Working POTA - A beginner guide & video

 

SARC in the park!

We had an interesting workshop on Saturday, September 16, 2023.  'SARC in the Park' was a presentation by Dmitry VA7DVO for our members interested in POTA activations. You will find more about getting started in POTA at their website, and in our free digital magazine 'The Communicator'.

With an easy to build and inexpensive segmented 5-band wire dipole antenna, we made several of the 17m SSB POTA contacts shown in this video, including Switzerland, Italy and with a mobile station in Northern England.

The antenna plan is at: https://bit.ly/SARC23Sep-Oct on page 45.

Dmitry VA7DVO presenting POTA at the OTC

The on-site demonstration took place at Serpentine Fen Wildlife Refuge. 

Alex VA7PVC, Dmitry VA7DVO , and Leandro VE7LSI at Serpentine Fen

Here is the presentation on video and a look at the activation

https://youtu.be/RTAKs40DHjQ

Do you want to know what else is happening at SARC?

All our events are now available through our 'live' calendar at: https://ve7sar.net/.

Larry Bloom VE7LXB

Surrey Amateur Radio Communications

ve7rsc.blogspot.com
gota@ve7sar.net

A POTA Field Trip!

 

Learning the basics of Parks On The Air

Getting Started with POTA

Parks on the Air® (POTA) started in early 2017 when the ARRL’s National Parks on the Air special event ended. A group of volunteers wanted to continue the fun beyond the one-year event, and thus, POTA was born.General information about the program is available at parksontheair.com, so we highly recommend checking out the information there. You may also want to join the POTA Slack Channel or the POTA Facebook group, where you can easily interact with the POTA community online. POTA also maintains accounts on Twitter and Mastodon if you prefer to interact on those social media platforms.Once you’re ready to start, just remember that the golden rules of POTA are to have fun and keep it simple. We want to give you as much flexibility as possible, to have fun your way.Getting started with POTA can happen via one of two paths — as an “activator” who heads out into the parks or as a “hunter” who is trying to contact someone in a park. The easiest way to participate in POTA is as a hunter, so we’ll start there.

Dmitry VA7DVO at his POTA station

Dmitry VA7DVO and his son Alex VA7PVC have become involved in a big way since becoming licensed through our SARC course. They have activated several sites and Dmitry will present a POTA classroom overview followed by an on-site demonstration at Serpentine Fen Wildlife Refuge. Participants will have an opportunity to use the station to make one or more contacts.

Sign-up for the workshop will be though Larry VE7LXB. 

Do you want to know what else is happening at SARC?

All our events are now available through our 'live' calendar at: https://ve7sar.net/.

Larry Bloom VE7LXB

Surrey Amateur Radio Communications

ve7rsc.blogspot.com
gota@ve7sar.net

A Basic Soldering Workshop

 

Want to learn the basics of soldering?

By popular request we will have a Basic Soldering Workshop in October. Among the topics to be discussed will be:

• Basic soldering of wires and  electronic components to circuit boards..
• Soldering wires together.
• Soldering cable connectors onto coax, e.g. PL-259, SMA, BNC, etc.
• Tinning, and why it is used.
• Dealing with braided wires vs. solid wires.
• Types of solder to use. Rosin core or not.
• Soldering temperature considerations, e.g. to get the best soldering connections without damaging wires and components.
• Undoing / repairing a poor solder joint
• Different types of soldering irons and soldering tips.
• Methods to “hold” components together while soldering.
• Safety issues.
• Difficulties / issues soldering different types of materials, and how to overcome those issues

The latter part of the workshop will be devoted top making a LED Christmas Tree kit.

The session will be led by Dino VE7XN. Dino has offered a number of project workshops to SARC/SEPAR in the past. We expect this workshop to be over subscribed as we have a maximum of 12 seats, but additional sessions will be arranged as needed.

Larry Bloom VE7LXB

Surrey Amateur Radio Communications

ve7rsc.blogspot.com
gota@ve7sar.net