It’s time for our February WVARA meeting. Please join us this Wednesday (February 14th) at 7pm in Meeting Room 5 at the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, 2731 N. First Street at Plumeria Drive (southwest corner) in San Jose.  Most of us come in through the side entrance on the southwest side of the building — look for our red WVARA sign on the side where they park all the Red Cross trucks. Cookies will be served, and of course, visitors are welcome!

If you haven’t been to the Red Cross, “talk-in” is usually available on the Association’s repeaters, normally 2m/220 are good choices.

A few of us usually meet for dinner a block down the street around 6 pm prior to the meeting, and anyone is welcome to join https://www.yelp.com/biz/dish-n-dash-san-jose

For this Valentine’s day meeting, I’m going to tell you why I love HF digital modes and cover some of the basics in getting started with RTTY, FT8, JT65 as well as some advanced topics. If you’ve traditionally stuck with CW or Voice modes, there are many DX and contest contacts you’re missing out on! FT8 is even starting to show up in DXpeditions and there are some interesting changes around that planned for a future version of WSJT-X that you’ll hear about here first. We won’t be able to cover everything, but I hope to recruit you in our digital efforts at a future WVARA Field Day. Also, the RTTY edition of the North America QSO Party contest is Saturday, February 24th. Get on and make a few contacts!