Day on your own this year. SARA FD Sprints, Ham Radio Bingo Cards, repeater and Webex video meetups, and a member contest (with prizes!) are all in store for Field Day Weekend. Full details will be shared during this Webex video virtual meeting this Thursday!