SARC hybrid meeting 2023-03-07

Hello SARC and Friends

This is a Hybrid / Zoom meeting which will be held at the Don Montgomery Centre Eglinton and Kennedy as well as online by Zoom. The Zoom details appear below.

Postcard Campaign:

There are ideas kicking about concerning the postcard campaign. We have the data counts from the database QRZ lookups. Thanks for your help, which is greatly appreciated. We have pricing for the postcard printing and the cost of postage. The data selection will be finalized and the next steps discussed.

Club Transceiver Project:

There are so many choices. For all practical purposes the DL2MAN (tr)uSDX is our target build. Single unit pricing for the full parts kit is 86.00 USD. The case is available for 19.90 USD with the 18650 battery case option for 24.00 USD.

The project details are available here: DL2MAN´s HAM Radio Page – home of the (tr)uSDX

One of the approved New DIY Tech reseller is here: trusdx (tr)usdx 5-band multimode qrp transceiver by DL2MAN and PE1NNZ – New DIY Tech

There are some through hole components to mount, coil winding and case installation tasks to complete the project. This project will be further discussed during the meeting as well as your thoughts on spreading the interest in a group buy.

Radio Events:

Some good news from Dave Blizzard VE3SVL indicates the Bluffers Park Yacht Club is likely to invite us back for field day this year. Thanks for making the inquiry Dave.

Let's talk about another Antenna Day, Field Day, Lighthouses on the Air, Parks on the Air etc. Some of these events are date stamped so we should consider a VE3WE calendar of this years activities.

I look forward to meeting you on Tuesday in person at the Montgomery centre or by Zoom.

73 Duncan VE3GNI

SARC is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: SARC Hybrid Zoom Meeting Mar 7th 2023 7:30 PM
Time: Mar 7, 2023 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88254119304?pwd=dnpPTmNTa2dPblZIQm5KMWtESDYxZz09

Meeting ID: 882 5411 9304
Passcode: 683448
One tap mobile
+13602095623,,88254119304#,,,,*683448# US
+13863475053,,88254119304#,,,,*683448# US

Dial by your location
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+1 386 347 5053 US
+1 507 473 4847 US
+1 564 217 2000 US
+1 646 931 3860 US
+1 669 444 9171 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 689 278 1000 US
+1 719 359 4580 US
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 253 205 0468 US
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 305 224 1968 US
+1 309 205 3325 US
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 780 666 0144 Canada
+1 204 272 7920 Canada
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+1 587 328 1099 Canada
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+1 647 558 0588 Canada
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Meeting ID: 882 5411 9304
Passcode: 683448
Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kddzUq8wxQ

SARC hybrid meeting 2023-02-14

Hello SARC and Friends

This is a Hybrid / Zoom meeting which will be held at the Don Montgomery Centre Eglinton and Kennedy as well as online by Zoom.

Feature presentation:

Adrian VA3NNA has successfully built has Arduino controller for is satellite station. He will give us a brief run down of the trials and tribulations he encountered especially related to internal noise issues. He has done a marvellous job on making a unique and useful design right from scratch. This will be of great interest to not only the home brewers but to any ham dealing with noise issues. His thoughts on the troubleshooting process should be very informative. Thanks Adrian.

Postcard Campaign:

There are ideas kicking about concerning the postcard campaign. We have the data counts from the database QRZ lookups. Thanks for your help, which is greatly appreciated. I will have some analysis of this data we can discuss and then decide who in the database gets to receive one of our beautiful postcards.

Club Transceiver Project:

There are so many choices. For all practical purposes the DL2MAN (tr)uSDX is our target build. This will be a fun club build and we have the talent to make this happen. Some more discussion is welcome during this meeting.

Club Web Page:

This is an ongoing project and we can talk further on its development.

Outings:

Let's continue our discussion on various club outings so we can plan our year. Some suggestions were the Ontario Science Centre, The National Air Force Museum of Canada - Trenton, HMCS OJIBWA - Port Burwell and the Hammond Museum of Radio - Guelph etc.

Radio Events:

From our last discussion there are very few ham local ham fests going on this year. It is unfortunate that some of the bigger ones are not being hosted this year.
Let's talk about another Antenna Day, Field Day, Lighthouses on the Air, Parks on the Air etc. Some of these events are date stamped so we should consider a VE3WE calendar of this years activities.

I look forward to meeting you on Tuesday in person at the Montgomery centre or by Zoom.

73 Duncan VE3GNI

SARC Zoom meeting 2023-01-24

Hello SARC and Friends

This is going to be a very busy meeting with lots of ground to cover. Here are the main topics.

Postcard Campaign:

There are ideas kicking about concerning the postcard campaign. Bert VE3NR had a terrific idea on how to filter the call sign database. This will require some effort on our part but we should be able to get it done with your assistance. The database will be broken into 7 chunks and with the help of 7 members we can lookup the call sign in QRZ to obtain the number of lookups the call sign has garnered. The 7 chunks prevent the max number of inquires per day from being activated and to share the workload. The data chunks will be sent on Tuesday after the meeting to those interested in assisting. From this data we can target the higher number of lookups presumably the active local HAMS.

