San Benito County Amateur Radio Association

Nets

San Benito County Nets

Every Thu @ 1930 – Weekly SBCARA Net
Thu 10/27 & 11/10 @ 1930 – SBCARA Net on IRLP/Echolink (Pending)
Thu 11/3 @ 2000 -Monthly SBCARA HF Net

Other Nearby Nets

• Every Sun 1800 – Red Cross DST Net followed by DCF Net
• Every Mon 2000 – Fremont Peak Repeater Assoc. Net (See https://www.fremontpeakrepeater.org/)
• Every Tue 1930 – GVARC Net – Garlic Valley Amateur Radio Club (See https://gvarc.com)
• Every Tue 2000 – LPRA (Loma Prieta) Net
• Every Wed 1930 – Monterey ARES Net (mc-ares.org)

Winlink or Packet Nets

• Santa Clara Co. SVECS Net – Tue before 2000 (Starts previous Wed at 00:00:01)
• California Coastal Winlink Net – 3rd Mon (Starts the Mon before)
• NorCal Winlink Net – Thu at 2359hrs (Starts the Sun before) http://ncpa.n0ary.org/

Resources

• InciWeb

Ham Fun Night

Usually the 3rd Thursdays of the month @ 1900 hrs.

About Thursday’s October 18th Program:

I am Karin Thompson, KD4DXX.  I have been a licensed ham since 1990.  I have worked in the ham radio industry since then and seen LOTS of changes in communications and technology.   There has been a lot to learn over the years but so very much has remained the same.  On most days you won’t hear me on the air but will find me investigating settings and options of various radios to solve a reported problem of unusual behavior or to think of unusual ways to get more functionality with fewer button presses. I so enjoy helping others get on the air and get the most use from the features of their radios.   

As for a synopsis of the presentation, I plan to talk about 

• History of RT Systems and the fact that amateur radio programming was invented by the man who still is a part of this organization, Rod Thompson, KU4HP.  He has worked with these radios since 1995 when Yaesu first announced that they had radios that cloned.  He wondered if he could get it to talk to a computer and once he did… it’s all history from there. 
• How a programmer is developed.  We own all these radios we program and work with the information available from the radio itself to develop a programmer to address the specifics of that radio.  We have been at this for a long time and know a lot about how to get the information we need from a radio… or most of them. 
• The programmers – their likes and differences and what a programmer really means relative to the radio.  This is the radio out of its “black box” in all its glory.
  • How you can discover how many memory channels a radio has
  • If a radio can do different tones for transmission and receive
  • If a radio has memory banks and how they work (i.e., can a channel be in more than one bank?)
  • What settings are available for a radio and why they are handled separately from what’s in the memory channel programming
  • What kinds of memories the radio has (Memories, VFO, Limit memories, Marine channels, etc)
• That each radio is unique and that a programmer must address that uniqueness or nothing works. 
• I will do live demonstrations of the programmers showing
  • Copy and paste between programs – even those from different manufacturers
  • External data file creation
  • Move up and move down capabilities
  • Column editing
• I will encourage those who may not be familiar with our programs to investigate all the tabs at the bottom and menu options at the top.  The programs do not run off on you. You are always in control. 
• I will talk about our cables and use of them compared to others.  

Ham Fun Archive

This is an event organized by Jack Kirk (W6KRK) involving multiple groups. Contact Jack Kirk to be added to the email list for this event.

Contacts

ARRL Links

Pacific Division

Santa Clara Valley Section

Quake Report

Modified Mercalli Scale

The Modified Mercalli, or Mike-Mike scale is used to standardize and make more efficient the reporting of earthquake damage. Instead of reporting damage by using general descriptions like “major” or a”minor” or “heavy”, a Mike-Mike value is reported. This value is quick and simple to communicate over the air and equates to a standard level of damage as defined in the scale below.

Full Modified Mercalli Scale