SARA Field Day 2011
OXB Special Install
New Radio Gear For Some SARA Members!
SARA Does Skywarn
SARA Work Party 3
May 14th Fox Hunt! What Fun!
WØJH 2004
2021 W0TBC Memorial Award
Release to Listen Award 2013
2014 SARA Officers

SARA This Week: May 24 – May 30

ALL IN-PERSON ACTIVITIES REMAIN CANCELED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!

SARA’s on-air activities continue to be a great way 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 WIRES-X digital voice link is getting some use on the SARA WØJH repeater.  The link node is operating in digital voice (System Fusion C4FM) mode only. The SARA Room is 63969 room, 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!  Check out https://wp.hamoperator.com/?page_id=105 for a list of active nodes and rooms. We will have a Thursday Technical Topic session June 4th to introduce everyone to the capabilities and operation of our WIRES-X link.

Field Day Notes from our FD Coordinator Bob WØGAF:

As we mentioned last week, we will not be having a Field Day operation in the park this year,  and are encouraging members to participate from home, mobile, or portable stations. To assist you in planning your own Field Day operation, here’s a link to a great presentation created by W8ZT.

“Field Day in Social Distancing” http://tiny.cc/fdsd

This document is jam packed with great information. In particular, Anthony does a great job of explaining each of the Field Day station classes and provides examples and considerations for setting up a station for each class. There are also some great suggestions for Technician licensed hams looking to operate a FD station.

We’d like to know if you are planning to participate in Field Day, and what type of operation you will be running. We’ll be sending out a quick email questionnaire asking members about their Field Day plans. Having this information will help us in planning our club support activities, and will be a great resource for members who are looking for ideas on how to operate Field Day in these interesting times.

The Thursday Technical Topic (TTT) session this past Thursday was a very interesting presentation from Collin KEØIYN on ADS-B Tracking with RTL-SDR Dongles. Collin has provided his slide show from the session and it is posted on the radioham.org website. The Webex session was also recorded and we will by making the full video presentation available for viewing soon via YouTube.

Looking ahead for our bi-weekly Thursday Technical Topic sessions, Here’s the line-up through August 13 along with additional suggested topics to be scheduled:

 

Thursday Technical Topic Suggestions Moderator Date
Interpreting Solar Data Joe KC0OIO 7-May
ADSB: Tracking Air traffic with RTL-SDR  Collin KEØIYN 21-May
Accessing WIRES-X on SARA Repeater Doug N9TOW 4-Jun
Field Day – On your own + SARA member challenges and club team competition FD Plans Team 18-Jun
Antennas: VHF/UHF Dave W0OXB 16-Jul
Antennas: HF Dave W0OXB 30-Jul
Operating Procedures/Protocols HF vs VHF Joe KC0OIO
Brad VE3MXJ
13-Aug
Choosing your first radio
Do’s & Don’t’s when setting up your shack
MFJ-259/269 Analyzer Training
Setting up digital voice hotspots
Hamspeak – the language of ham radio
Grounding & Bonding your station
Station Electrical Power considerations
QRP/Portable Operations (SOTA/POTA)
Optional but useful shack accessories
Working DX
CW: Ways and trick to learning, setup paddles, keys, keyers

Moderators are needed for many of the topics. See something of interest or that you have some knowledge and experience, please consider volunteering to moderate the session. Email me at president at radioham dot org if you are interested in moderating a session. You can also email me with additional topic suggestions. I must note that although we have a great list of suggested topics, many of these topics will not be presented if no one offers to moderate the session. Many of the suggestions can be group discussion sessions. Others may require a little research. See something interesting, dig into it a bit and share what you learn. There is no better way to learn a topic than preparing to lead a session. That’s what I did for the Solar Data session.

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 May 19
    • Time: 08:15 Central (13:15 UTC)
    • Frequency:  3.856 LSB +/- QRM

 

  • 3. The Lunch Room
    • Daily (Monday thru Friday for sure, but jump on Saturday and Sunday if you want)
    • Time: 12:00 Central
    • SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)
    • The Lunch Room is a weekday lunch-hour ragchew open to all amateur radio operators

 

  • 4. SARA Two Meter Tuesday (TMT) Round Robin Ragchew May 26
    • 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 May 27
    • Time: 9:00 PM
    • SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DCTS 026 Normal)
    • The Wednesday evening SARA Ragchew on the SARA repeater continues with primary host Rick KØBRThe Wednesday evening SARA Ragchew on the SARA repeater continues with primary host Rick KØBR

 

  • 6. SARA Two Meter Thursday Round Robin Ragchew May 28
    • Time: 7:00 PM
    • SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)
    • The Thursday evening on-air round robin ragchew
    • The HF Afterglow beging around 8:00 PM on 160 meters at 1.966 MHz +/- QRM

 

  • 7. SARA’s Virtual Eyeball QSO Party – “Manhattan Project” Happy Hour Friday May 29
    • Time: 7:30 PM
    • SARA virtual happy hour via Webex video conference.