Category: Events

Our November 2023 membership meeting was cancelled due to a guest speaker falling through, but spirits were high at our annual December social at the Canoe House restaurant. Over a dozen members gathered to catch up and discuss their various radio-related projects.

A week later, during our December 13 on-air net, participants described their favorite ham radio gifts, either received or purchased for themselves. The fond memories included:

• A first HT, the Yaesu VX-5
• A LEGO version of the Perseverance Rover, signed by members of the JPL team which managed the real thing
• A six-transistor AM radio in 1963
• A Boy Scout morse code paddle
• Another first HT, the Yaesu FT–60
• A first radio, a Baofeng handheld
• An antenna from SOTAbeams
• A pair of walkie-talkies from Sears

To inspire future hams, Mark WB6CIA suggested donating a pair of walkie-talkies to a Toys For Tots drive.

On behalf of everyone at SPARC, we hope you have a happy, healthy, and radio-active 2024!

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. 

1. Discord
   Discord is a chat and video streaming app much like Zoom. But unlike Zoom, which was designed for business use, Discord was designed by and for video gamers, so it has extra features that are useful for radio contesting. For example, rather than a specific, time-limited Zoom meeting, Discord “servers” are up and running at all times. Members of that server can log in and log out as they please and talk to whomever else is logged in at the time. Also, many people can share their screens simultaneously and stream their activity. You could share a view of your N3FJP screen or GridTracker or just your face. And you can selectively mute any of these streams — it would be overwhelming to hear all of them at once. If you’d like to join the SPARC Discord server, use the Contact Us page to request access. 
2. ContestOnlineScore.com
   ContestOnlineScore.com is what the URL implies, an online scoreboard for monitoring a particular contest. Once you create your account, you can affiliate with a club and/or a contest team. You configure your logging program (N3FJP, N1MM+, etc.) to share your score with the site. To affiliate with SPARC, you can select “South Pasadena Amateur Radio Club” from the pull-down menu of clubs. Click here for information on how to configure your logger to post the scores.

As always, SPARC encourages everyone to get out, make some contacts and have fun!