Club Transceiver Project:

There are so many choices. We should look at the various pros and cons for each kit and also keep in mind the budget constraints. The UBITx unit is getting up in price at over 200.00 US for the full kit. However it has a lot of **** as Paul expressed. Let's discuss these kits in more detail during this meeting. If you have some other ideas please bring them forward. This will be a fun club build and we have the talent to make this happen. Please note this is also open to other clubs who may be interested in this project.

Club Web Page:

Please bring forward any ideas on what we can do to bring the SARC site up to date and also consider whether we should consider another platform for the site. This is a long term project and will require considerable time and effort to accomplish. Your action plan ideas to get this done are appreciated.

Outings:

Let's continue our discussion on various club outings so we can plan our year. Some suggestions were the Ontario Science Centre, The National Air Force Museum of Canada - Trenton, HMCS OJIBWA - Port Burwell and the Hammond Museum of Radio - Guelph etc.

Radio Events:

Along with our club outings we also have club radio activities coming up this year including ham fests. Let's talk about another Antenna Day, Field Day and perhaps some other activities. A few ideas come to mind such as Lighthouses on the Air, Parks on the Air etc. Some of these events are date stamped so we should consider a VE3WE calendar of this years activities. Please pick your best pose for the front cover!

This is going to be a busy and focused meeting so we can get through all these items.

I look forward to meeting you on Tuesday.

73 Duncan VE3GNI

SARC Hybrid Club meeting Tuesday Jan 10 2023 7:30 PM

Hello SARC and Friends

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you enjoyed the holidays with family and friends. Wow, now it is time to get used to writing 2023. Last year had too many 2's. The terrible 2's.

Well here we are in a new year and hopefully its better than the last. Judging from the collapse of my email client due to a Windows and an Thunderbird upgrade that didn't play well together it hasn't started off as well as hoped. Your suggestions for a new email client would be appreciated. I think I am done with Thunderbird. Fortunately I was able to piece things together with the backups.

Anyway here we go. It was very gratifying to see some exciting email traffic courtesy of Paul VE3GPB/VE3KU and Adrian VA3NNA about a QRP transceiver build. There seems to be quite a lot of interest in this and as suggested this would make a great group build. We can do a joint build over several Tuesdays at the Montgomery Centre were we can learn from each other on the assembly and testing of this very cool radio. There are may options concerning the kits to purchase such as SM device populated boards etc. Let's discuss this on Tuesday during the club Hybrid meeting. I am sure some of our Toronto club members may also be interested.

We also should put together the task list for the postcard mailer and get that underway. Adrian has done a terrific job on the graphics which we can review on Tuesday.

Please bring your ideas on targets to hit with the call sign data we have collected. The first step is to send out 100 cards as a test to see how many responses we obtain.

We also have the year to plan for group outings, events and social gatherings. So please bring along your ideas.

See you on Tuesday (hopefully in person)

73 Duncan VE3GNI

Here are the Zoom details.

Topic: SARC Hybrid Club Meeting
Time: Jan 10, 2023 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87134291863?pwd=TzRtd2ZZeGNyYkkxU0o5ZXcwOURQUT09

Meeting ID: 871 3429 1863
Passcode: 341762
One tap mobile
+16892781000,,87134291863#,,,,*341762# US
+17193594580,,87134291863#,,,,*341762# US

Dial by your location
+1 689 278 1000 US
+1 719 359 4580 US
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 253 205 0468 US
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 305 224 1968 US
+1 309 205 3325 US
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 360 209 5623 US
+1 386 347 5053 US
+1 507 473 4847 US
+1 564 217 2000 US
+1 646 931 3860 US
+1 669 444 9171 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 647 558 0588 Canada
+1 778 907 2071 Canada
+1 780 666 0144 Canada
+1 204 272 7920 Canada
+1 438 809 7799 Canada
+1 587 328 1099 Canada
+1 647 374 4685 Canada
Meeting ID: 871 3429 1863
Passcode: 341762
Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kcKVh0Wo13

SARC Zoom meeting 2022-12-20

Hello SARC

Our final Zoom meeting of the year happens tomorrow night Dec 20 at 8 PM.

It has been a very busy time trying to tie up all the loose ends before the end of the year, so I apologize for this late notice.

The meeting after this one will be on Jan 10, 2023 7:30 PM and will be a hybrid Zoom meeting held at the Don Montgomery Centre.

Our previous meeting was very productive and there were many great ideas put forward.

I will list them below.

