July Education and Tech Night Updates

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Experience the World of HF in a relaxed setting

Starting with the July BARC general meeting at 5:30 PM, we’ll be setting aside time for members to get familiar with HF and get on the air using the club radios.

We’ll have General and Extra class operators available so members can operate the BARC Icom 7300 radios and make HF contacts with one of our control operators present.

This is a great opportunity for:

  • Brand-new hams who want to learn more about HF
  • Members with little HF experience, or those who are a bit rusty
  • Anyone who isn’t yet comfortable operating a radio on their own
  • General or Extra class members who know the Icom 7300 and would like to help others learn

One request: please keep side conversations to a minimum while someone is learning or operating so everyone can get the most out of the experience.

Tech Night

July: MeshCore

Several members have asked for a repeat session and a chance to build on what we learned last time, so July’s Tech Night will focus on MeshCore.

I’m hoping to have members from the OKI Mesh Alliance and Dayton Mesh join us as well. Many of them are hams and have been actively working with these systems.

We’ll cover:

  • Node and repeater deployments and what we’ve learned so far
  • A better understanding of which radios make sense for different uses — there isn’t one single answer for everyone
  • A walkthrough of building a simple repeater or node
    (More details to come — I’m still working out how hands-on we can make this one.)

August: HF Amateur Radio — From Beginner to Expert

In August, we’ll shift back to HF and talk about fun things to learn and do in amateur radio, whether you’re just getting started or have been on HF for years.

September: Hands-On Breadboard Project

Tom McClory, KE8FWZ, is putting together a hands-on breadboard project for the September meeting. The current plan is a Kevin Laughlin 40-meter CW build.

Current Scope: The project will be broken into three stages:

  1. Colpitts oscillator
  2. Power amplifier
  3. Low-pass filter

We’ll start on a breadboard, so no soldering will be required.

We’ll send out a bill of materials (BOM) ahead of time, and if some members already have extra components on hand, we may be able to pool parts and help keep costs down for everyone.

Thanks, and I hope to see you there.

Bob French, AC8ZU
BARC Education and Tech Night Coordinator