August Club Meeting
HF Digital Chat and Messaging: VARAC and JS8Call
Glen, W6GJB, has been a Ham, on and off, since 1958. He has been published in QST and the Handbook, and made presentations at Visalia and the Pacificon Antenna Forum. He particularly likes trying new things, including new operating modes, which is the subject of tonight’s presentation.
The meeting will be Kerry K3RRY and John AC6SL presenting the Field Day results. SCCARC meets at the La Posada Retirement Community Lounge. 609 Frederick St. Santa Cruz, CA
The club meets at 7:00PM, on the THIRD FRIDAY of the each month (except December). We also host the traditional zoom meeting at the same time.
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 869 8329 4191. Passcode: 3749
On Saturday July 20 the Swap Meet will be 8am-noon, with a BBQ at 10:30am or so. People are encouraged to bring equipment to sell, trade or give away. Bring your own table/tailgate or tarp and shade canopy if desired. Coffee & donuts in the morning, with a BBQ lunch provided,. Donations accepted.
Rob Brownstein K6RB BIO.
I was first licensed in June 1958 as KN2UMU at age 11. In April 1959 I passed my general and became K2UMU. I upgraded to extra class in 1970, then moved to California in 1973. My call sign was changed to NS6V in 1982, and to K6RB in 1997. I am primarily a CW operator spending about half my time rag chewing, and the other half, contesting with a modest station. I am a member of CWops, the Northern California Contest Club (NCCC), and FOC.
Giving Back…
These days in addition to the usual activities, I help hams acquire and/or improve their CW skills. The CW Operators club (CWops) sponsors a three-time-per-year CW training program. I volunteer as an advisor to a group of students each of the three semesters. The program has become very popular. Information is available at https://cwops.org/cw-
Speaker will be John Portune W6NBC. The meeting will February 16 at 7:30 PM. Both Zoom and in person at La Posada Retirement Community, 609 Fredrick St, Santa Cruz.
Hams tend to fear building their own Yagi beams, thinking that only professional radio engineers can design Yagis. The equations seem way too complex and the many on-line Yagi calculators all conflict with each other, and they do not know which one to trust. GOOD NEWS. Ham yagi design is really simple as this presentation shows. Only three easy to remember no math, no calculator rules of thumb yield results that can’t be distinguished from yagis designed with the calculators and the fancy math.
The presentation also shows how to build a durable inexpensive VHF/UHF beam from easy to obtain materials.
Getting up and running with Allstar
Allstarlink is a method of connecting repeaters and personal hotspots together with voice over internet protocol (VOIP). Martin (KN6GWQ) will provide an overview of Allstar, how to operate an Allstar enabled repeater, and information on building your own Allstar node. A live demo will be demonstrated. If you have any interest in connecting to repeaters throughout the world, please join us for this presentation.
About the Speaker
Martin (KN6GWQ) is a computer engineer specializing in data acquisition, motion control and PCB design. Currently he works on helping maintain the K6BJ and KN6GWQ repeaters and is the developer of Ham Tracks (an Android APRS client). His interests in ham radio are presently APRS, repeaters, repeater controllers and Allstar.
Let’s rally and support Martin on this intriguing topic,
Everything You Wanted to Know About FT8 (and possibly more)
FT8 quickly swept the ham radio world by storm soon after its appearance in 2017. Some call it a curse. Others call it a blessing. DXers call it another useful way to chase DX.. NJ2X (Michael Maher) will give a talk on FT8 along with a live demonstration. The talk will delve into practical matters as well as tips on how to exploit FT8 for DXing. Bring your FT8 questions.
About the Speaker
Michael (NJ2X) enjoys chasing DX and constructing homebrew antennas. NJ2X is the first amateur radio operator to earn the ARRL Triple Play award three times: 1) Hillsborough, NJ; 2) Export, PA, and 3) Aptos, CA. Michael has also earned ARRL DXCC awards for phone, digital, 10 Meters, 15 Meters, 17 Meters, 20 Meters, and 30 Meters. He is presently working on completing the DXCC Challenge award (with 770 confirmed contacts so far) and completing contacts with all 3007 US counties for the Worked All US Counties award (with 2024 confirmed contacts so far). Michael also posts articles on his website NJ2X.com.
Hi everyone. I am very happy to announce that the speaker at our September
live/zoom hybrid SCCARC meeting will be none other than Don Taylor, K6GHA.
The subject will be entitled “WRTC 2022: Participating in the Olympics of Amateur Radio”.
As many of you know, Don is a very upbeat and interesting voice on the airwaves and his talk should
be interesting and entertaining. So, please save the date: Friday, September 15th.
To make things even more interesting, your board of directors has decided that we’ll have
Pizza and Salad available for the live attendees. Because of this, we will be starting at
7 PM at La Posada to give folks time to find a table, fill your plate and settle in for Don’s
talk which will begin at 7:30–the regular meeting time.
73,
Jerry Lucha W6OJE
QST QST Calling all K6BJ Club Members
We earnestly request your (Live or Virtual) presence at NEXT FRIDAY’s SCCARC Club Meeting.
There are two reasons.
First, we will have a great speaker and a subject that could be useful for many of us.
Second, we have a proposed change to our Bylaws that we plan to introduce for your consideration and
we will be voting on the change at the September meeting.
Here is a little on the planned presentation from our speaker, John Portune:
August 18th 7:30 PM Pacific time is confirmed for the Santa Cruz County Amateur Radio Club (K6BJ)
on the topic of “Simple Sleeve Dipole From Coax.”
Feel free to record the session for your members’ reference.
There’s a short description on w6nbc.com and a short bio . John Portune W6NBC
Here is the background on why your board believes that we should change the Bylaws:
At our next regular third Friday club meeting on August 18, we will have the formal reading of
the proposed change (which we discussed at our last board meeting). This reading is so that
the proposal can be voted upon at the September meeting.
The proposal:
Change our Bylaws, Article V, Section 4.
from:
“Fifteen percent of the membership of the Club shall constitute a quorum.”
to instead:
“Ten percent of the membership of the Club shall constitute a quorum.”
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This proposal will be voted on at our following regular club meeting Friday, September 15.
Here is the article in our Bylaws that governs changing them:
“ARTICLE IX. AMENDMENT OF BYLAWS:
These bylaws can be amended at any regular meeting of the
Club by a two-thirds vote, providing that the amendment has been
submitted in writing at the previous regular meeting.”
Rationale :
Our club Bylaws say we must hold a election at our November meeting each year. At times we’ve had unfortunate trouble reaching the number of participants to achieve a quorum for the needed annual election.
(now we have 154 members total)
10% = 16 members
15% = 24 members
According to Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, the “requirement for a quorum is protection against totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons.”
Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised (pre-Covid pandemic) also states that the quorum set in an organization’s bylaws “should approximate the largest number that can be depended on to attend any meeting except in very bad weather or other extremely unfavorable conditions.
It pains me to mention it. But, we have not had 24 members at any of our meetings in recent memory. Hence the desire
to have a more practical quorum.
HERE AS A REMINDER IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR NEXT WEEK’S MEETING. OR, PLEASE LET’S MEET IN PERSON
AT LA POSADA ON FREDERICK ST.
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W6OJE is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: K6BJ SCCARC Zoom Meeting
Time: Aug 18, 2023 07:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 869 8329 4191
Passcode: 3749
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For a telephone-only join, Dial:
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Meeting ID: 869 8329 4191
Passcode: 3749
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73,
JERRY W6OJE