  •  Please come up with some practical to do events and presentations for the upcoming year.
  • Perhaps we could have a short course (training session) or presentation on how to do presentations. This would encourage others to try making presentations to our group.
  • Another idea is to record a YouTube channel with interesting content about the club and activities.
  • Pass our club information onto community organizations who may be interested in presenting the club to their members or perhaps use our radio communication skills.
  • Make ourselves known by attending other events that may spark some interest in what we do as a club. Some suggested events like Maker fests - Library events - Car clubs - Railroad clubs etc.
  • Set up a table or attend as a group to other ham fests in the area.
  • Investigate other events such as star parties at the Dunlap observatory where a knowledge of electronics may be common ground for inter group interactions.
  • Make our presence known on ONTARS either through a notice on there web page of upcoming meetings and SARC events or through monetary support of ONTARS
  • Volunteer to be a controller on ONTARS to enjoy some on air time and promote the club.
  • It was decided to make a SARC postcard to mail out to a select 100 known HAM license holders in the the Scarborough area. Adrian is working up a design for the postcard. We will then need to address these cards, purchase the postage and see the response. Apparently COSTCO offers a discount on postage stamps to help reduce our investment in this idea.
  • Nick Blacklock suggested we offer an Elmer program to assist others to become HAMS.
  • Publish some of your projects that may be of interest or require the assistance of other SARC members so we are more supportive of each other and enjoy shared activities.
  • Investigate the redesign of our web page that is currently residing on a server whose operating system is outdated and eventually need to be updated.
  • Cross silo our interests in segments of the hobby. Just because you only operate contests or chase DX does not mean you couldn't find some time to enjoy satellite, CW, SSTV, Digital etc. We have great knowledge in the club to share with others.

As you can see there are a lot of ideas here not to mention special SARC outings and trips.

Please attend tomorrow night by Zoom so we can further develop our club and activities.

Thank you everyone for you support.

73 Duncan

SARC hybrid meeting 2022-12-06

Hello SARC

This Tuesday at 7:30 PM we will have another Hybrid meeting at the Don Montgomery Centre. You may attend in person or by following the Zoom meeting details shown at the end of this message.

...

Please put on your thinking caps and bring forward any suggestions that we can implement to make things better for our club and the amateur radio community.

Here is a link to the other SARC (Surrey Amateur Radio Communications) in British Columbia.

http://ve7sar.net/

Check out their newsletter The Communicator for a peak of a well done piece of work with over 100 plus pages.
At one time the past Scarborough Amateur Radio Club could have put together a similar publication and web page with over 300 plus members and appropriate organization.
- Alas that is not what we are today -

So please join in on Tuesday and let's put together some ideas on where we go from here.

See you on Tuesday.

73 Duncan...

SARC hybrid meeting 2022-11-08

Hello SARC and Friends

***Tuesday November 8th at 7:30 PM***

Well we are finally here at at the point where we can meet face to face. It has been along time and I am looking forward to seeing everyone.

We have our old room in the Don Montgomery Centre (2467 Eglinton Avenue East, Scarborough) South side of Eglinton Ave. between Kennedy and Midland. Use the east side of the bridge off ramps to gain access to the centre.

The room is mostly as we remember it however the large screen TV is gone. I will be testing the network switch to see if it is connecting to the internet.

Hopefully it is so we can have more bandwidth available for the meeting. If not a cellular link may be necessary.

It is unfortunate Paul VE3GPB/VE3KU can't make it in person, however the link below for the Zoom remote will get he and others connected.

See you then!

73 Duncan...

Here are the Zoom details.

Topic: SARC's Hybrid Zoom Meeting
Time: Nov 8, 2022 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88444239021?pwd=VEsrM01TQUNzTCtyZ1ppV21Ob2hmdz09

Meeting ID: 884 4423 9021
Passcode: 639815
One tap mobile
+16469313860,,88444239021#,,,,*639815# US
+16694449171,,88444239021#,,,,*639815# US

Dial by your location
+1 646 931 3860 US
+1 669 444 9171 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 689 278 1000 US
+1 719 359 4580 US
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 309 205 3325 US
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 360 209 5623 US
+1 386 347 5053 US
+1 507 473 4847 US
+1 564 217 2000 US
+1 587 328 1099 Canada
+1 647 374 4685 Canada
+1 647 558 0588 Canada
+1 778 907 2071 Canada
+1 780 666 0144 Canada
+1 204 272 7920 Canada
+1 438 809 7799 Canada
Meeting ID: 884 4423 9021
Passcode: 639815
Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kdmimgTX8u

SARC hybrid meeting 2022-11-08

This will be our first in-person meeting since 2020. We are back in the Seniors' Lounge on the upper level.

Don Montgomery Recreation Centre is adjacent to Kennedy TTC/GO station. If you are driving, follow signs for 2460-2507 Eglinton Avenue East / Town Haven Place at the east end of the bridge over the RT/GO lines, just west of Midland Avenue.

Parking is available near the building. The closest accessible entrance to the meeting room is on the upper level on the north-east corner of the building. If you park at the rear of the building, you can take the elevator or stairs to the upper level.

SARC Zoom meeting 2022-11-02

Hello SARC

Great news. We will be meeting in person at the Don Montgomery Centre next Tuesday at 7:30 PM in the Seniors Room.

So please come out and join the fun of seeing each other and catching up on what has been going on since our last club live meeting.

There are several items to discuss concerning the club maintenance such as elections and membership for the following live meeting.

By the way there is a YouTube review channel called Project Farm. The channel test all sorts of items from 18650 batteries, crescent wrenches. rust remover etc.

Here is the link.

Project Farm - YouTube

73 Duncan...