Monthly Archives: March 2021

Activity, Meeting, Meeting Speaker

April Membership Meeting

Our April 14 speaker will be Brian Tanner, AG6GX, who will talk about “The Art of Voice Communications: Techniques for Technician & HF-class licensees”.  Brian will cover voice operating practices, including how best to format and communicate information for accuracy and precision via phone nets.  While this presentation will be especially useful for newer hams, even old timers may learn something new.

Bio:  Brian started by getting his Tech license in 1995.  After several years of activity on the VHF and UHF bands, Brian upgraded and became radioactive on the HF bands in 2013.  He participates in the Cupertino ARES group (CARES) as well as the city ARES net Cupertino_Net.  Brian also enjoys tinkering with hardware and recently built a 100W HF solid state power amplifier. 

News

WVARA’s Annual BBQ

It’s official.  Sunnyvale has opened their picnic facilities for summer reservations, and we’ve been approved for Baylands Park Pickleweed Picnic Area.  So mark your calendar for WVARA’s Annual BBQ on August 21 starting at 11am.  This coincides with the North America QSO Party / SSB, so we’ll be making contacts during our BBQ via a portable station.  (More details to follow.)

News

March Membership Meeting

Our monthly meeting will be next week on Wednesday, March 10, at 7:00pm via Zoom.  Zoom instructions will be emailed.

 
This month’s topic is one of interest to all hams.  Jim Aspinwall, NO1PC, will unlock the secrets of “Elmering in the Age of Devices” — how we can each get more involved in mentoring (i.e. elmering) — helping younger folks get excited about the magic of ham radio.  Jim points out that since “shop class” is a thing of the past, and Maker events are mostly focused on Arduino, robots and i-devices, there are few places for the average person to learn and really practice electronics except amateur radio.  Mentoring by those of us in the ham community is the key!   

Jim Aspinwall, NO1PC

Bio:  Jim was originally licensed as WN9GVF in 1970 and eventually upgraded to Extra in 2005.  In addition to a full career in the tech world, Jim served for 8 years as a volunteer firefighter/engineer, eventually transitioning that experience into working with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services as a telecommunications deployment specialist.  Jim has created and moderates a fantastic amateur radio Elmer forum on Facebook devoted to Amateur Radio Elmers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmateurRadioElmers) and maintains a web-site devoted to ham radio reference information for newcomers at http://www.No1PC.org.