WØJH 2004
2017 SARA Officers
SARA Work Party 3
SARA Work Party 2
May 14th Fox Hunt! What Fun!
New Radio Gear For Some SARA Members!
Split Rock 2013
Ice Station WØJH 2014
Kilo Parks Award
Split Rock Lighthouse 2012

SARA This Week: July 26 – August 1

ALL IN-PERSON ACTIVITIES REMAIN CANCELED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!

SARA’s on-air activities are a great way to connect with others and check on their wellness as well as a boost of your own overall wellness. Those on-air activities provide healthy social contact while maintaining personal distancing.

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Join more than 13,000 registered attendees at the first of it’s kind QSO Today Virtual Ham Radio Expo 2020 on August 8 and 9. This ARRL-sanctioned Hamfest is an international online Expo featuring over 70 speakers from around the world, an exposition hall featuring many amateur radio manufacturers and vendors, breakout rooms for further discussion, and more. And it’s all free! To register and for more information go to https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/.

This Expo is built on a live virtual platform commonly used by Fortune 500 companies and major universities.  It’s much more than just a Zoom meeting – the platform simulates a convention experience with an exhibit hall and booths staffed by live attendants, speaker auditorium, and lobby. Anybody can attend virtually with an internet connection and computer, tablet, or smartphone.

At the Expo, participants can take advantage of this technology in different ways.

There are 4 different speaker tracks on a variety of topics with plenty of great content for everyone. Speakers will present via video and have prepared excellent, engaging presentations. Speakers can also provide related material such as slides and white papers which attendees can download. Every session will have a Q&A where people can submit questions in real time via chat and then speakers will answer those questions using video or audio.

There are 30+ booths for attendees to visit. Exhibitors have many options to engage with attendees. For example, Elecraft has created professional video demonstrations of their latest transceivers. Each booth can provide downloadable content including videos, spec sheets, and manuals. Content can be saved by attendees in a virtual briefcase for reading later or emailing to a friend. Attendees can easily interact one-on-one with booth representatives via video, voice, or text chat using a system similar to Skype. While most booths will be staffed from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST on August 8 and 9, some Exhibitors will extend hours through their overseas reps.

The Expo organizers will attempt to integrate radio with the virtual platform by having DMR, Allstar, D-Star, and other talk groups available for hams to meet on the air around the Expo.

Attendees will be able to access all speaker presentations and Exhibitor booth content for 30 days after the Expo by simply returning to the Expo site.

Icom is the Expo’s Platinum Sponsor, along with Gold Sponsors: GigaParts, RT Systems, FlexRadio, RFinder, DX Engineering, Elecraft, RigExpert, and NCG (Comet Antenna).

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Looking ahead for our bi-weekly Thursday Technical Topic sessions, Here’s the line-up through August 27 along with additional suggested topics to be scheduled:
Technical Topic Suggestions – Moderator – Date
Antennas: HF – Dave W0OXB – 30-Jul
Operating Procedures/Protocols HF vs VHF – Joe KC0OIO & Brad VE3MXJ – 13-Aug
Hamspeak – the language of ham radio Greg K0GW 27-Aug
QRP/Portable Operations (SOTA/POTA) Brian NØBJE TBD
Choosing your first radio TBD TBD
Do’s & Don’ts when setting up your shack TBD TBD
MFJ-259/269 Analyzer Training TBD TBD
Setting up digital voice hotspots TBD TBD
Grounding & Bonding your station TBD TBD
Station Electrical Power considerations TBD TBD
Optional but useful shack accessories TBD TBD
Working DX TBD TB
DCW: Ways and trick to learning, setup paddles, keys, keyers TBD TBD

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Planning is underway for the “Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald” WØJH Special Event station scheduled for November 6-7-8, 2020. This year’s Special Event is being planned with the current pandemic in mind and the health and safety of those participating is at the forefront.

Although the possibility exists that a small group may be able to operate at the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park Trail Center, the logistics of doing so this year will be daunting. It appears to be more likely that we will run a “distributed” Special Event with individual participants operating from their home stations. Further discussion is planned for the August 6th Board meeting.

The good news is that the SARA’a Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald Special Event will be held for the 16th consecutive year, however the wheres and hows need to be planned out further. Watch for more on this in the coming weeks.

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Now onto this week’s activities!
1. SARA Top Band Ragchew
Nightly
Time: 20:00 Central
Frequency: 1.966 LSB +/- QRM
Alternates:
3.960 MHz +/- QRM (LSB)
21.316 MHz +/- QRM (USB)
50.166 MHz +/- QRM (USB)

2. SARA Monday Morning Ragchew July 27
Time: 08:15 Central (13:15 UTC)
Frequency: 3.856 LSB +/- QRM

3. The Lunch Room
Daily (Monday thru Friday)
Time: 12:00 Central
SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)

4. SARA Two Meter Tuesday (TMT) Round Robin Ragchew July 28
Time: 7:00 – ~8:00 pm (or until we finish!)
SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)
The Tuesday evening on-air round robin ragchew
An HF Afterglow follows on 160 meters at 1.966 MHz LSB +/- QRM

5. SARA Two Meter Wednesday Round Robin Ragchew July 29
Time: 9:00 PM
SARA Repeater 147.060+ MHz (DCS/DTCS 026 Normal)
The Wednesday evening SARA Ragchew on the SARA repeater

6. SARA Technical Topic Tuesday Thursday July 30
Time: 7:00 pm
The bi-weekly Tech Topic Thursday Webex live video featuring a discussion of VHF/UHF antennas facilitated by Dave WØOXB. This is the 2nd of our antenna discussions. The Webex session will be in the Stillwater ARA Webex room.

73!