Meetings

It is summer and BARC will be taking its normal break from club meetings, with no club meetings for the months of June, July, and August.  The summer is a busy time for vacations and where many amateur radio operators participate in public service events and other activities.  

Our next club meeting will be the Pot Luck Fall Social that will be held on September 6th.

Have a safe and enjoyable summer.

Cordell
KE7IK
 

D-STAR

Date:  May 12, 2012
Time:  10 AM
Location:  Cache County Sheriff's Complex 3rd Floor, 1225 W 200 N, Logan
 

D-STAR (Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio) is a digital voice and data protocol specification developed as the result of research by the Japan Amateur Radio League to investigate digital technologies for amateur radio.  D-STAR systems are available and also can be built using both commercial and homebrew equipment and software.

The D-STAR system supports two types of digital data streams. The Digital Voice (DV) stream used on 144 and 440 MHz contains both digitized voice (3600 bps including error correction) and digital data (1200 bps).  Using a DV radio is like having both a packet link and FM voice operating simultaneously.  The Digital Data (DD) stream, used only on 1.2 GHz, is entirely data with a bit rate of 128k bps.  The data connection to a radio that used DV is via an RS-232 interface or USB 1.0.  An Ethernet connection is used for high-speed DD D-STAR data.  Ordinary terminal emulation software (DV) or a Web browser (DD) is used for exchanging data.

If you want to know more about D-STAR and its capabilities, please attend our club meeting to find out what D-STAR is all about.

See you there.  As always, visiting with friends and refreshments after the meeting.

Radio/Transmitter Hunting and Direction Finding

Date:  April 14, 2012
Time:  10 AM
Location:  Cache County Sherrif's Complex 3rd floor, 1225 W 200 N, Logan

Our guest speakers will be Brian Ulrich (N7QAR) and Gary Roberts (AG1T).  Brian started out in Radio Direction Finding (RDF) as a young lad with his father (Dick Ulrich, K6KCY) in Southern California (http://www.thunter.org/).  Both he and Gary have used their learned techniques here locally to find “Pirate Gill’s” weather/ham balloons, track interference issues, and mostly, to just plain have fun!  There will be a short presentation on the subject followed by a “two step” t-hunt on VHF afterwards.  Bring your RDF gear (a single VHF handheld will suffice) and plan on a fun morning of enjoyment.

**Note that an FCC amateur radio license is not required to participate, but it will enhance your enjoyment of the hunt if you have one.

See you there.  As always, visiting with friends and refreshments after the meeting.

Solar Power

Date:  March 10, 2012
Time:  10 AM
Location:  Cache County Sheriff's Complex 3rd Floor, 1225 W 200 N, Logan

Our guest speakers will be Ken Gardner and Mike Wight from Gardner Engineering.  Gardner Engineering is involved in alternative energy sources of Solar Photovoltaic (PV), Wind Energy, and Micro-Hydro Technologies.  One of the solar projects that Gardner Engineering installed was the 211 kW solar panel system at Hill AFB.

Ken and Mike will be talking about solar power and the latest in solar PV technology.  They will also discuss what is needed for small portable solar PV systems which could be used to charge a battery and permanent solar PV installations that are off-grid and grid-interconnected.

See you there.  As always, visiting with friends and refreshments after the meeting.

DXing

Date:  February 11, 2012
Time:  10 AM
Location:  Cache County Sheriff's Complex 3rd Floor, 1225 W 200 N, Logan

Our guest speaker will be Don Butler, N5LZ.  Don has been an avid DXer since his first transmission on the Amateur Radio bands, a CW DX contact, in 1979.  The day a friend hooked an HF rig up, Don became hooked on Ham DXing and promptly studied for and passed the General test at the local FCC office.  He has since upgraded to Extra and earned several contesting awards including DXCC #1 Honor Roll (he worked every entity on the DXCC List at that time).

Don will be giving us the rundown on DXing including why it is fun and what kind of equipment you may want to plan on having for your DX station.

If you have had questions about DXing, this meeting is defiantly for you.  Even if you haven't had an interest in DXing, you may learn something that changes your mind.

Portable Antenna Show-and-Tell

Date:  January 14, 2012
Time:  10 AM
Location:  Cache County Sheriff's Complex 3rd Floor, 1225 W 200 N, Logan

All you portable operators out there, what kind of portable antennas do you use when you set up your HF/VHF/UHF radio equipment at a remote location?  Is it a dipole, log periodic, end fed wire, loop, Quad, vertical, or a custom built antenna?  How do you put it up and support it?  Do you support the antenna between some trees, do you need masts for the antenna, or do you just hold the antenna in you hand?  Would you like to tell others about your portable antenna(s)?

Well, here is an opportunity to tell other hams about your portable antenna(s) at our club meeting.  If you have a portable antenna that you would like to talk about and show, bring it to the club meeting and tell us all about your antenna.