Using the BARC Website

Finding Your Way Around

A few things about the site's navigation that are worth knowing:

  • The top menu has dropdowns. Hover over (or tap, on mobile) "Home," "Events & Programs," or "Resources" to see a list of sub-pages open underneath.
  • "Events & Programs" has a wider menu with two columns — "On the Air" activities (Repeaters, POTA, Digital Radio, Contesting, etc.) on one side, "Club Programs" (Field Day, Tech Night, Presentations, etc.) on the other.
  • Most content pages have their own left-hand sidebar with related pages grouped together. If you're looking for something related to the page you're on, check the sidebar first.
  • Breadcrumbs (the small "Home › Section › Page" trail at the top of most pages) show you where you are and let you jump back up a level.
  • On mobile, the top menu collapses into a hamburger icon (☰) in the upper right — tap it to open the full navigation.

Downloading Documents

Club Presentations

The Presentations & Documents page (under Events & Programs → Club Programs) has a searchable library of past club presentations, organized into categories like Field Day, Antennas, Digital Modes, and more.

  • Use the search box at the top to find something by title or presenter name.
  • Click any category heading to expand or collapse that group.
  • Each document has a PDF button — click it to open the file in a new tab.
Newsletter (Full Quieting)

The Newsletter page always shows the current issue front and center, plus the 5 most recent issues below it. Each issue has two options:

  • Read Online — opens the PDF in a new browser tab
  • Download — saves the PDF directly to your device

There's also a highlighted Article Index link in the sidebar — a spreadsheet listing every article that's ever run in Full Quieting.

Club Documents

Bylaws, officer info, and other official club documents live under Home → About BARC in the top menu, with their own sidebar to move between them.

Submitting a Presentation

Have an idea for a Tech Night topic or a monthly meeting presentation? On the Presentations & Documents page, look for "Submit a Topic" in the sidebar. Clicking it opens a short form right on the page — fill in your name, callsign, presentation title, and a bit about what you'd like to cover, and it goes straight to the Programs Coordinator.

Logging In & Passwords

🔧 Coming soon. A full member login area — with password management, an online member directory, and profile settings — is planned as the next phase of the website project. It isn't live yet. We'll announce it once it's ready.

For Officers: Creating a Post

If you've been given an account with posting access, here's how to publish something to the site:

  1. Go to bellbrookarc.org/wp/wp-admin and log in with your username and password.
  2. In the left-hand menu, click Posts → Add New.
  3. Give your post a title, then write your content in the main box below it.
  4. To add a photo, click the + button in the content area and choose Image.
  5. On the right-hand side, assign a Category and set a Featured Image.
  6. Click Publish when ready — or Preview first to check how it looks.
  7. To edit later, go to Posts → All Posts and click Edit.

Not sure if you have posting access, or need an account set up? Contact the webmaster below.

Something not working? Let us know — no detail is too small.
Doug Hayward, K8DRH — dhayward@systemspoint.com

Update! DMR Troubleshooting Night

Greetings,

Looking at the weather tonight, the freezing rain is starting in Bellbrook right before my meeting tonight.  While we’re not expecting much rain at all, any freezing rain is too much for us to be out and about when we could just as easily push it back a week.  So, I am cancelling the DMR Troubleshooting session tonight.

We’ll have a rescheduled DMR Troubleshooting session on Wednesday, 12 February at 6:30pm in the BARC Clubhouse. 

Sorry for the inconvenience.  I’ll send another e-mail with some links you can visit to get some information to look at between now and next week that might help you out.

Tim N8NQH and I (Ray N8VMX) will be hosting a “DMR Troubleshooting Night” on Wednesday, February 12th at 6:30pm.  I am not calling this a Tech Night because we are still having a February Tech Night later in the month (see Bob’s upcoming e-mail on that).

The purpose of this DMR Troubleshooting Night is for anyone who is having problems with their code plug, firmware, or hotspot.  We can edit your code plug and upload an improved version into your radio. 

Beforehand, Tim will be giving a DMR overview presentation (15-20 minutes or so) to acquaint us with the subject.  We may have some guests from Miamisburg who are in the midst of activating their own DMR repeater and need some familiarity with DMR.  After the presentation, we can dig into getting your code plugs in shape.

Do me a big favor.  If you’re coming, please let me know in advance what radio or hot spot you’re bringing.  I have a lot of familiarity with all AnyTone radios and Raspberry Pi hotspots, so please let me know if you are bringing something else.  If you have your own laptop with the CPS and code plug loaded, please bring it.  We will have power for everyone. 

Find your programming cable and bring it too.

I hope to see you there, thanks for your interest in DMR!

73,

Ray, N8VMX

Here’s some items to play with when you’re cooped up with your radio waiting for the weather to get better!

I found some helpful links to update your firmware from Bridgecom.  This applies to the Anytone radios.  The nice thing about these links is that all available versions of firmware are there on one page.  This comes in handy if a newer version is broken and you need to go back to an earlier version.

AT-D168: https://support.bridgecomsystems.com/anytone-168-cps-firmware-downloads

AT-D878UV-II/II-Plus: https://support.bridgecomsystems.com/anytone-878-v2-model-cps-firmware-downloads

AT-D578UV-Plus/UVIII-Plus: https://support.bridgecomsystems.com/anytone-578-v2-model-cps-firmware-downloads

If you have other types of Anytone radios, they can be found there too.

I suggest you download the firmware versions for your radio.  They are ZIP files that can be extracted in Windows into a folder.  I recommend you read the PDF files in the “A READ FIRST – Update Instructions” folder.  If you follow the instructions there to the letter, you’’ll have no problems.

There are many places to get daily Digital Contact List files.  I’ve settled in on the files at Powerwerx here: https://powerwerx.com/help/two-way-radios

It downloads a CSV file that you can Import into your Anytone CPS software.  After that, you can write it to your radio and save the CPS file to your computer.

Or: If you’re a subscriber to radioid.net, you can create a custom Digital Contact List.  The link is: https://www.radioid.net/

This comes in handy if you are limited in the amount ot memory your radio has to store the contacts.  It’s a little more complicated than just downloading a complete file elsewhere.

Good luck, this is what we’ll be doing next Wednesday Feb 12th at the DMR troubleshooting session.

73,

Ray