SARA This Week Oct 26 – Nov 1

Eyeball QSO Party

The General License class gets priority over rooms at the Stillwater Public Library this fall, so the Eyeball QSO Parties will be a bit nomadic.

The schedule is as follows:

October 30             Oakdale Public Library – Small Conference Room
November 6            Baytown Town Hall (no tech topic this night)
November 13          Stillwater Public Library Conference Room
November 20          Stillwater Public Library Conference Room
November 27          Thanksgiving – NO Eyeball QSO Party
December 4            1^st Thursday Technical Topic Night at Baytown Town Hall
December 11          Stillwater Public Library Conference Room
December 18          Stillwater Public Library Conference Room
December 25          Christmas Day – NO Eyeball QSO Party
January 1 2026       New Year’s Day – NO Eyeball QSO Party

SARA Monthly Member Meeting is November 1st

The November meeting of the Stillwater Amateur Radio Association is being held a week earlier than usual due to “Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald” Special Event the following weekend. Our guest presenter this month will be Bob Wilmes KØAPW sharing a presentation on Broadcast Digital TV.

The meeting will be livestreamed via the SARA ZOOM teleconference room. >> CLICK HERE << to join the meeting virtually Saturday morning.

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

1^st 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. You can find all the 1^st Thursday Topics in the 1^st Thursdays Technical Topics playlist.

We are always looking for topic ideas and discussion leaders for future 1TTT nights. If you have a suggestions or you are willing to lead a discussion, please let drop me an email at kc0oio2002@gmail.com.

The 1^st 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). The following schedule is subject to change.

Nov 6 session will be a normal eyeball QSO session as many of the usual participants will be preparing for the Split Rock weekend departure the next morning. No livestream.

Dec 4 1^st Thursday Tech Topic Night
“Let’s Talk About … Pico Balloons” led by Brian KB9TBB

NO January 1, 2026 session – Happy New Year!

Feb 5, 2026 1^st Thursday Tech Topic Night
“Let’s Talk About … Meshtastic” led by Collin KEØIYN

Mar 5, 2026 1^st Thursday Tech Topic Night
“Let’s Talk About … Logging Workflows” led by Dale WØDHZ

Apr 2, 2026 1^st Thursday Tech Topic Night
“Let’s Talk About … Antenna Analyzers” led by Joe KCØOIO

“Remembering The Edmund Fitzgerald” Special Event Nov 7-10

Two articles about the coming 50^th anniversary of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald appeared in local sources this past week. The 1^st is an article that appeared in Pioneer Press Oct 13: “In the wake of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and the 2^nd appeared on the mprnews.org website Oct 12: “Huge crowd expected for 50th anniversary memorial of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. The links are shared here for your reading pleasure. 

The SARA team of over 40 members will operate spread across 4 days this year. This is a large crew, but not all will be there all 4 days. Large crowds are expected at the Split Rock Lighthouse Historical Site and the State Park on Monday Nov 10. The SARA will be onsite early Monday and not leaving the park until the end of our operations.  

WØJH will again be operating from the grounds of Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, in Lake County Minnesota, Grid Square EN47, and will qualify for POTA US-2524 & US-8095, ARLHS USA-783. 

November 10th is the 50th Anniversary of the tragic loss of this famous ship and her entire 29-man crew. This will be the 21st consecutive year the Stillwater Amateur Radio Assn (SARA), has operated to commemorate the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Fitz passed Split Rock Lighthouse on her final voyage.

Please read below and use this address only for confirmation certificates for this event:  W0JHFitz@outlook.com

We plan to have 2 stations assigned to operating on SSB, primarily ~3.860MHz, 7.260MHz, 14.260MHz, 18.160MHz, & 21.360MHz, + or – depending upon band conditions. While 20m routinely produces the most contacts for us, we have been known to spend time on other HF bands, including 10m. We also expect to have a 3rd station, that will also spend time operating on FT8 as well as SSB.

Due to staffing and access time to the park site, we anticipate WØJH being on the air from when we can get set up ~19:00 to ~23:00 UTC on Nov 7th, and ~15:00-22:55 UTC on other days of the event.

Confirmation certificates for valid contacts will only be sent by email as a pdf and will be sent to the email address from which your request was made. Logs will be uploaded to LOTW, QRZ, and POTA.

There will be at least two other groups using several call signs operating Edmund Fitzgerald special events during November. Be sure you have the correct call of stations you work and follow the correct confirmation process for that station. We will only be using one call and can only confirm contacts with WØJH.

Submit certificate requests promptly, as the incoming request email will likely no longer be monitored beyond 30 days following conclusion of the event. For confirmation certificates, send an email to: W0JHFitz@outlook.com and include the following information:

* Your Call

* Date of QSO (UTC date)

* Time of QSO (UTC time)

* Band or Frequency

* Mode

Any email received without the above information may be returned for clarification or discarded. No QSL Cards or postal requests please. Certificate requests from SWL stations should include the call sign of at least one station we were in contact with during the time you heard us, and a brief synopsis of the conversation you heard.

Certificates for valid contacts will be sent as a PDF file to your email address beginning approximately 3 weeks following conclusion of the event. We design a new certificate for each of our events, and that process can’t begin until the end of the event.

The SARA POTA Challenge

The latest SARA POTA Challenge 2025 monthly numbers available are posted on the radioham.org website. >> CLICK HERE << to view the current results for 2025. September 2025 numbers have now been posted to the website. Please note, the tabulators are having to review the data and hand merge participants with fewer than 50 contacts manually due to POTA data changes explained below.   

It’s been discovered that POTA recently raised the minimum contacts returned in the Top Hunter search to 50 Hunter contacts. This speaks to the popularity of the POTA program. This is a limitation placed on the hunter database by POTA. For the remainder of 2025, we will continue to carry all those who’ve been listed as participants with more than 10 contacts that we have as of the August report. Unfortunately, the threshold will change for the 2026 Challenge, not by our choice, but because of what data we can extract from POTA’s database.

The monthly numbers may not be compiled in time to share at the October and November monthly meetings due to the short timeframe with the meetings falling on the 1^st Saturdays those months. Watch the website for the updates!

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 Oct 26
19:00 Central (00:00 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 (01:00 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 Oct 27
08:00 Central (13:00 UTC)
Frequency: 3.856 LSB +/- QRM

Two Meter Tuesday (TMT) Round Robin Ragchew Oct 28
7:00 – ~8:00 pm Central (or until we finish!) 
SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)1^stTuesday 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.

General Class License Class Session 7 Oct 30
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Conference Room
Stillwater Public Library
224 3rd St N, Stillwater

Eyeball QSO Party Oct 30
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Small Conference Room
Oakdale Public Library
1010 Heron Ave N, Oakdale 55128

SARA 2^nd Saturday Breakfast (on the 1^st Saturday) Nov 1
7:30 AM
Perkins Restaurant
2050 Frontage Rd, Stillwater 55082

SARA Monthly Meeting Nov 1
9:15 AM
Auditorium A (or B)
13575 58^th Street North, Oak Park Heights 55082
>> CLICK HERE << to join livestream via Zoom