SARA This Week May 16 – May 22

SARA holds daily on-air nets and ragchews. We continue to hold virtual meetings via WEBEX including the Tech Topic Thursday session, the monthly member meeting, monthly Board meeting, and event planning meetings.

Over the summer season, outdoor Eyeball QSO Parties will allow SARA to gather outdoors weekly. The weekly Thursday Eyeball QSO Party – outdoors edition resume this week with Radios in the Park! Beginning May 27, a weekly outdoor Eyeball QSO Party will be held at a local Stillwater-area park beginning at 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM.

Plans are afoot for the return of the SARA 2nd Saturday Breakfast at Perkins in Stillwater starting in June. Arrangements are pending with the restaurant to determine the group size and seating limits.

As we gradually resume our regular in-person meetings, our current on-air, virtual , and in-person gathering plans continue to be the best choice for the participation as well as health and safety of all our members. SARA leadership is staying in contact with the Stillwater Public Library and Boutwells Landing with hopes to be able to resume Thursday Eyeball QSO Parties at the Library and monthly meetings at Boutwells this fall.

Radios in the Park 2021

The next Radios in the Park is Thursday May 20th. This is planned as a Tailgate Swapmeet session – sell, buy, or swap! Clean up your shack – or expand your shack!

RITP is held at Valley View Park, 5421 Osgood Ave N in Oak Park Heights starting around 5:30 PM and going until around 8:00 PM.  Reservations for the pavilion have been secured with the City of Oak Park Heights. We are required to follow all State and CDC health and safety guidelines. Please help us comply with these guidelines. Attending the event is your choice.

Radios in the Park is expanding! The previously scheduled dates of June 10, July 1, July 22, Aug 12, Sept 2, and Sept 23 are booked at Valley View Park. SARA’s weekly Thursday Eyeball QSO Party resume; outdoors for the summer; on May 27th. We’ll rotate amongst Stillwater-area parks for these informal Eyeball sessions. The May 27th session will be at Pioneer Park, 512 2nd St N (at Laurel Ave E) in Stillwater. Bring your lawn chair and bug spray. We’ll be there from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.

Technical Topic Thursday Videos

The video of the May 13th “Kit Building Techniques for Success.” with Joe Eisenberg KØNEB is now available on the SARA YouTube channel. SARA members have exclusive access to the Technical Topic Thursday playlist on SARA’s YouTube Channel.

Sessions available include (click on session to go direct to the YouTube video)

Sunday Fusion

“Sunday Fusion” SARA’s digital voice hangout is every Sunday evening at 7:00 PM. “Sunday Fusion” makes use of the System Fusion C4FM digital voice capabilities of the repeater along with WIRES-X and YSF connectivity, It is an informal “hangout” for those who want to explore the System Fusion capabilities of their radios. “Sunday Fusion”  is a System Fusion C4FM digital voice-only hangout.

Join Bob WØGAF and the rest of the group hanging out on System Fusion direct via the repeater or connect via WIRES-X to the W0JH-Room 63969 or the YSF reflector US SARA-QRX-FCMG 64144 (temporarily offline). Tonight at 7:00 PM

May SARA Monthly Meeting

The video recording of May’s meeting of the Stillwater Amateur Radio Association is available on the SARA YouTube channel. Many thanks to Randy KDØVKB for stepping up on short notice and preparing an interesting presentation on his reconstruction project on the Telimco Model 1806 Wireless Telegraphy Kit originally advertised in the December 1905 Scientific American.

A Monthly Meeting Playlist has also been created with all recorded Webex meetings available.

SARA’s groups.io email reflector

The newest benefit for SARA members is the StillwaterMNAmateurRadioAssoc group on groups.io.  If you haven’t yet joined, why wait? Join now:

https://groups.io/g/StillwaterMNAmateurRadioAssoc.

This group is an email reflector for all things SARA and amateur radio. You can post questions, projects, activities and amateur radio experiences that you can share with SARA members are encouraged. This is an SARA members-only group and requests to join will be approved based upon your current membership status.

Topics are only limited in that they are to be amateur radio-related. Questions about antennas, steps to “tuning up” an antenna, how to use a piece of test gear, tracking RFI issues, programming a radio, figuring out a new radio, showing a new piece of gear, SARA events and activities, licensing questions, … the list is endless!

Sign up now and start sharing your questions and sharing your knowledge.

Field Day 2021 – June 26 -27

​SARA is planning for a smaller scale Field Day operation this year. We are going back to  Autumn Hills Park, our Field Day home for the past several years. Plans are evolving, but we’ll have at least one station using the club’s IC-7300, covering the mic with baggie (or bring your own mic), plastic wrap (think Saran Wrap) on the logging computer keyboard and mouse, and plenty of alcohol wipes. The recent changing COVID-19 health safety guidelines opens the possibility of adding another station or two. More to come as we get closer to the Field Day Weekend.

If you choose to not join us onsite, you can work from home stations again this year and submit your own logs and points to the ARRL referencing SARA-MN for the compiled club score. THe rule waiver allowing working other Class D and Class E stations as valid contacts remains in place FD2021. Maximum power for Class D & E stations is limited to 150W.

This week’s SARA activities