News from the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)

Hi,

The April meeting of the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club is rapidly approaching.  Tuesday, 7 April, at 7PM.

This meeting will be held on-the-air and on-line.
 
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM. Meet on Dulles/Ashburn repeater 145.31- PL77.  Evan, KQ4CI, who runs the repeater, was kind enough to ensure the repeater was available for our use at that time.

Gordon, NQ4K, will run the net. It will be run in a manner similar to our normal meeting. We will open the net, welcome all, and go over the agenda. Then we will accept check-ins.  When net control calls your call sign, please give your name, call sign, and a brief summary of your ham radio activities during the past month. We will close the net at 7:50 to allow all to get on Zoom.

8:00 PM.  We will meet on Zoom to hear a presentation by Michael Walker, VA3MW, from Flex Radio on "Flex Radio products and Station Improvements."  Some people heard this presentation at Dayton and enjoyed it.  We will send out the Zoom link next week.

9:00 PM or so.  We will have the Tech Ten Team Talk. Not sure yet how we will do this.  Either on Zoom or the 2M repeater.  We will let you know later.


To prepare for the club meeting, we will host two informal 2M and Zoom meetings to allow you to verify you can access the repeater and access Zoom.
  Friday, 3 April.
     7:00 PM on the 2M net.
     7:30 PM on ZOOM. We will send out the Zoom meeting link later in the week.
  Saturday, 4 April.
     7:00 PM on the 2M net.
     7:30 PM on ZOOM. We will send out the Zoom meeting link later in the week.

In preparation for this, I personally have ventured further into the 2M world by putting up a 2M antenna. Usually I do not work 2M so I have never had the need before for anything more than my handheld. I made a very simple 2M coax bazooka dipole. Pulled it up into a tree and it seems to work well. We will see if it lasts long enough to get through the club meeting next Tuesday.

Zoom is an easy application.  The link for the Zoom meeting will be sent to you in an email.  You click on the link.  You can either open the link within your browser (where you will be able to see and hear the presentation) or with the Zoom application (where you will also be able to talk to or chat with the presenter, and if you have a computer camera, broadcast your video).  I took the option of downloading the free Zoom application and created a login id and password.

Marty, NV3H, coordinated all of the above.  We owe him thanks for doing this.

That is all for now.

73, Gordon, NQ4K