SPARC will participate in Winter Field Day on the afternoon of Saturday, January 28, 2023. We will set up a few operating stations in Eddie Park, just outside our monthly meeting venue, the Eddie Park House. More details to follow in the new year. In the meantime, Happy Holidays and 73!
Dear SPARC members and friends,
The South Pasadena Amateur Radio Club will meet in person for a holiday social gathering on Wednesday, December 7, 2022 at 7:30 PM at the Canoe House restaurant located at 805 Fair Oaks Avenue, South Pasadena, CA 91030. The return of this event is cause for celebration so please spread the word and join us for an evening of good cheer in the company of our amateur radio family.
Thank you,
Rick Besocke, KI6ZKM
SPARC President
It’s official: The South Pasadena Amateur Radio Club has resumed in-person monthly meetings. The timing remains the same, the first Wednesday of the month at 7:30 p.m., but our location has changed. As of October, we are now meeting at the Eddie Park House at 2017 Edgewood Drive, South Pasadena, CA 91030. SPARC would like to thank the City of South Pasadena for their help in securing this new venue. We look forward to increasing the scope and ambition of our monthly meetings now that we can once again meet offline. Eyeball QSOs are back, and we hope to see you soon!
Photo credit: Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG
At our September meeting, SPARC member John Minger, AC6VV gave a presentation on the radio tools he uses to support the Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run. As the ham radio coordinator for the AC 100, John oversees a mix of analog and digital equipment that tracks the location and safety of the runners. Below is a selection of John’s slides which gives a sense of the scale of this annual event in our local mountains. If you’re interested in volunteering to help the AC 100, visit the official web site. SPARC thanks John for this informative and exciting look at operating under difficult conditions.
For our August membership meeting, SPARC conducted a live test of SPEAR, the South Pasadena Emergency Amateur Radio, a Kenwood 710GA. Bob Vanderwall, WB6YJJ, operated the station from Garfield Park in an attempt to determine how far SPEAR’s signal could reach. SPARC thanks the following stations for their participation.
Richard King, KE6VYZ
Jeff Liter, W2JCL
Clark Miller, K9IXS
Daniel Duncan, WA6NZZ
Randy Canfield, N9BM
John Wooten, N7JAY
Stan Tahara, KR6CV
Chad Alapag, AJ6UX
Chris Cronin, KM6OUK
SOTALogs.com is a potentially time-saving tool for anyone who enjoys Summits on the Air. According to the site’s creator Brian Jester KB8UIP/VE3SPG, SOTALOGS is “a super simple 1-page bootstrap site to help create error-free CSV SOTA logs” ready to upload to the SOTA database. “There are 3 ways to submit SOTA logs: the activator web form, the chaser/s2s web form or via CSV/TSV file. Some might hand craft their own CSV in Excel, but I’m not fan of that, so I made tiny site to help make things easier.”
Thanks to Brian for his work. (Originally linked on the SoCal SOTA Groups.io.)
After a two-year pause due to Covid restrictions, South Pasadena once again held its annual Festival of Balloons parade on July 4. As in years past, SPARC marched in the parade with members of local Neighborhood Watch and CERT groups. Thanks to SPPD Detective Richard Lee for organizing everyone.
The picture above, taken by Stan Tahara, KR6CV, shows SPARC President Rick Besocke, KI6ZKM; SPARC Treasurer Bob Vanderwall, WB6YJJ; member Mike Newman, KM6KAQ; and member Conrad Besocke.
Allen Wolff, KC7O, joined us at our July 6 membership meeting to present “Diplexers, Triplexers, and the Low-Profile Mobile.” Using pictures and diagrams of his own mobile installations, Allen described his methods of integrating radios into a modern car to achieve a stealthy, clean interior with low-profile equipment. All of the radios in his cars were cleverly tucked away yet readily usable (unlike in the porcupine of a car pictured above). He illustrated the “old” days and the improvements made as well as the difficulties integrating radios into modern cars including modern battery systems and safely grounding radio equipment. Allen’s installations are possible thanks to diplexers and triplexers along with multiband antennas. He also discussed the difference between diplexers and duplexers.
Allen has been licensed since 1964 and lived in New York, New Jersey, Indiana, Utah, and has been in California since 1984. He earned his First-Class Radio Telephone License in 1974 and is a retired aerospace electrical engineer. SPARC thanks Allen for another impressive and inspirational talk!
At our June monthly membership meeting, the club held its annual review of Field Day rules and discussed plans for one of the biggest events of the ham radio calendar. The ARRL has announced that some Field Day rules introduced to accommodate social distancing are now permanent. Embedded below is a presentation that summarizes the most important Field Day facts.
This year Field Day will start at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time (1800 UTC) on Saturday, June 25 and end on Sunday, June 26 at 1:59 p.m. (2059 UTC).
In years past, we’ve enjoyed a regional Field Day operation organized by our friends at the Pasadena Radio Club. This year, there is no physical site for everyone to meet, but we can use these two online tools to add a social element to our individual operations.
As always, SPARC encourages everyone to get out, make some contacts and have fun!
At our May 4 membership meeting, Jeff Liter, W2JCL, presented a recap of ARES LAX Northeast’s deployment to the annual Baker to Vegas relay race. Each year, a dedicated team of volunteer operators from Northeast maintains a checkpoint along the race route. Below are a few of the pictures that Jeff shared.
