It’s time for the June WVARA meeting! June 13th at 19:00 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. Talk in is available on the association repeaters, 2m is a good choice.
I’m sure none of us have forgotten, but just in case, Field Day is June 22nd-24th, and when we’re this close to Field Day, it’s hard not to talk about Field Day.
In this meeting, we’re going to do a deep dive into N1MM+, the logging software we’ll be using at field day this year. Last year, standardizing on it ended up working out really well — but this year we’ve refined some rough edges, learned from a few mistakes, and are using a few new features. Specifically, the waterfall bandmap will likely be of interest to a few people as well as the use of skimmers (which according to the ARRL, believe it or not, is allowed on Field Day.) You don’t have to have to be an expert at N1MM+ to use it by any means, but knowing a few shortcuts probably won’t hurt our score. Additionally, we’ll talk about some strategies and operating tips for the various modes. Perhaps we’ll even have time to make some eyeball-QSOs. I’ll lead the discussion and present some slides, but there’s quite a bit of wisdom elsewhere in the room, so we’re sure to learn something.
Field Day isn’t a contest, but they do keep score and publish/rank the results at the end, so it sure feels like one sometimes. There are some folks in this club that almost never contest, and others, who can’t stop contesting (hi.) No problem, but one of the most important goals of Field Day is to a) get as many of us on the air as possible, and who knows, maybe we’ll even get you hooked and talk you into taking a road trip for a real contest in the not-so-distant future.
A few of us usually meet for dinner somewhere near the Red Cross (I’ve been rotating between a few locations) around 6 pm prior to the meeting. This month, it’s back to Dish’n’Dash just a block down the street: https://www.yelp.com/
See you there!
Bill/W9KKN